Dance of Uncertainty

There are chapters in our lives when our relationship to certainty experiences a cataclysmic shift. At this moment I happen to be in one of those portals. It feels as though yet another threshold has appeared beneath my feet.

For many years, I devoted myself to creating a world that gave me the greatest sense of safety, security, stability, and routine. I needed that then. I needed my body to rest and to quiet my mind. Gradually, year after year, something began to change, my nervous system healed. I began to recognize I wasn't in a constant state of danger. I could feel again, the breeze against my skin, the pleasure of an orgasm, the erotic tension between myself and another. The subtle movements of life passing through my body. And yet, within this world where I had created as much stability as possible, I also began to slowly withdraw from the ecstasy of being alive.

Before I knew it, I was living in a golden cage. I was safe and had to access nearly everything I ever needed, wanted. I never had to think much about money or whether I would be taken care of. There was comfort, security and a structure that held me. Yet, when I lay awake in the darkness of the night, I could feel something disturbing within me. I knew I was not living a life in true alignment with my soul. I was forsaking my truth so that I could feel safe. So that I could learn how to function again in the day-to-day world when, for a long time, functioning itself had not always felt possible.

There was a point in my life when complex PTSD felt like a noose around my neck. Anxiety was a boulder upon my chest and dread seemed to loom wherever I turned. One day I decided I was going to deliberately, methodically, dismantle my golden cage. I wasn’t able to do it all at once. Perhaps I was afraid I had forgotten how to fly. So, piece by piece, I began to take it apart. Slowly, intentionally and with care. With each piece I removed, I felt something returning, my radiance and my Eros.

Something ancient and wild began to move through me. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. It makes me curious about the paths we choose. I can look back now at the choices I made with a deep sense of trust. I know that, in each moment, I was doing exactly what I needed to do with the awareness I had then. I believe the universe is conspiring for our greater good at all times. I can honor the woman I was as she was doing her best to survive, learning how to feel safe, building a container strong enough to eventually hold the woman I am becoming.

I find myself in an intimate dance with uncertainty, with the unknown. Standing at the threshold, listening deeply to the calling within. There are days when the fear is so vast that I think, I cannot possibly step more fully into this. In those moments I choose to get quiet, lay upon the earth, walk in nature, dance, weep. Allowing myself to feel the fullness of what is unfolding. I listen deeply to the fear. I hold my heart with tenderness, forgiveness, and compassion.

Perhaps this is the question that lives inside me now: How do I dance gracefully with uncertainty?

How do I let uncertainty be spacious rather than frightening? This is the dance I am learning. There are moments when I feel blissful and light and sovereign, as though I could touch the edges of the universe. Then there are others when the life I am creating, the life I say I want, feels like more than I can possibly hold. So I take another breath and remember that I do not have to carry everything alone and ask Spirit to hold that which is too big for me.

My prayer these days...

Guide me. Let my intuition be my compass. Let my heart remain open. Let me have the courage to walk toward what is true, even when I cannot see the road ahead. May I be clear enough to love with an open heart. May I be brave enough to live in alignment with my soul. May I be of service. May this path become an inspiration to others, not because I have figured it out, but because I am willing to walk it honestly, so the dance with uncertainty continues.

By Brooke Laura