“Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty.” Brene Brown
In preparation for offering a workshop about “Tending Fear”, I’ve been exploring the concept of uncertainty as a function of my humanity. We humans like to believe we are in control of our own lives and our immediate environment. The first months of the COVID pandemic were a shock to our collective system because it confronted us with how little control we actual have. As we made our way out of the lockdown phase, we were able to delude ourselves into thinking we had regained some control.
What actually happened is that life regained some predictability. Another part of our humanity is that we gravitate toward predictability. It’s soothing to think we know what’s happening next.
When we don’t know what happens next, we feel unsettled and disrupted. Our brains interpret this feeling as “impending disaster”. This is what we experience as fear, and all of its more nuanced emotions—anxiety, dread, etc.
This quote from Brene Brown invites me to look at fear through a different lens. One of the foundational elements in the spiritual tradition I now embrace is remembering to look for the Law of Three.
Here I see curiosity, vulnerability and uncertainty in a dance.
Curiosity invites us to embrace uncertainty which connects us with our vulnerability.
Uncertainty invites us to embrace our vulnerability by being curious.
Vulnerability reminds us of all that we don’t know (uncertainty) which invites us to be curious.
We can’t truly meet any one of these feelings without the other two.
We can’t be vulnerable without embracing uncertainty and curiosity.
If we try to manage uncertainty without vulnerability, we lose curiosity.
Curiosity is impossible without accepting uncertainty and vulnerability.
I love the interplay among these three.
How beautiful is it that two uncomfortable experiences, vulnerability and uncertainty, are in play with curiosity. In fact, curiosity can help us reframe our uncertainty in playful (or at least less doom-laden) terms, which makes the sense of vulnerability easier to bear.
It isn’t easy to pay attention to feelings of fear and vulnerability. Our habit is to do whatever we can to sidestep our vulnerability and to solidify that which feels uncertain or unknown.
This is how the systems of theology came about. When confronted with the great Mystery, humans wanted to feel some certainty about what they encountered, so they began codifying their understanding. Unfortunately trying to confine the Mystery within human definitions restricts that Mystery to what we are able to (or willing) to understand. Mystery will always spill out beyond the boundaries we set, then invite us to follow.
The Truth is that we can only honour the Mystery in so far as we are willing to tolerate the uncertainty of all we cannot define. As we do the work of making room for the unknown, and tending the vulnerabilty that arises, we are met with an overflowing abundance of Love.
This is my guiding light in my inner work, in tending all the uncertainties and vulnerabilities of my own heart. Love is as real as the sunshine and as durable as the earth. Held within that Love, I can turn toward my fear, my shame, and all of my uncomfortable emotions with curiosity, and listen for the wisdom they can bring me. The deeper I go into the unknown of my own being, the more I discover about my own worth and wisdom, and the more I encounter the Love of the All.
It is not easy work. I could to do it without the support of my spiritual community, and constant help from the world of Spirit.
Curiosity, uncertainty and vulnerability … together, they dance me into growing my soul.
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