Remember when your life was all set up just the way you wanted it, everything was going as planned and you had absolutely nothing to worry about?

Yeah, me neither.

Life as we have known it is changing, fast. We have no idea how it will turn out, or when. But this has always been the case - life is always uncertain. Not just when wildfires, floods, global pandemics and mass social unrest plague the planet.

In case you are romanticizing the life you used to have, let me remind you:

Uncertainty has always been part of life. So much in the news recently is leading us to crazy-making extremes of hope and fear. We hope to resume life on a normal level to decrease our anxiety. We fear not being able to survive in the new circumstances. Relaxing into either of these extremes is extraordinarily challenging.

But if we practice relaxing with whatever arises we get better at it. And really, do we have a choice?

Relaxing into uncertainty is a skill we can develop. The trick is to catch ourselves whenever we feel the urge to feed a thought or emotion. It certainly is exciting to feed the drama. But is it helpful? Does it make you more healthy, happy or wise?

Learning to relax is a skill.There are tools to help you develop this skill. Try this guided meditation for anxiety, this short guided relaxation, or use one of these writing prompts to help you navigate the changes.

I am also convinced that spending time in nature or immersed in art appreciation are fantastic ways to relax.

Create time in your day to simply stop and rest. It goes agains the speedy, “get-er-done” culture many of us inhabit. But stopping to simply relax and smell the roses is one of the most powerful tools we have to maintain our mental and emotional health.

Working with uncertainty is the path of transformation.According to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, working with uncertainty is the spiritual path.

He wrote:

The spiritual journey is not a very easy one, absolutely not easy at all. It demands a lot from us. And we may not find what we want, absolutely not. Our questions may not be answered one by one. But something else is taking place. Maybe the question mark itself is beginning to rot, become disheveled, and turn into a period, full stop. Maybe that is happening. It's a possibility. And that seems to be the process of the whole journey: dissolving the question mark into a full stop. The question mark becomes a statement or an exclamation, rather than a hollow line longing to be filled by answers.

Acceptance is the only way forwardAcceptance is the key to relaxing into uncertainty. When you no longer struggle to control a specific outcome, your senses become more open; more tuned in to the surroundings. And here's the irony: once you relax, your intuition kicks in, and you receive the guidance you need to proceed.

Whether you call it beginner's mind, or not knowing, or relaxing into uncertainty, the quality of mind that arises when you let go of the struggle to control outcomes is the quality of mind that doesn't need to control outcomes because it's content to enjoy the journey.

When you access a state of alert relaxation and apply it to your life circumstances, then you don't need to know where you are going. Then the destination becomes less of a focus, because you suddenly realize that wonderful surprises can occur at any point along the way. Without uncertainty, how would we ever be happily surprised?

How do you relax with uncertainty? BONUS WRITING PROMPTS: * How is uncertainty manifesting in your life right now? * What is the worst-case outcome? * Who would you become if you relaxed into the situation?