Tough spot, painful circumstance, official dilemma. A total jam.
“I just don’t know what to do.”
Hmmm. Then what? If you just don’t know what to do, then what are you going to do? Probably nothing. If you declare you don’t know then you won’t…know. You’ll just sway back ‘n forth in the lull of your status quo unknowingness. No need to change because you just don’t want to know. Knowing would change things. Knowing would require you to change things.
If you said to your Commanding Officer, “I just don’t know what to do,” you’d be scrubbing the latrine in short order.
If you told your heart-broken significant other, “I just don’t know what to do,” it wouldn’t exactly foster the mojo or the trust. If the Opportunity Fairy fluttered your way and you told her, “I just don’t know,” then she’d be off to her next assignment. She might stick around if you showed some initiative, or asked for a night to sleep on it — anything to show your sincere interest in revelation.
RE-FRAME: Tough spot, painful circumstance….bloody seemingly impossible, grotesquely challenging, borderline hellish: I’ll figure this out.
How’s that feel? Better, doesn’t it? More…possible. More upright. Wings ready to spread. Ears piqued to hear universal cues. Instincts at the helm. Confusion is a marvelous, magical place.
Suspending certainty is an act of enlightenment. @DanielleLaPorte (Click to Tweet!)
And “Security,” as Helen Keller put it, “is mostly superstition.” I’m not talking about being certain {impossible} or being arrogantly presumptuous of what’s coming next. I’m talking about responding creatively to life. “I just don’t know,” is often a cover up for “I don’t want to grow.”
“I’ll figure it out,” may mean waiting quietly, even for a long time, on the will of heaven. It may mean turning over every single stone without rest until you find the answer or the escape hatch. It may mean praying til you sweat, surveying the experts, or forty days in the desert.
But one thing’s for sure, if you declare that you’ll figure it out, the possibilities are endless.
Danielle LaPorte is the outspoken creator of The Desire Map, author of The Fire Starter Sessions (Random House/Crown), and co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan. An inspirational speaker, former think tank exec and business strategist, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over a million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality”, and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes.
You can also find her on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter @daniellelaporte.
Image courtesy of ionea.
