This is an excerpt from Thriving through Uncertainty: Moving Beyond Fear of the Unknown and Making Change Work for You By Tama Kieves…
You may feel like things are challenging at this moment in your life. But let’s get this straight right now. It’s not because you’re failing, or broken.
The Doorway
You’re standing at the doorway. On one side of the door, you can decide that life has not turned out the way you desire. It’s unfair. It’s too hard. Maybe the same thing keeps happening to you—or not happening.
You might feel anxious or discouraged. You don’t have real money. Stable true love. The recognition or freedom you deserve. It almost works out sometimes—but then it rains. The job is taken away.
Part of you knows, it doesn’t have to be this way.
This is a life that is “happening to you.” This perspective denies your own power. I am not demeaning your feelings of frustration. It’s just that I have something more useful in mind.
You can walk through this doorway.
You may have to crawl. You may need to breathe deeper than you have ever breathed. You may do it while kicking stones and cans in resentment, but doing it nonetheless, giving yourself a shot. You may have to grow. You may have to choose to do things in a way that you have never done them before. You may have to become a superhero in your own lifetime.
I want you to step into the life you didn’t plan. I want you to loosen up on your control over everything you think needs to happen.
Everything that hasn’t exactly worked out in your life brought you to this wooden doorstep. It is the doorstep of willingness. It is a precipice. It is an adventure. It is a cliff. It is a choice. It is time to unlock your powers or your destiny. Congrats, you’ve arrived.
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Uncertainty is your new best friend. It will help you discover your certainty. It will help you reach for freedom. Because when you let go of your plan, you open to a powerful path, the path of being led. It’s the beginning of your True Life, the one of following your inspired instincts instead of your fear.
This takes courage. Or desperation. Or curiosity. Or ambivalence. I don’t care how you get here. Let’s just do this. Let’s begin in this second. Let’s give life a new chance. It’s the only life you have. I’d say bet your life on it.
You are growing beyond where you have been. Your life isn’t diminishing. Your old life is diminishing. Your True Life is expanding. It’s roaring for your love and commitment.You may think you’re stuck. I’d say you’re standing at a threshold.
Things change when you decide to thrive
Where is uncertainty creating discomfort for you? Making you feel small? Or making you play small in your life? That’s where you’re getting fooled. You’re letting the circumstances of your life define who you are.
Oh, but butterfly-grasshopper-lover of transformation, you are here to define (or redefine) your circumstances. You are the storyteller in your life. And you are here to live a Great Story with a happy middle, as well as a happy ending.
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Because as you show up for your true desires, life shows up for you. You feel alive when you show up. You feel flattened and hollow when you don’t. You may have your “reasons.” But it doesn’t matter. Anything that keeps you from showing up, is poison.
Why do some people keep going? Why do some people come up with creative angles that immediately get attention? Why do some people meet the right connection? Or bounce back from setbacks? Find the right doctor? Get funding? Meet that incredible partner? Get the breaks? Enjoy where they are, no matter the circumstance?
They have mastered the art of showing up with love for their lives. Acting with love. Choosing with love. Glowing. Having that something extra. They are not forcing their lives. They are discovering them. Working with their own spirit, instead of against it.
I’m sensitive this way, because I have almost given up or settled, lost my own fight to anxieties and frustration too many times. And it’s unbearable to me to think of the life I would have missed—and I so don’t want you to miss the life that is calling to you.
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I know what it’s like to have everything change and to have to make up your life out of thin air and fight back tumultuous fears to do it. It took a different voice within me to create a different life.
I just couldn’t find my way in the world. I had to find myself first. I found myself by learning how to listen to a loving voice inside myself. It’s been a quantum shift in how I think and approach everything in life. When I began, I thought I was just going through a massive career transition. But that career transition turned out to be an identity transformation. It’s been a spiritual pilgrimage of shedding old, limiting, and “rational” beliefs. I couldn’t have a different life until I realized I was so much more than who I thought I was. We all are.
I’ve now been a career, life, and success coach for almost 30 years. I’ve also worked with thousands in workshops and retreats. Having sat with individuals at the frontiers of their most pressing moments in relationships, work, health, true desire, grief, and everything else, I know firsthand the pivotal difference it makes when we change how we see our possibilities.
You have a process
If you’re in transition–the things you decide right now will affect your entire life. And because you’re going through change, you feel more vulnerable. And when you’re feeling weak, it’s possible to make weaker choices than you really want to make. I want to help you choose from strength, love and the astounding guidance of your inspired mind. Because when your plans fail, that’s when your real life begins. This is a precious opportunity to create the life that is calling your name right now.
Fears and resistance will talk you out of showing up for yourself in every way you can. But it is showing up for yourself that will end your pain.
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My yoga teacher Jen once said, “You think you are hitting obstacles on your path. But the obstacles are your path.” Now of course she’s a yoga instructor and specializes in stretching people into physical torture for a living, while she shares philosophy, so there’s that. But I’ve shared this same wisdom with my clients: whatever is in your way, is your way. Because your life is your life. It’s not an accident. It’s a miracle.
If you and I were working one-on-one together, I would assure you, you have a path. It’s already within you. It’s better than you imagine. In fact, it’s so much better, you can’t imagine it. It’s time to follow your innate intelligence,encour instead of doubt it.
You’re not just going to shift your circumstances. You’re about to shift your identity. You may be thinking, that’s great but can I pay the mortgage? Can I help my son stop drinking? Can I find a publicist for my work? Can I find another job? And I will tell you, yes you can. This and more.
Albert Einstein said “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” It’s time to realize you don’t have a problem. You have a process. You are in transformation. And that means you’re moving forward into the next, best part of your life.
Every circumstance you are in is a chosen conversation designed for your good. There is a scent to follow. The wind is pushing you in the right direction or whispering what is necessary. The rain is a wild unfettered priest dousing your existence in holy water. Everything is in your favor. The moments of realizing this are worth a lifetime. Really, it’s one thing to be alive. It is a whole other thing to be awake.
This is what it means to thrive through uncertainty. This what it means to show up for your life. Walk through this door.
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