Ep 81 Living into Uncertainty

For many of us, being an adult can sometimes look like trying to have all the answers. We can easily feel foolish to have to say, “I don’t know.” But what if the thing that lies on the other side of “struggle and not knowing” is possibility? What if choosing to live with “the question” is what allows us to evolve and transform? For certain, this requires an internal culture shift. But given the anxiety and stress that comes with feeling like we have to have all the answers, perhaps this freedom to ask and keep on asking can be a welcome divergence into a much larger expanse. Join us as we talk about embracing the journey, not with dread, but with wonder and curiosity. 

#LifelongLearner
#SpiritualJourney
#EvolvingFaith
#CareerShift
#SpiritualDirection
#SpiritualCompanioning 

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Transcript

 SUMMARY KEYWORDS
answers, question, emotions, seeking, uncertainty, plan

Dominic Kaiser  00:06
Welcome to The Contemplative Life. Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens.  

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser. We're glad you joined us.  

Hello, it's great to be with you. Today, we are taking some time to talk about the experience of living into our uncertainties. So for many of us, myself included, being an adult can sometimes look like trying to have all the answers.  People often want to hear from us, they may want to know what the right answer is, or at the very least, they may want to know what the best answer is. And when that happens, it can sometimes feel like I'm spending all of my time evaluating things, anticipating problems, to the point that it can make us feel kind of foolish when we have to say, I don't know, we need to figure this out together. 

 And so it becomes almost ironic in a way because this business of trying to know everything, you might think it's expansive, but in the end, knowing everything makes the world feel kind of small. And as it turns out, Jesus in the gospels gives us this wide-open invitation that's very different from us having all the answers. In Matthew 7, Jesus says Ask it'll be given to you seek, you will find knock, the door will be opened. Everybody who asks receives and who seeks finds into the one who knocks the door will be opened. And so rather than us feeling like we have to have all the answers, maybe there's this invitation for us to be a part of discovery together, though, again, it's not very intuitive to ask.  It can sometimes feel like the world is asking for something else. And so in this experience of living into uncertainty, how do you guys experience it?

Chris Roberts  02:05

Well, I think I've come to experience it more as I've engaged in spiritual companionship. Whether it's myself being in a spiritual companion session, or being a facilitator in a session, but this idea of living with the question or living the question comes up frequently. And I think, early on, I felt this pressure to maybe let the question ruminate and then ask, Okay, well, where do you sense the question being fulfilled and needing to have answers.  But I think the more that I grow, the more that I journey, the understanding has come to me that sometimes it's better not to have the answers to the questions. Because you're living the question. It's a journey. It's your wisdom seeking, and assurance, or security, or all those things that maybe questions being answered give us I think, to be honest, it's false security. Because what if the easy answer isn't the one that is going to last us for the long haul? What if it's just an easy answer right away? Or an easy answer to the question right away. But I think that's one thing that comes up for me as I think about, particularly in contemplative life, sometimes it's just the process of living the question that we actually find ourselves growing spiritually, growing into something new and out of something old. So that's what comes up for me.

Christina Roberts   04:21

Yeah, and I think there's two aspects of it: there's our own questions seeking and wanting answers but then even Chris you naming what it looks like to accompany someone. And I think the temptation is to want to be wise, to be the sage, to have advice to give to the other, rather than just listening.  I remember first going through training to be a spiritual companion and feeling like, Am I doing enough? I'm literally not really saying much, but that's actually what was needed in this living the question like you're describing.  It is a different paradigm going from feeling like you need to have something profound to say, rather than just knowing it's okay and we can live into that answer together.

Kristina Kaiser  05:00

I appreciate how both of you are talking about it. And it kind of makes me think of almost the need for a culture shift. Because it's true, when it comes to spiritual direction, there's this idea that sometimes it's healing just to be heard,  not for someone to answer questions for you. And it can feel difficult, even if you have read or been taught that it is healing just to be a presence in someone's life.  It can be difficult to internalize that as a belief. Again, I think because so many times we've come into the world with this sense of, we have to help people, we have to help them get to an end goal, they have to arrive somewhere at the end of whatever time we're spending together, as opposed to maybe planting a seed, right? So we named something and we put it in the ground, and we walked away. And life has a way of taking care of itself. I used to have a friend that would say that all the time. Well, life has a way of working itself out. But it takes sort of a culture shift of changing the way that we interact and the way that we believe we have to interact. 

Chris Roberts  06:16

Yeah, I agree. I think one of the words that comes up often whenever we're living in uncertainty is  oh, it's so hard. Or oh, it's so frustrating. And those are words that spiritual companions cue into.  There are their emotions behind those words, right. Tell me about hard, what's hard? Or why are you frustrated? And getting to the emotions behind these questions are frustrating. But I just want to acknowledge that, yes, it is hard, it is challenging living with some of these questions. And the temptation to alleviate hard or frustrating, sometimes you just have to help people ignore the quick fix. Maybe sitting with them with those emotions helps them to acknowledge those emotions. But acknowledging that it is hard, and that it is frustrating, can be super important.

Christina Roberts   07:29

Kristina, it's interesting that you acknowledged earlier that this idea of feeling like we have to know everything is a smaller world. And I think that that's true. And I think even the older that I get–I have kids who are teens, tweens and around that age group, and then I have some nieces and nephews who are college age, and the pressure to know what am I going to do for my career? Who might I marry? Some of those big life decisions and all the pressure around that. And as one who's lived a little bit of life, it's like, Oh, no. It feels so tight. And I have to know this one thing, and this one way and this type of a situation, but recognizing, to your point, that life will unfold, and the process will unfold and to trust the process. And that does feel a little bit more spacious and roomy. Rather than feeling like no, there's this one way that I have to figure out now and if I don't, I'm doomed.

Kristina Kaiser  08:20

I've seen it too. Yes, school very much encourages this, what do you want to do? What's your four-year plan? And then where are you going after that? Just even making a holiday letter, how you can watch a year and what happens and what unfolds in a 12-month period. So yeah, I feel like it. I don't fully abandon everything I've ever learned in the self-help world and make five-year plans or whatever.  I don't fully abandon it but I've also needed to be able just to say this moment now, what is today? What is mine to do? Right here today. Which in a way, it gets back to another thing that Jesus had said that today has enough of its own. But it is not easy. I mean, I've spent the last couple of years having to say, Yeah, I don't really know what five years from now looks like. That has been profoundly difficult. For years I lived, offering people the vision, creating words for the year, phrases for the year, and then to just sit in my own space and say, I don't exactly know, that was profoundly difficult. So it has been a real process for me.  It's actually been easier to say to little kids. Oh, I don't know, let's find out together then it has been to say to adults, I don't know and I'm not ready to give you an answer on that yet.

Christina Roberts   09:53

Yeah. And I think in a lot of ways that has been a gift of the pandemic.  There was so much uncertainty and the ability to make plans and have to pivot and shift in so many different industries and workplaces and families. And I think it kind of grew our muscles. I don't know, I can't see ahead that far. And again, it's interesting Kristina, that verse from the Bible that you lifted up earlier the Ask and it will be given to you seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened. In Greek, it's like a continual. So it's asking, keep on asking, seek, keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking. And so Jesus is inviting us. It's not just a one and done, you ask one time you get the answer, and you move on. But there seems to be this dynamism, this relationship that he's encouraging us towards when we ask, and we get a particular answer, hopefully, then that piques our curiosity to want to learn more and to go a little bit deeper in that path or that journey or that understanding of that knowledge. And so I really appreciate the nuance of this verse, that it's a continual knocking. And again, as the doors open, it's like, oh, I have a different vantage point. Now, my questions are going to evolve and change. And then hopefully, I'll be asking more. Not just, okay, I'm “good to go now” type of situation.

Chris Roberts  11:06

Yeah, I really appreciate what both of you have lifted up. I was actually having a conversation with someone this morning around this idea of calling. Whenever we get a calling for our job, whatever it is that we do vocationally. And we were talking about the pandemic and how it's brought a lot of change, people are leaving their first profession, and looking for a new one. And he made a really great statement, and said, I don't see calling as a static thing. And that just brought so much possibility of our calling as something that can evolve and change. We have freedom to explore. Okay, where have I been? And what is that leading up to? And to me that that just says, You're living the question of how are you going to be in the world. And, yeah, I just love that as a lifestyle or a way of being. And so I appreciate both of you lifting that up.

Kristina Kaiser  12:16

Even as we talk about things like career shifts, it does seem to be true that, there's a little bit of this, I was on a path and something happened and it causes a divergence that causes a move. And that is loss at the end of the day. Being able to be kind to our hearts as they process, Ooh, that feels different than I originally saw it going. This happens all the time. We thought things were gonna go one way, we thought we understood the world. And there's all these ways in which maybe we don't understand anymore, maybe our views of God are different than they were before, or what we thought we were doing with our lives is different than they were before. And each of these is a little bit of a loss that requires a little bit of kindness to ourselves, I think just to pause, and be with that emotion that we experience in the midst of our not knowing. And then I really appreciate Christina, that point about asking, keep on asking, knock and keep on knocking, seeking and keep on seeking, because of this long journey. The way that this works for our entire lives and getting to embrace that journey with all of that beauty or wonder curiosity as opposed to “not again”.

Christina Roberts  13:37

I think it's important to lift up as well, the question asked isn't necessarily just directional. But even, “what do I think about friendship”, for example. How I would answer that question was much different five years ago than 20 years ago, and will probably be different in the future as well. And so even with these bigger questions, let's think about friendship in a new way. And there's some uncertainty around that, versus Oh, no, I know what friendship is… It's this, this and this.  That feels very, like stifling. And so I think that opening up of being a learner, whether it's, I need direction, or even a topic like you're mentioning, Kristina, some different beliefs that we may have that have changed and being open to that sort of lifelong learner posture.

Kristina Kaiser  14:19

That's just such an excellent point. I really appreciate that. You're right. It's not just directional. There's also all the little aspects of friendships that are great ones. Thank you for bringing that up. Well, thank you so much for hanging with me in this conversation about living into uncertainty.

And now is the time in our podcast where we take a moment to talk about what we are into. So what are we into?

Chris Roberts  14:52

Well, ultimate frisbee is the rage around our house. We have some friends that play ultimate frisbee and I took my oldest to watch a game. And now it's like how can I get involved in ultimate frisbee, talking about cleats, talking about getting conditioned to be able to run long distances, waking up early.  The ultimate goal is to play ultimate frisbee. And so I'm kind of like a coach being able to offer advice on maybe the best way forward for a young person who wants to engage in the sport of ultimate frisbee.

Christina Roberts  15:37

Well, I am into learning about different types of dancing. So our middle kid is engaging in dance lessons this summer. It is the first time that she's done that and she's taking different types of dance.  It's really fun after her lesson, in the evening be like, Okay, Mom, this is how contemporary dance goes, but in jazz, you would do this or hip hop. It’s really fun watching her explore, dance and recognize Wow, it's amazing how one particular move in a different genre looks different. So I think I'm gaining a new appreciation of dance.

Kristina Kaiser  16:08

These are very fun things because I love them. I think I am currently in the middle of another dive into social emotional learning.  I am currently into emoji charts for emotions. And I found these really fun ones that have dry erase so that you can check off the various emotions that you're feeling and then wipe them down and do it again. And every now and again, we take another trip in our world to see if we can expand our vocabulary for our feelings. And so that's where we're at. Thank you so much for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you again next time.

Dominic Kaiser  16:46

Thanks for joining us today. If you enjoy listening to the podcast, we invite you to stay connected by signing up for our foundry spiritual center newsletter where you can learn about even more programs and offerings. You'll find a link to subscribe in the show notes or visit us anytime at Foundrysc.com. Thanks again for being with us. We hope you have a great week.