The Still Space Podcast Episode #28 Accepting Uncertainty and Finally Finding Love
Executive Coach Mary Lee Gannon
Get her free Career Plan at www.MaryLeeGannon.com
This journey of life mastery wouldn’t be complete without examining the suffering uncertainty brings us. We try to transcend the turbulence of not knowing what the future holds and it only make us feel worse. Turning away from the pain of uncertainty makes it worse. Grasping for certainty makes it worse too.
Uncertainty shows up every day in many ways. How vulnerable we are willing to be to get under the surface and accept the really sticky and uncomfortable feelings we tend to turn away from is the magic that opens the door to release them.
Have you ever felt that people's perception of you is not what you'd like it to be? You can tell by the way they look at you. By the way they don't include you in conversations. By the way you're not a part of bigger things.
We suffer when we can't accept and just be with the discomfort of reality. A resistance builds between fighting the truth and accepting it. Suffering can become excruciating when it relates to negative self-perceptions we don’t want to feel that lie under the surface. An example of this is when you notice that you're not included and immediately feel self-defeated and withdraw. Or when you finally are included and overcompensate, regretting how you behaved later.
In both of these instances - we lose presence with self-sabotage.
When we turn away from the resistance to reality we think we are only pivoting from the discomfort of the situation. That isn’t the most important realization. We deny the truth of our emotions that hide in the trappings of our conduct. Behind the defeat of exclusion is loneliness, sadness, hurt, abandonment. Underneath the regret of overcompensating is relief and exuberance of finally being included bound to the embarrassment of not being able to maintain poise and authenticity. Again - not being good enough.
When we don’t honor uncomfortable emotions, the resistance continues to grow. This leads to even more discomfort as we externalize the misery in an effort to escape it. We deny the truth of our unpleasant mindset by covering it up with assumptions self-judgment, judgment of others, doubt, criticism, blame, frustration – the very actions that deny our true self. This is deadly to peace, presence and careers. People perceive us as less than we really are. And the resistance cycle continues only now at a greater pace.
Imagine if you were able to step off the treadmill to nowhere. What if you could identify those emotions before they hijack your presence. What would it be like if you could observe doubt and allow it to flow through you without getting stuck there? What is you were able to self-regulate your behavior even under fire? What if your efficacy and presence were so appreciated that it improved all of your relationships and your career trajectory?
When we can be comfortable with discomfort we can allow it to flow through us and accept ourselves with all our imperfections. Sounds great in theory but how do we do it?
Be still. Be with the feeling of uncertainty. Get curious about it. What are you really afraid of? How do you support yourself in that feeling? How do you assure yourself that nothing is guaranteed of permanent and that you still hold love for yourself and others without any expectations in that moment. There is only continuation. If a situation changes to your dislike, it is not an edict on your personal value. It is just disappointing. All of this is in your imagination and not concrete. We continue on in the people we touch. This makes transitions easier. No grasping or averting. Only continuation of love.
Greif is the same. When someone dies we miss them. We long for them. We cry. And we accept that while we all will die someday, love doesn’t die. The relationship continues in a different context.
Here the skill of clear seeing is a way we can have less self-deception about what we think we need. Clear seeing shows us that we are impermanent by nature. Nothing stays the same. The more we fight the truth of the impermanence of life, the less happy we are and the less we accept ourselves. We are never alone when we walk in congruity with all of human kind.
When we can drop whatever story we’ve been telling ourselves and lean into our emotions and fear, we can stay with the emotion so as to leave it as is. Let me repeat that. Leave the emotion as it is without proliferating. Don’t mind what will happen.
“Yes, that’s just me being hurt and fearful. Those feelings are hollow, empty, black and smelly.
I don’t have to carry the hurt forward. I can let them flow through me.” We make a choice to get curious and live moment to moment, not in the future or in the past. This is our way of being tender with ourselves and with others.
Gratitude helps with uncertainty. We look for goodwill toward us and give it to others. Look for the soft, unguarded place in yourself and you will find it. Whether in the tender place of feeling love or the vulnerability of feeling lonely goodwill is inside of you.
Awaken loving kindness:
“May I enjoy happiness.
May (another person you care about) enjoy happiness.
May (a person not so close to you) be happy.
May (a person you are neutral toward) be happy.
May (a person you find difficult) be happy.
May all of these people be happy.
May all beings in the entire world be happy.
May I be free of suffering.
May (another person you care about) be free of suffering.
May (a person not so close to you) be free of suffering.
May (a person you are neutral toward) be free of suffering.
May (a person you find difficult) be free of suffering. (This builds the freedom of forgiveness.)
May all of these people be free of suffering.
May all beings in the entire world be fee of suffering.”
Being kind to ourselves is important. When we look into our hearts and begin to accept what is confused along with what is brilliant, what is bitter with what is sweet, it isn’t just ourselves we discover. We’re developing compassion for all beings. This opening to the world benefits us and others. It makes room for forgiveness and allows us to let go of hate and anger to make room for acceptance.
The more we try to relate to others and are met with rejection the more quickly we realize where we may be blocked. When we mindfully apply softness and are intentionally non-judgmental to whatever we experience in the moment, the embarrassing reflection in the mirror becomes our friend. As we practice accepting ourselves with all our imperfections – discarding perfectionism – we begin to celebrate aspects of ourselves we found so impossible before. Old habits begin to soften. We begin to truly see and hear people, not just process what they say. The world expands. Intimacy expands.
When we can peel back the coverings that are over our ego – judgment, grasping for things out of our control, avoidance – and also see beneath the coverings of others, we begin to see the beauty in ourselves and others. We start to see how we are all connected to each other – even the people we initially resent, dislike, avoid. We have to see beyond the ego coverings that trap us in fear to be compassionate with ourselves and with others.
I had to learn this lesson over and over again until I finally realized it myself. I was so afraid of the future landing me back to my past that everything I did and said was through the lens of “I’m never going back to poverty and the fear that I wasn’t capable of supporting my family.” What I didn’t realize at the time was that this lens colored my perception of everything. It was a defensive posture for life. I would survive no matter what. The “no matter what” was the tripwire to a detached life. I let nothing get to me – not happiness, love or kindness. Feelings aren’t mutually exclusive. When you shut yourself off to negative feelings, you shut yourself off to all feelings.
The process of finding love was scary. The more I risked opening my heart the scarier and the more rewarding it became. Life is not binary. Vulnerability is not scary or wonderful. It is scary AND wonderful.
I found romantic love when I was able to accept that I might get hurt. I might make another mistake. I might end up unhappy again. AND I might find the love of my life. I might have a really good life. I might be held by someone who loves me and wants to protect me from ever having to experience what I went through in my past. Any rejection would be uncomfortable but not an edict on whether I am lovable. When my worth was not tied to external validation, internal validation grew. If I got rejected it would make me sad, not destroy me. Sad is ok. We can self-regulate sad so that we don’t get stuck there. Self-destruction is not ok.
I started to re-discover myself as I re-discovered love. There is a lot of talk about self-love. I think we learn to love from having been loved – having allowed ourselves to feel love because we are worthy of it. In theory we want to be able to love ourselves. I think we need to have the act of love modeled to us to emulate it. Somewhere in every person’s life they have experienced an act of love. We need to remember those. Be still in that space to remember how pleasing it felt. It could have been love from a pet, a friend, a relative, a neighbor.
I’ve always loved dogs because their love is unconditional. They are always happy to see you. They live totally in the moment with no regrets. I remember every pet we ever had growing up and every pet I had as an adult.
When I first started dating again there were men who loved me. I didn’t know how to love them back. There are books that will say that I couldn’t love them because I didn’t love myself enough. It was true that I didn’t love myself fully. I didn’t think I deserved love. The truth is that while some of them were kind, they weren’t my forever love. There is a voice in the back of your head that reminds you when something is right for you. Trust that voice.
I didn’t attract the love that was right for me because I didn’t think I deserved it. I attracted the wrong type of man for me. Those relationships were just ok. I was strong and attracted men who wanted me to be the lead in the relationship. I made all the decisions at work and at home. I didn’t want to lead where we ate, what we did and all the relationship decisions as well. I also didn’t want a man who didn’t have depth of consciousness or intimacy. I attracted this when I didn’t feel I deserved love.
I knew what I wanted and I held out as I worked on myself. I was single for 19 years, prioritizing my children, and fitting in dating to fill the romantic void. I read so many self-help books that my children used to joke that I was Samantha on Sex and the City. I learned a lot over that time. Today as I look back having done a lot of self-development, I don’t regret not having fallen in love with those men. I wouldn’t love them today either.
Trust your gut. Your head is too analytical. You heart is too emotional. But your gut – your intuition will guide you.
Once I softened my heart I was able to attract a loving relationship from someone as complicated and intelligent and funny and interesting and diverse and rooted in values as I am. I knew it the night we met. He did too. Relationships aren’t a panacea. We get out of them what we put into them.
I remember vividly the night I met my husband – I wrote this note to him a year later and reminisce over it every year on May 8th.
Dear Arnie,
One year ago today at this time I was sitting in my office thinking about how I would go home early to shower and get ready for my sort-of-blind date with you. The photo on your online profile hardly did you justice but your savoir faire won me over for a meeting even though I had never met anyone I hadn’t first talked to (or admittedly in my case interviewed) on the phone. I like a man that knows what he wants and goes after it without hesitation.
I remember the dress, the shoes, the purse, the jewelry I wore – I changed them all a couple of times. I wasn’t quite sure how it would go so I was pretending not to care too much all the while I was still changing my outfits.
I parked my car on a side street and sauntered into Soba thinking I would easily find you. A momentary panic set in when inside the door I didn’t see you. Then I remember spotting that chiseled profile sitting at the bar and thinking, “Is that him? If so, he is way better looking than his photo.” So I tapped you on the shoulder and asked, “Arnie?” And you turned to me with a composed yet pleased look and immediately wanted to get a table. I loved that. A get-right-to-it kind of guy. Other men would want to get to know you over drinks and cocktails in a less formal atmosphere at the bar. Not you. You were invested in an intimate evening. Fabulous!
I sat there glancing down at the menu without a clue as to what it said because I was so taken by how cute you were and the stature in which you carry yourself. None-the-less I pretended to read the menu. It must have taken us close to an hour to order with the waitress having asked us several times if we were ready. I chuckled to myself at the “and don’t bother us again” way you said, “No.”
Two Riesling’s later I was trying to figure out how broad your shoulders were since I was certain they spanned the width of the table in that yellow and white oxford shirt with the cuffs rolled up.
When you went to the rest room I tried not to let you catch me staring at the full body shot of you in those pants. And I loved your shoes. Great taste in everything! I checked my mirror as you were away from the table and thought – Is this real? Is this really someone I met on Match.com that is engaging, is into me and that I actually like?
That night I had been in turmoil about a work situation and from the moment I described it to you, you were objectively in my corner. That won me over more than anything. You gave me sound advice and in a way addressed the situation as if it was personal to you. It showed me you had heart, didn't need to talk about yourself, and could care. You could be emotional yet strong about what you care about. You had no issue about showing already that you cared to help me. Such a turn on.
You shared the interesting nature of your cases and what they mean to you. You shared your German background and how that influences your decisions. You shared your views about online dating and how much you enjoy your children. Even though we had just met, I knew that night that I wanted to be someone you cared about.
Four hours later when they threw us out of the restaurant because even the cleaning crew was ready to go home you, without hesitation, walked me to my car. I tried not to swing my little box purse too far as my enthusiasm over getting to know you nearly prompted it to whirl over my head like a helicopter propeller. I thanked you again for a lovely evening and gave you a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek as if to suggest, “This night was special for me.”
I opened the car door and sat down as you waited for me to get in with your arm resting against my open door. I fiddled in my purse to find my keys and when I turned back at you I caught you staring at my legs. You quickly glanced back at my face and I smiled inside. I loved catching you doing that. I thanked you again and I drove away as you walked back toward the restaurant to get your car.
I wasn’t half a block down the street when I drew my fist down in front of my chest and said a very loud, “Yes!” I knew I wanted to see you again but would wait to see if you felt the same.
The evening ended with childlike glee when I returned home and received a text message from you asking me to let you know if I got home safely. At that point I knew I would see you again. And eight years later I am the happiest woman in the world because I am going to be seeing you again for the rest of my life because I am now your wife. I am honored and blessed. And I will never forget that night one year ago when I met the man of my dreams.
Mary Lee
Arnie, and I challenge each other when our ego coverings get in the way. We always come out the better. We don’t always agree on issues but we almost always agree on values. We undeniably deeply love each other. And there isn’t anyone we’d rather spend time with than each other. He is my forever love.
Arnie and I use the code work “Still Space” to remind each other when we notice the other might be overthinking, over-reaching, getting upset, withdrawing. It is really helpful to have an accountability partner.
There are no guarantees in life. Accepting that is the freedom of accepting uncertainty. It is accepting that the magic of life is in the moment. When we regret the past or fear the future it is just our cry of perfectionism. Perfectionism becomes the excuse for not accepting ourselves as worthy of a good life.
You will set intentions for loving kindness for yourself and others but you’ll find at times its really difficult and inconvenient. You will repeatedly discover the inconvenience of your own uptightness. This does not have to be an obstacle. I can be a texture in the tapestry of life.
You’ll be flying in the reward of loving kindness and suddenly something brings you right back to a behavior you regret and makes you uncomfortable. This is just a call to figure it out. You have the tools. You start again with even more wisdom because you accept yourself as imperfect. You accept the journey as impermanent. You accept yourself as awesome with all your imperfections. This world is made for you.
