When you don’t know where to go, it’s okay to pause.
Enjoy the blank page.
Practice builds competence, and competence sustains the practice, reinforcing the behaviors developed through it. The consistent repetition of a set of behaviors then generates a new way of being, an identity imprint in our mind. Each way of being has its corresponding view of the self in relation to the world, offering possibilities and limitations in our interactions. The point is not in perfecting any way of being, rather, being aware of how we move in the world and developing the range and flexibility to shift and show up in various ways that are alive to each encounter.
Without being, there’s no doing.
New ways of being can bring about expansion when they bid us to develop new competence and qualities till we fall asleep, and forget the person that we are. Without the person, there is no way of being. In my case, without the existence of Rosslyn, there is no coach nor writer nor anything more.
To me, this was the possibility and limitation of developmental coaching. Focusing on the person (“who”) instead of the issue, we invite a deepening into a new way of being in the world through the adoption of new practices. This approach rests on the principle that we are what we practice. The developmental journey continues with the intention of inviting more openness and inclusion of who we are to show up in the world. An elegant and practical means to drawing out the human potential in its ever-changing possibilities. The vision and promise of this work is to develop a self-aware and self-generative human on their path toward long-term excellence.
Despite the new possibility opening more doors and erecting new forms, it is still constructed atop deep old structures. These are not mere limiting beliefs but patterns lodged in our cells—it is the story that created our personality. Without unearthing this story, we can author many others only to find that in the deep night, the restlessness of our soul persists.
Nothing is wrong with you.
Coaching offers bountiful benefits. Unfortunately, within a capitalistic world, to quickly generate demand for any good inevitably capitalizes on our needs and fears. The unfoldment—the natural movement toward flourishing—gets overtaken by a drive toward healing and transformation. This phenomenon continues to perpetuate in people: there is something wrong with me. Fix me, heal me, make me better, perfect me…the tireless narration of our personality’s story steers us from the unconscious. We cannot solve the problem with the very thing that caused it.
One of the questions that recently occupied me is "What now?” When I am lost, when I don’t have any clue what’s best to do, what then? Do I stop all doing to prevent further missteps; do I do the next possible thing? My mind searches for an answer to latch on and operate from. In this pattern, I am still trying to determine an action plan based on calculated outcomes.
Everyone is lost, if we are to be truthful.
We each attempt to find an answer to our existence. We may have an idea of where we are heading but that relies on an assumption that we know what is to come. But do we, truly? To say that the sun will rise tomorrow just because it has risen every day for a thousand centuries is not truth. It’s induction. The unknown may be more real than the known. What I discovered lately was that the only answer I could utter with complete certainty was “I don’t know.” My ignorance is solid ground to stand on too.
It is not easy though. I feel lost almost every waking moment. When I am present with myself, I experience lostness, and I have a habit of making that a problem. As a result, I attempt to either detach or overdo to get out of that lostness. Then, I get a tad bit better at being with this lostness and see myself with more clarity. Being in the moment can open up to an experience of stillness and silence; quietness in my soul can show up with a blankness in my mind, empty of information or images from past or future. The lostness is an experience from the perceived loss of bearing. The mind that is used to doing now has nothing to compute or take its direction from. What now? I can run around like a headless chicken or freeze like a squirrel, both are responses from the survival brain perceiving the state of lostness to be dangerous.
For me, this is where spirituality supports my development. The inner work (in terms of self-inquiry, rewiring the nervous system, etc.) develops my capacity until I reach the precipice where I can confront the lostness and examine the truth of this phenomenon. Spirituality brings about the “what” dimension to the “who.” The latter is the identity of the agent; the former, the nature. What is the nature of the agent that produces such a phenomenon of lostness?
The struggle needs to happen before the surrender. This enactment of will is what delivers the butterfly.
The story that created our personality is often one of not belonging and not being safe, hence, the need to show up in a particular way to attain belonging and safety. Sure, we may reauthor a new story, and I also wonder if we can find the shelf or library where the story of our personality belongs. With more humility, I sincerely contemplate resting into the ground of being. No longer a goal or wish to surrender, but a maybe. Can I release the need to author my story, much less doctor it to avoid my experience of lostness? The true story currently reads, “I don’t know what I am doing with my life. It is beyond me. And rightfully so.”
Futility unfolds into humility.
If you connect with a sense of larger or divine presence, this may be the step in which we pray. Even our prayers evolve with who we are. Looking back at some of mine—show me the way…show me the next step…reveal yourself through me—a new one arises as I sit in this not-knowing-where-to-go…
Let it be so.
How will you pray?
🍯 The Dandelion Notes ~ Writer’s Fund
Appreciate this note? Leave a tip or a comment.
You can send your support via PayPal, Venmo @RosslynChay.
New to The Dandelion Notes?
Hello & welcome — I am glad you are here. I am Rosslyn Chay, facilitator, healer, poet—each of these, a very human attempt to mend our fractured relationship with our nature and free the truth of who we are from the weight of our history. The Dandelion Notes are field notes on my attempts.