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Dear Subscriber First Name, In most of the interviews I did during the height of the Covid pandemic - when Wake Up Grateful was first published - I was asked about how to navigate periods of great uncertainty, something I learned quite a bit about during my long journey with stage IV cancer. I was moved to reply: Life is always uncertain. It always has been. We may be more adapted to it than we know, and particular times in our individual and collective lives will more vividly remind us of it, but we are always living with uncertainty. It’s what makes life both so breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly hard. And life will always be uncertain. In essence, it’s life’s “job.” Our job is learning how to be with life, staying awake and available through it all. That said, it feels like life is doling out heaping doses of uncertainty these days that have tested my capacities. This is a trying time - a time of trying hard, too. Perhaps you feel similarly. What I am (re)learning these days is that when my nervous system gets over-activated, I ping-pong around feeling reactive, and it robs me of my bandwidth to actually act. I cannot help but shake my head at how busy I can feel just managing my nervousness about the future. I realize I’ve been trying way too hard at coping, without doing anything. And then I remember to stop in my tracks. Slow down. Pause. Breathe. Stopping gives me the ability to be present so that I can have perspective. Perspective allows me to behold and hold the bigger picture. Then, I can remember the great unknowns that have accompanied people since the beginning of time, and always will. I remember that it is only what we don’t yet know that allows for creativity. Only uncertainty allows for possibility. And it’s only a sense of possibility that invigorates us and delivers the bandwidth to see what might be ours to do. The good news is that every moment is an opportunity for us to pause. To take a breath. To find perspective, open to a greater sense of what is possible and then to move forward - remembering what matters, tending the things we are most grateful for and doing the heartfelt things that make a difference. The moment-to-moment practice of living gratefully: Stop.Look.Go. You will see below that I have dedicated this museletter to sharing resources that specifically offer support for navigating uncertainty. Please avail yourself of these gifts, and share them if you are so moved. May they be of service to you, to love, to peace, to hope... From my grateful heart to yours -
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