embrace your confusion

quote on label:
Let there be peace in not knowing all the answers.
~Cheryl Richardson

 

color: light green with swirls of aqua and black
scent: sage and honeydew melon
gemstones: citrine, amethyst

 

In some ways it's easy for me to dwell in the unknown; to openly admit I don't know something. I'll never forget being interviewed years ago for the Creative Services Manager position at Corbis. It was a late winter afternoon, already dark outside, and I didn't even know what a Creative Services Manager was beyond a really cool title. Partway through the interview I ran out of mental steam. The hiring manager posed one of those complex how-would-you-handle-this scenarios using marketing terminology way over my head. I froze. Should I bullshit my way through? I looked at her, exhaled, and said "I don't know. I'd have to ask for help." I was hired on the spot.

 

It's a whole 'nuther story when it comes to my inner life. My handling of personal confusion runs the gamut from shaky acceptance to full-fledged freak-outs. As I write this in April 2005, I'm experiencing changes, questions and bloomings so profound I cannot even name them. I'm mystified, confused and easily disoriented, like I'm wandering the halls of a strange building with low-watt hints and whispers lighting the way. For months I sought answers. Like any do-er I wanted to understand so I could TAKE ACTION! But no matter what I try, despite my grumbles and begging, the confusion won't budge. Something wiser than my mind is allowing my state of not-knowing to be exactly what, how and where it needs to be: quiet, gestating, unfolding, being.

 

So I've begun practicing acceptance of this uncertainty. Allowing confusion to be my present truth vs. a condition to override. Surrendering to what is. "Confusion is the highest state because it comes just before knowing," wrote Suzuki. May this candle help us comfortably settle into accepting our confused open spaces, knowing they hold, at the very least, possibility. And God.