Is there a crazy person running your life?

Jan 29

Did you know that you never ever have to Figure It Out?

Like anything, ever? (Because guess who is always in charge when that belief holds sway…. A nutcase. Every. Single. Time.) A sweet and well meaning nutcase, but a nutcase just the same. Just listen to them talk! Stay with me, I’ll explain.

We all have Inner Children. Did you also know we all have an Inner Off-Their-Rocker-Life-Planner who crazily mumbles and screeches, clipboard clutched in hand every time we are on the precipice of a major life transformation?

‘I have to figure it out, I have to figure it out, I have to figure it out!!’

I have to figure out how to make money.
I have to figure out how to live alone.
I have to figure out how to tell my parents I’m leaving this dream job.
I have to figure out how to raise my kids as a single parent.
I have to figure out how to clean the dang gutters all by myself.
I have to figure out my soul’s purpose here on earth.

Notice that it totally passes over the head of the Inner Off-Their-Rocker-Life-Planner (Inner OTRLP) that their assertion “I have to figure it out’ is predicated on the unconscious belief that ‘I have to figure out where I am going to land before I leap.’

Our sweet little Inner OTRLP is SURE that they have to figure out who they are going to be after the big change, before they even go through the transition.

When you think about it, there is just no logic in that position.

‘I have to figure it out’ leaves zero space for real transformation to take place because it tries to jump right over the decomposition of the old stage and hurry on to the new growth stage. (The Inner OTRLP is mortally afraid of yea old decomposition phase, and justifiably so, it is the place where these parts of us die so that the real you can step forward and take the reins. More on that soon.)

Here’s what this little on is really saying (I’m good at translating for the Inner OTRLP)

I have to figure out how I’m going to make $ before I leave this horrible soul crushing job.
I even move out from this dried up out dated relationship.beforeI have to figure out how to live alone
I’ve even let myself be alone with my beautiful self for one night.beforeI have to figure out how to be sexy
I even know what it’s like to not have that constant bandwidth eater of a partner constantly zapping my inner stability.beforeI have to figure out how to raise my kids as a single parent
I get the heck out of this business run by total nincompoops.before I have to figure out my soul's purpose on this gorgeous earth

Our Inner OTRLP so wants to know exactly what they are going to get if they give up this current reality and go for something new and better. They want insurance that things will be ok.

The problem is, trying to know before you know completely truncates the transformative process, and little bits of the old get all mucked up with the new, and in the end you’ll find yourself right back in a job, relationship, or life that looks suspiciously like the one you tried to leave, with your Inner OTRLP still securely in charge, standing at the helm with a whistle around their neck, trusty clipboard in hand, and a crazed gleam in their eye. (A gleam that, if you care to look a little closer, masks a sweet little one that is utterly exhausted, a little one that has never had a real adult around to do the big people work.)

So what to do? Well, the answer is something that is so taboo in our culture as to not even really have a name. What I’m about to tell you goes against everything you were conditioned to do since you could string 3 words together in conversation. (Modern Western culture is big on trusting the Inner OTRLP and a mere babe in the woods with regards to what I’m about to say.)

You need to relax in the in-between. You need to purposefully relax in the Truth, which is that You Don’t Know what is next.
Right?

Doesn’t that suddenly sound right?

Aren’t we always trying to know what is True? Isn’t this a big goal of us humans? Well, what if what is actually True is that you don’t know? If that is what is actually True, why try to push it to be something other than it is?

What if you were to take what is being given to you right now, which is that you don’t know, and instead of hurrying the process along (cue our friendly Inner OTRLP) you let yourself simply relax into the experience of Not-Knowing?

Do you see how this is revolutionary? Do you see how getting easy in what you don’t know is totally counter-culture? We live in a culture where we are taught to know know know at all costs, and it is even seen as weakness and shameful to not know things, especially the big things.

The irony is that it is especially imperative with the big things, provided a real and abiding soul change is what you are looking for, to rest in the unknown for as long as it takes.
Eventually, by resting easy in the unknown, a true and unadulterated Knowing will arise. A solution or path not thought up by your Inner OTRLP will present itself to you.

There is quite a knack in knowing how to rest in the unknown, especially in how to rest EASY in the unknown. I lead clients through this all the time, and every single one of them comes to the same delicious place.

When you rest easy in the unknown, just rest easy in the Truth that you don’t know, a vast shimmering field of infinite potentiality opens up all around you, stretching out to the stars.
It is from this vast field of shimmering potentiality that all solutions, ideas, and paths are birthed forth, fully formed and gorgeous, devoid of fear and old thinking.

Are you drawn to this place of deepest creativity and rejuvenation, frightening though it may be?