You actually belong here, in this exact moment.
Topics which we discuss today are: Equanimity, Pronoia and the Journey of Life
Just Be Like This Today: “Today I am Okay with Feeling Lost”
This is a daily invitation to grant yourself permission to drop all your other nagging ‘Musts’ and ‘Shoulds’ about personal development, wellness and living a virtuous life. Just enjoy this one cup of Living Wisdom, just choose this one thing and sit with it today.
There will be times in your life when you feel that some terrible mistake is underway, that you have done everything right, but everything feels very wrong. You wake up in a moment that seems to be asking questions you don’t know how to answer, and the days are trickling by, you are not where you wanted to be, and you have absolutely no idea how to get there from here, or even exactly where you are.
This is what it means to feel lost. Not only does it feel like you are not sure which way to go, but also that you don’t have time or what it takes to get there.
You have to remember, especially at times like these that this is a journey. And it isn’t just a journey, this is your journey. In fact, feeling lost is exactly how you know it is your very own journey.
There is a wonderful poem by one of my favourite poets David Whyte, called Santiago, which begins
“The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding then revealing the way you should take, the road dropping away from you as if leaving you to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up, when you thought you would fall...”
This is the first few lines of a longer and beautifully crafted poem that explores the metaphor of a pilgrimage through the lens of the famous Camino de Santiago, a large network of ancient pilgrim routes, that come together at the tomb of St. James (Santiago in Spanish) in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. The other name for that famous walk across France and Spain is called Camino Primitivo meaning “the Original Way”.
Our shared idea of the Camino, like any pilgrimage, is not just to reach the destination, but to be changed by the journey. David Whyte’s poem Santiago is about that.
I have embedded a link above. It is a stirringly beautiful piece that speaks the truth of the human soul in a way that no words of mine could do justice to. Every time I listen to that poem, I am reminded that we are supposed to feel lost at times. If you are walking on your own path, following a journey that is truly your own, you will feel lost at times.
If the way you are walking is well-sign-posted, well-lit, smooth, straight and without obstacles, I can assure you that you are not headed anywhere meaningful and that this is not your journey. If you are always certain where you are and which way you are heading, you simply cannot be treading new ground. The reason you are on a journey in the first place was never to hurry towards a familiar destination, or even to simply arrive there. Secretly you always wanted your journey to change you along the way. Feeling lost is an essential part of that.
ENCOURAGEMENT
Some days the best medicine is not to do more. Feeling lost is a feeling, and your feelings, your emotions, are requests—like a kind of messenger that needs to be received and listened to with some care and then released on its way.
Your feelings are always asking for some form of action or expression, but certain emotions like feeling lost, crumble the house of your spirit and leave you feeling exactly like you have no idea what to say much less what to do. Fortunately ‘Stance’ is how you face any moment that embodies the essence of doing and expression without having to do or express anything.
Here is an earlier post on Stance:
The two stances I encourage you to try on, are Equanimity and Pronoia.
Equanimity is not indifference, or some naïve version of Stoicism where you become detached from outcomes and feelings. It is simply the reasonable perspective that says you can never judge the whole journey from one blind corner you are stuck in. This is not to say you should be passive and unmotivated to find your way forward, but rather that drama and alarm are never helpful. To practice equanimity means nothing more than to remain open and curious. Sometimes you get stuck because you have been having the conversation of the journey in a way that cannot carry you forward any longer. Sometimes you actually have to stop and lose the path you were on.
Life kindly says ‘no’ to us a thousand times before we stop knocking for a ‘yes’ outside the wrong door.
This brings up the second stance, of Pronoia.
Pronoia is the positive counterpart of paranoia. It is the useful belief that the Universe and Life conspire to do us great favour. I cannot prove it to be true, but it is always going to make better sense to treat all of life as a meaningful adventure, to consider what the moment is asking you. It is always going to behove you to ask how you might see the invitation to growth and a sense of opportunity in every circumstance, no less the negative ones. Understanding pronoia and acting as if it were true, has no downsides. It is not a child’s fantasy. It is the prerogative of the leader. It isn’t blind optimism either. Assuming opportunity to even negative things is the recipe for defining purpose, and how we create meaning from our lives.
The journey of your life is like a conversation, which always goes somewhere you did not expect, otherwise it would not be a real conversation. Sometimes the language you are holding that conversation in is too small for the dream that is trying to awaken in the world through you.
Practicing a stance of Equanimity looks something like this:
Simply begin again.
I start from where I am with what I know. As soon as I know better, I do better.
Whatever I am certain of today, can give way to better understanding tomorrow.
My current limits are not my permanent limitations.
Practicing a stance of Pronoia looks something like this:
Trust the stuckness. Stuckness is never a punishment, it is the universe’s way of inviting me to a deeper form of presence and self-care, which so often requires a deeper form of surrender than I am used to practising.
Stuckness and feeling lost is an opportunity, not to scramble and find your way forward—it is an invitation to stop and reconnect with your own centre, your own source of direction and orientation in the world—your own reservoir of vitality. So often when you feel lost, you are actually just overwhelmed and tired.
Rest is a necessary part of movement. Regression is a necessary part of growth. Every wave you ride becomes a wave you make. Every regression you ride out with equanimity and pronoia sets you up for an acceleration forward.
Allow yourself to be less than your best. None of us live at our peak all the time, we all ebb and flow in a cadence, so when the pendulum is swinging back to wind up, let it, and ride the return, on your own terms.
No heroics. Just steadiness and timing.
You’ve got this.
Just be like this today: “Today I am okay with feeling lost. ”
If you need guidance on deepening and integrating these practices, book a free session with me, it will be an investment in yourself.
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This is fantastic Rocco.
Rocco you and David Whyte have really managed to stir up my insides as this feeling of being lost is not just a small moment, but just a way of being. It’s a tormenting place from which to live life …