I had a writing client, Laura, who considered herself an expert in relationships. She and her husband, Brian, led\u00a0three day workshops and the two of them were so in synch, it was enviable.\u00a0Their focus was on hanging in there and learning the communication skills to
stay together at all odds. They came up with exercises that would show people\u00a0how to be kind to themselves and have compassion for their spouses. They talked\u00a0about eliminating competitive attitudes and listening to each other. They were\u00a0the envy of couples as they told personal stories about their connection andhow their marriage was running smoothly.<\/p>\n
They had an aggressive PR firm who successfully\u00a0attracted new participants all the time and they were thriving \u2013 until Brian\u00a0left Laura for a younger woman. A short time later, he wrote a book that became\u00a0an international bestseller. When Laura came to me to write her own book, she\u00a0said she was happy for Brian but her eyes said something different. I agreed to\u00a0help her and during the interviews, I found out that she\u2019d had five husbands\u00a0and she was closing in on number six. She said that things had been off for a\u00a0long time with Brian and she was glad to be free. I asked her how that fit in\u00a0to what they had been teaching and she skirted the issue. She said that no
matter what was going on, she knew a great deal about coupling because she\u2019d had\u00a0so many husbands.<\/p>\n
During our time together she gave\u00a0me a lot of unsolicited advice. She just couldn\u2019t accept the fact that she\u00a0didn\u2019t know everything and she might be the one who needed to learn a few\u00a0things. At the time, a popular formula for a talk show was having a group of\u00a0couples on the stage and an expert in the audience. That was Laura. As they
kept asking her questions and sat on bated breath for the answers, I felt sorry\u00a0for her. What a burden it must be to know everything and never be able to say,\u00a0\u201cLet me think about that,\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d space is very\u00a0hard for us humans. We want assurances about what to do, what our future will\u00a0be and exact directions on how to get there. But life doesn\u2019t work that way. It
takes surprising turns and it takes a lot of maturity, trust and humility to be\u00a0able to say, \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d and soften into that reality.<\/p>\n
When I was younger I thought that\u00a0when I got older, I would know the answers to the things I wasn\u2019t sure about.\u00a0But that idea was extinguished when I got older and it felt like I knew less\u00a0than when I was young. As we move through these difficult times when it seems
like all is lost, one of the things that gets me through is to know that I
don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. It could be good or bad. It could appear bad\u00a0but be good and vice versa. That\u2019s a hard place to be, but thinking I know\u00a0what\u2019s going to happen next is worse. Pema Chodron advises us that allowing\u00a0room for not knowing is a most important lesson. We just never know if this is\u00a0the beginning of the story or the middle or the end. It might be the beginning\u00a0of a great adventure and the end of a great love, all at the same time. The
thing is that we really don\u2019t know. The only way to carry on in that amorphous\u00a0state is let things happen and be curious.<\/p>\n
I see the \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d as a\u00a0place of surrender. There is a Taoist story about an old farmer who had worked\u00a0his land for many years. One day his horse ran away. His neighbors gathered and\u00a0said to the old man, \u201cThat\u2019s such bad luck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d the farmer said. \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next morning the horse\u00a0returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. The neighbors said, \u201cHow\u00a0wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d the farmer said. \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following day, his son tried to\u00a0ride one of the untamed horses. He was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors\u00a0said, \u201cWhat a misfortune.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d the farmer said. \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The day after, military officials\u00a0came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son\u2019s leg\u00a0was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors said, \u201cYour son doesn\u2019t have to\u00a0risk dying. Things have turned out so well for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d the farmer said. \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since we don\u2019t know the ultimate\u00a0reality of anything, it would be a idea to stop telling ourselves stories. We\u00a0are prone to tell ourselves stories with sad endings rather than happy ones,\u00a0but either way, they are just stories and our lives would be more uncomplicated
and less painful if we stayed in the \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I often go back to a piece of\u00a0wisdom that my friend Bethany told me. Ram Dass once said, \u201cI\u2019ve been asked\u00a0many times if this is the Aquarian age and it\u2019s all just beginning, or if it\u2019s\u00a0Armageddon and this is the end. I don\u2019t know, but whatever it is, my work is\u00a0the same: to quiet my mind, open my heart, and relieve suffering wherever I\u00a0find it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It sounds so simple but it takes a\u00a0lot of discipline to be there. Socrates said, \u201cThe only true wisdom is knowing
you know nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a writing client, Laura, who considered herself an expert in relationships. She and her husband, Brian, led\u00a0three day workshops and the two of them were so in synch, it was enviable.\u00a0Their focus was on hanging in there and learning the communication skills tostay together at all odds. They came up with exercises that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2630,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629\/revisions\/2630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}