Wellness
How to Deal With Uncertainty
The world is constantly changing and our mind takes us away from the present moment. Learn how to deal with uncertainty, accept change in your life and live in the present.
We live in a VUCA world. Volatile. Uncertain. Complex. Ambiguous.
The world is not getting any less complicated. The only certain thing is that our lives are filled with uncertainty. We long for some sort of “normal” to return, but there is never going to be any certainty around the corner over there.
Change is a central feature of life. It can be exciting, frightening, exhausting, or relieving. It can spark sadness or happiness, resistance or grasping. While we may intellectually understand the fact of impermanence, we may not really believe it.
In the Hindu epic, The Mahabarata, Yudhisthira is asked: “What is the greatest wonder in this world? “He replies, “People see death all around them but do not believe they’re going to die themselves. This is the greatest wonder.”
Whether we call it impermanence, change, or uncertainty, it is something we all grapple with, and it is often equated with suffering. Yet there is an old Buddhist saying that “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
The Buddha said that suffering arises when we cling and, when clinging disappears, impermanence no longer gives rise to suffering. The solution then is to end clinging and find ease and grace in a world of change. Sounds nice, but how?
Embrace uncertainty in your life
There are a few ways to cultivate such a way of being in this world. But in a nutshell, you must make friends with uncertainty.
You must understand it deeply in the mind and the body. You must see it and cultivate it through practicing, the moment-to-moment, arising and passing of every perceivable experience. In this way, you not only confront life’s uncertainty and impermanence profoundly, but you learn to embrace it.
Everything changes. Simply stated, anything can happen at any time. The implications of that are enormous. Ultimately, we fear the unknown.
In fact, I can think of several times that I have stayed in a situation of physical or emotional pain just because, at least, it was familiar. Who knew what it would be like if I actually did something about it?
Uncertainty is so vexing that often we are willing to accept a worse outcome in exchange for uncertainty’s removal. Uncertainty is simply the brain trying to choose a course of action. It is doing its best to predict and set the rules based on past experience.
The gap between what it thinks might happen and what does happen creates the friction of uncertainty. Plus, we are wired to look for the worst-case scenario.
Prioritize self care in the face of uncertainty
From an evolutionary standpoint, we humans have been blessed with a negativity bias. In order to survive, we have had to watch out for any threats.The more uncertainty there is, coupled with suppositions of doom and gloom, the more likely we are to end up with uncertainty’s close relative — anxiety.
Anxiety is an emotional response to a perceived threat that is not actually there in front of you. Since uncertainty is about not knowing what is going to happen, our bodies react to hypothetical threats as if they are right there — heart racing, fast breathing, sweaty palms, blood redirected to major muscles.
Prioritizing wellness behaviors that allow our anxious bodies and minds to return to baseline is vital. This means meditating to focus your attention and understand the workings of the mind, exercising, deep breathing, doing yoga, sleeping and eating well, and nurturing social connections.Social connection is key to making us feel safe.
Taking good care of the body helps to calm us and handle the anxious feelings in the body. However, it is the mind that is searching for certainty.
To get to the root of the problem, we must cultivate a mind that has the patience to accept that everything changes.
Relax into change and uncertainty
Impermanence is constant change, and we rely on it. That nasty cold you have will not last forever. The boring lecture will end. Presidents will come and go. In fact, it is a gift that places us in the here and now. Knowing that things will end, pushes us to not waste a moment.
The Roman poet Virgil states it perfectly, “Death twitches in my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.” You must accept that change is not a mistake. When you do that, you can start to relax with change and not hold onto the idea that things should be a certain way.
Impermanence is the antidote to regret. You let go a little bit more easily. The heart softens. You become a bit kinder and more compassionate when you accept that nothing stays the same.
Kafka summarizes it beautifully, “Everything you love is likely to be lost, but, in the end, love will return in a different way.” Can you soften around the challenge you are facing? Can you learn to relax with change?
Meditate to focus your attention on the present moment
Loss hurts. With practice, you can learn to be intimate and skilful and loving in the face of change and uncertainty. You might learn that you are clinging to something that is not worth holding onto. In fact, when you cling too tightly, you end up with rope burns.
Meditation is your superpower. The power of mindfulness meditation, when practiced regularly, is that it trains attention. Mindfulness is paying attention to what is happening in the present moment in the mind, body, and external environment.
However, it is done with an attitude of kindness and curiosity. More importantly, you do it with a willingness to be with what is. It is your attention that gets hijacked by the VUCA world.
When you feel stressed and overwhelmed by uncertain conditions, you are spending your limited attentional resources on regulating your instincts and behaviors with little leftover. Your attention can become your armor against catastrophizing and rumination. Your brain perceives ambiguity as a threat and tries to protect you, by diminishing your ability to focus on anything other than creating certainty.
Instead, being in the moment and embracing the moment can distract you from worry and from what may or may not happen. The practice teaches you to let go of what you have no control over. It trains you to be with what is, whether pleasant or unpleasant.
Notice when you are “what iffing”
As you develop a practice of mindfulness meditation, you notice the habits of the mind. You notice how your mind searches for certainty to be prepared for the future. I call this “What if mind.”
In fact, I find it useful to label it. This is “What if mind.” What if this happens, or what if that happens? If this happens, then this. The mind starts to fabricate a world so much that you might start to believe it and live in it. You may find yourself living in a future and not living right now. Then you end up in anxiety.
On the other hand, you cannot discount the fact that “What if mind” can be helpful. For example, it can help us make wise decisions, like wearing a seatbelt. However, “what if mind” should be a tool, not where you subsist.
Those living quarters are fearful, cramped and anxious. Wouldn’t you rather live in presence and love?
See that everything that arises will pass away
With practice, you learn to restore attention so you can regulate your emotions and relate to them differently, by allowing them to arise and then pass away. The practice trains you to keep your attention in the present moment.
Also, it increases your ability to maintain an awareness of what is happening in the mind, so you do not get hooked by “If only mind.” As the Buddha said,
“Whatever one thinks and ponders upon. Thus, the mind inclines.”
Moreover, as you practice mindfulness, you start to see the ephemeral nature of your experience. It is easy to see it, as you look back a year, an hour or moments ago. But we tend to lean into the next thing. This leaning into other possibilities is what takes you into uncertain territory and away from the present.
As you sit and bring your attention to the direct experience of the breath, you notice each one is different from the one that came before it. The same is true for sensations in the body, thoughts, emotions, sounds, and all things in life.
Everything is changing continuously and in perfect harmony. Over time, you can see it, relax into it, and give it your permission to keep moving. In effect, you embrace it.
Befriend uncertainty with a daily practice
In the end, you must have a daily practice. It does not need to be hours, but 10–15 minutes a few times a week will make a difference. It is best to develop the practice while the system is calm so that when the next crisis hits and something will hit, you are ready. As they say, “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.”
With practice, your attention is strengthened, and you will develop skilful ways of relating to a world filled with change and uncertainty. Never underestimate the importance of noticing moment to moment that everything is arising and passing away.
In the end, this reorients us to care and loving-kindness rather than clinging and holding on. It lets us befriend uncertainty and reorients us to let things be just as they are. We learn to live life on the fault lines.
“If you let go a little, you’ll have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you’ll have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you’ll have complete peace. “
— Ajahn Chah
