Thriving Through Uncertainty: Moving Beyond Fear of the Unknown and Making Change Work for You - Softcover

TAMA KIEVES is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School who left her law practice to write and help others discover and express the life they were born to live. She is the bestselling author of This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love, and Inspired & Unstoppable: Wildly Succeeding in Your Life's Work! and A Year without Fear: 365 Days of Magnificence.

Featured in USA TODAY, as well as on ABC News, Oprah Radio, and other national media, she is a sought-after speaker and visionary career/success and inspired life coach, who has helped thousands world-wide to create extraordinary lives based in freedom instead of fear. She is known for her edgy humor, "real world" spirituality, warm compassion and the big possibilities she brings out in others. Tama is on the faculty of premier holistic learning institutes such as Omega and Esalen, and has presented at TEDx . Tama has also taught A Course in Miracles for over 28 years.

Chapter One

The Super- Power OF Uncertainty

How to Move Forward in an Uncertain Life

I hate transition. But I'm black coal and this compression is turning me into a diamond. And as much as I want to conform and just be like every other chunk of coal, I am cursed by my need for a life of meaning. I will walk or crawl through transformation. Because I want a life of diamonds.

Tama Kieves (journal entry)

Real change isn't about knowing the right actions to take. Because, really, we all know you should probably eat kale instead of a pail of Ben & Jerry's Rocky Road. Real change comes from an emotional and spiritual readiness. It's about changing from the inside, becoming ready to take the steps that arise from our essence. It's only readiness that makes an action right.

Tama Kieves (journal entry)

Where do you crave certainty right now? This, my friend, is where you're growing wings. You are in transition, about to crack open into the next dimension of wonder in your life. I know because you're alive-and that is how life works.

As a life and career/success coach and workshop leader, I've worked intimately with thousands in transition. I've seen every kind of crossroads. And I've often seen this pattern. It's the insistence on how things are supposed to be that causes pain. You do not lack the right life right now. You do not lack your path or the absolute best circumstances. You lack awareness.

You are thriving just by being in the fray. Uncertainty is your superpower. It's oxygen. It's necessary. It shakes you awake. It breaks through the shield of habit and exposes you to new options, redemption, and growth. Change is how you discover that you are more than who you thought you were, as you move from one identity to the next. So, yes, awesome one, change, helplessness, frustration-all of it is how we bake this cake. And this is how every extraordinary life is supposed to go.

On a clear, bright, high-def day in July, my friend Grace and I walked across the Hudson River walkway in Poughkeepsie, New York. Grace had come with the idea to do a healing ritual. She is my energy-sensitive shaman friend, walking with white owls in one realm and copywriting for marketing executives in another. I love people who walk in multiple realms-and I suspect that you are one of those people. I believe we are the ones who will shift the world.

Grace was going through a divorce. This change was slicing her to the bone, forcing her to let go of a dream and an identity. She was dismantling shared finances, responsibilities, and real estate. And each time her husband, her once-gentle friend, screamed accusations or punched a wall, she felt her heart break again. Yet Grace was determined to thrive, no matter the circumstances.

At the time, I was feeling out of control with my business. I'd wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, worrying that I couldn't get everything done or that I wouldn't ever find the right people to help me, especially since I was now nuts and could offer them something like bubkes as a base salary.

Really, I just wanted to hand someone all of my problems like a bunch of grenades and run. Interviewing prospective hires was like dating, only worse because I might have to pay them, too. I was so overwhelmed that even taking steps to get out of the overwhelm produced more overwhelm. And underneath it all, I was grieving a loved one's health challenge.

In moments of stress that seemed unbearable, I found myself in a haggling mode with God or the Universe or any power on call that day: Take it all away. Take away the uncertainty, the pressure, make it all go away. Give me an answer. Just take care of it.

It was the prayer of the tired.

It was the prayer of someone who had forgotten that real peace of mind isn't something you can just pick up at ShopRite like toilet paper. It was the prayer of someone who just wanted this done already. I was frantic to be out of pain and I hadn't yet realized that pushing myself to be out of pain was causing even more pain. This is one of those mysterious ironies in life that involve something like acceptance, and I really hate that.

I wanted to be "there" already-somewhere it was all resolved and I was maybe just a tiny bit wealthy, famous, skinny, and adored and all of it was permanent and guaranteed, and no one I loved was ever going to die, and if possible there wasn't going to be climate change either, because I despise heat.

But, of course, life was asking me to be here. Be here in the middle. Because here is where the Milky Way is. Here is where the journey is. Here is where the answers are, and the big payoffs, every single one of them. Here. Not there. The Universe was answering my prayer. It was answering it with the circumstances that would catapult me into change.

Grace had brought with her a woven blue pouch. Within the pouch, there were a small smooth black stone and a small smooth white one. She had gotten this "kit" as a sort of fun personal divination tool long ago. You ask your question about the future, then pick a stone: White is yes; black is no.

She was going to toss the stones into the great beaming Hudson River from high on the bridge. "Good-bye black-and-white thinking," she said, referring to expectations, answers, the mad desire for control. She'd had enough of trying to make her situation just go away or tie it up in a bow. "I'm not looking for definitive answers now," she said. I felt this big space come over us. The truth always has this signature. "I'm done with trying to force solutions or breakthroughs as though I can," laughed my wise friend.

We're not looking for answers. We're looking for next steps.

"

"

"So, what are we looking for if not immediate resolution?" I asked her as the tiny pouch with the simple promises twirled its way off the bridge, getting smaller and smaller, finally splashing into the great river below.

The moment I asked the question, I knew the answer. "Next steps," I said. "We're not looking for answers. We're looking for next steps." As if on cue, a breeze rippled the river below. I felt as though a Silent Love nodded with approval.

When I coach clients professionally, I guide these brilliant souls, who are no longer looking to create a conventional life, to follow the bread crumbs along the trail. It's the only path I know to the beckoning "gingerbread house" of the new life, which may not even have a name or definition yet.

There are always bread crumbs. This change in our lives isn't just happening to us. It's happening for us. That is the bedrock premise of thriving. The caterpillar "dies" so that the butterfly can emerge. And just as in metamorphosis, there is instinctive intelligence that drives the change. Our new life is always conspiring with us, sending us signals and cues.

Sometimes the next step is not an action like going public with your company. Sometimes, it's letting go of an old, limiting belief. Or dying honorably to a time in your life that is passing. Or having that conversation you need to have or picking up that book you heard about. Sometimes it's the decision to frankly accept where you are, even though a part of you wants to win a Nobel Peace Prize already because, well, it would be nice to have something to tell your mother.

There is always a next step or focus.

This is how a time of transformation takes place. You are led. You do not lead. This is the free fall and the windfall of uncertainty. You can't plan an inspired life. You can't force genius. It doesn't play by your rules. You may feel anxious, even while you are safer than you've ever been. Yet radical creativity, burning love, alchemy, invention, and the blaze of the wild divine do not fit into ordinary methodology. An extraordinary life is, by definition, not ordinary.

You are walking into the grand unknown. It's scary because anything can happen. It's wonderful because, finally, anything can happen.

A life of intrepid original expression requires the willingness to be birthed from within. Buy a paint-by-number set and you are guaranteed to paint a simplistic replica, but never a work of art. True change does not happen through rote execution but through an awakening, a rearrangement of your understanding and abilities. Trust me, when it comes to your real life, your time on earth, you want the work of art.

The writer Ana·s Nin put it this way: "There are few human beings who receive the truth complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, like a mosaic."

You might feel like you want to move faster than one fragment at a time. Good luck with that. Because groundbreaking, foundational changes do not happen in a rush. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the healing program that has enabled millions to do "what they could not do," is based on this simple maxim: "One day at a time." There's reason for that. It works. A spiritual life is not one that is answered in the future. It's the life that takes place in the present, one day, one heartbeat, one filament or breakthrough at a time.

You don't need to figure out your whole life at once. You don't have to know what you're doing. You don't have to know how this will all unfold. You won't know, even if you think you do. But you can do what is yours to do in the moment.

Grace looked down at the river that had absorbed her symbolic offering. She said, "I am saying good-bye to the need for certainty instead of authenticity. I am letting go of the need to rush or know what I can't yet know." It was a lovely way to acknowledge that her life was a mess, that all our lives are a mess, a continuous lopsided tango with uncertainty dressed in tight pants and sparkles, impishly encouraging our hearts to beat faster. And that, at times, no matter how much you wish to be standing on solid ground, you are standing in the marshlands between the worlds, hoping like hell you find a clue.

I looked around us on this spectacular day, because somehow all of humanity seemed to be out on that bridge. A big man with a thousand tattoos loped along, listening to a motivational podcast, maybe on how to fix your Harley, or how to love your inner child. Thin, fit women ran by, controlling the calories they burned, controlling something in their lives. A shiny dark-skinned woman who looked older than the river itself smiled among wrinkles as she leaned on a cane.

How many of those who passed by secretly worried about a lump they'd discovered? How many knew their lover was drinking again? How many needed to get more clients? How many even feared the promotion or dream project they'd just gotten, wondering if they could pull it off? How many felt lost, as though they didn't even know what they were here for anymore or how to get through the hours?

I smiled inside and thought of the prayer said in yoga classes, "Namaste," the light in me salutes the light in you. I knew we were all made of infinite strength and possibility, even while we felt like we were being jostled in the ocean like seaweed. Our uncertainty made us feel alone. But, actually, it's the one thing we all have in common. Everyone everywhere is dealing with a change in their lives.

Grace and I walked off that bridge feeling brighter. We'd eased some of our pain just by making the decision to stop trying to force the path to freedom to fit into something it would never be. It was okay to feel uncertain and still move forward. "I guess I'm just running a marathon," said Grace. "All I know is that I need to breathe deeply and keep hydrated." It seemed so simple. One damn step at a time.

I felt safer again, too, ironically, the more I committed to journeying into the unknown. It felt good to work with truth on truth's wide-open terms. "We just did something really big," said Grace. "Yes, we did," I said, already feeling myself settle down. I felt a connection to Grace, to myself, to life, to everyone on that bridge, and to everyone who would yet be on the bridge of life-and to you-crossing from one solid place to another.

Turning Points: How to Move Forward in an Uncertain Life

It's the insistence on how things are supposed to be that causes pain.

You do not lack the right life right now. You do not lack your path or the absolute best circumstances. You lack awareness.

Change is how you discover that you are more than who you thought you were, as you move from one identity to the next.

This change in our lives isn't just happening to us. It's happening for us.

We're not looking for answers. We're looking for next steps.

You are led. You do not lead. This is the free fall and the windfall of uncertainty.

You can't plan an inspired life. You can't force genius. It doesn't play by your rules.

You are walking into the grand unknown. It's scary because anything can happen. It's wonderful because, finally, anything can happen.

Any Choice Is a Risk, Except the Right One

Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been.

Alan Alda

When you're scared, it's natural to want to get to safety. But keep in mind there is a kind of "safety" that is not safe. There is no safety in denying who you are.

Tama Kieves (journal entry)

It's human nature to want to experience the security of having everything under control. It may also be human nature to want to eat a feedbox of chocolate Easter bunnies, so there you have it.

Psychological studies show that we as human beings thrive on "positive stress." You think you want ironclad safety. But you deserve so much more in life than this-because the need for constant control can cause boredom, exhaustion, and hollowness. Like you didn't already know that.

Your spirit craves growth, and growth comes from taking risks. The right risk will offer you more security than holding on to "the devil you know." Because if that devil you know is draining the love out of you, you will meet a devil you don't want to know.