Can we Solve for Uncertainty?

The world is an uncertain place. That may be an understatement. Many times, we find ourselves grasping for control, only to discover that the tighter we grip, the more pain we cause ourselves and those around us.

So how do we live with the discomfort of uncertainty?

A few years ago, I was working with a therapist around my own uncertainty. I was confused about the direction of my life, distraught over the sudden loss of an important relationship, grieving a death, and feeling as though I couldn’t see five feet in front of me. I hated this feeling and tried to work with my therapist to solve my discombobulated state. I’ll never forget how I felt when she asked, “What if the answer is ‘do nothing’?” I was shocked. Do nothing? All my life I had been taught that if something feels bad, wrong, or confusing, you figure it out—you fix it. I had never considered that the answer could be… nothing.

Inaction can appear painfully stagnant on the surface, yet we often forget the inner workings of our bodies, minds, and souls, which are constantly shifting—making room for new versions of ourselves, fostering ideas that may eventually come to fruition (or not), and resting so we can return revitalized and ready for something new. A cocoon state isn’t well respected among human beings, perhaps because we don’t emerge with visible wings.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes of this kind of mindful awareness of emotion:

“So you must not be frightened … if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you?”

So I waited. And waited some more. And slowly, things shifted. I discovered a new direction. I gained clarity about the importance of a previous relationship and realized it may no longer have the meaning I once believed it did. My grief became something I could carry—it felt lighter.

There is no shame in being stuck. Messages promising to undo stuckness are everywhere, and an entire self-help industry has been built around it. Sometimes these approaches are effective; sometimes they are not. What matters most is learning to hold stuckness as an impermanent state, like any other. We can sit with it and ask what it wants us to know. Often, we feel paralyzed because something heavy needs to be brought to the surface—to be observed, witnessed, and given space. Only then can we begin to release the burden of stuckness.