What if something astonishing is trying to emerge from our uncertain times?
How 'What if...?' can help us relax into the unknown with curiosity and grace
Friends, as I wrote about last time (here), our curiosity and threat detection systems co-evolved together — like a gas pedal and brake — paired to help us navigate uncertainty. Fear/anxiety keeps us safe from danger; and curiosity keeps us growing. In an uncertain world where we don’t have much control over external events (e.g., everything from Omicron to when cream cheese will be back on grocery shelves), this week’s post explores: How can we learn to relax into the unknown? In short: Ask curious questions. Merry Everything, M.
For the last two years, we as a human species have been sitting in a big ol’ pot of uncertainty stew. It’s been simmering us, and breaking down the sinew of our resistance (and reserves for that matter). Problem is that we don’t know if we’re being pressure cooked Instant Pot style, or if this is an indefinite simmer on the stove. …and our nervous systems hate not knowing how long our cooking time is.
Our nervous systems love predictability and certainty.
When bubbling in uncertainty, our nervous systems — below the level of conscious awareness — do what they learned through evolution: to unleash a time-tested cascade of hormones with a dash of vigilance to help us mobilize in the face of potential threat.
And as we’ve all come to experience, it’s exhausting to sit in a stew of stress hormones and digest heaps of the unknown. Our bodies crave clarity about the future the same way we crave food, water, and other primary rewards because it feels so essential to survival. So our bodies keep us tunnel-vision focused on seeking certainty.
But sometimes it’s just not possible to have answers. So uncertainty often feels harder, and is definitely more exhausting, than something terrible actually happening to us.
When I look back at this past two years through this nervous system lens, I see many of the puzzling behaviors that have popped up in myself and the culture with far greater compassion:
Fight: doubling down on security (e.g., stockpiling toilet paper), control and resisting control (everything from masks to abortion rights), or prematurely pushing for clarity or action (e.g., trying to seek out as much information as we can because we believe it’ll help us metabolize uncertainty, setting firm dates for returning to the office);
Flight: retreating to the simplicity of the past (e.g., make America great again), industries that promise easy answers (e.g., management consulting, conspiracy theories, fundamentalism), or our minds (e.g., intellectualizing to create distance from uncomfortable emotions); &/or
Freeze: disconnecting from reality (e.g., ignoring our own needs for rest, climate denial) or numbing (e.g., via work, doom-scrolling, substances, or Netflix).
These are all just different flavors of the fear response — manifesting in different ways in different bodies. But we’re all the same in one fundamental way: we’re all trying to keep ourselves and loved ones safe.
If our biological default is to fear the unknown, how can we change gears out of auto-pilot and lead from a place of greater perspective and trust?
First, recognize the nervous system state we’re in. In geeky nervous system terms, ask: are we in sympathetic activation (fight/flight), parasympathetic withdrawal or disconnection (freeze), or parasympathetic safety & connection (regulation)?
Second, develop strategies to regularly return to regulation — where we can rest and digest long enough to metabolize accumulated stress hormones / unfelt emotions, and complete the stress cycle (as I’ve written about here).
Third, realize there are other pathways available to us to help us prepare for the future, without activating the stress of the threat response. And as I wrote about last post, one of the fastest ways to do this is curiosity.
When we pause to ask “what if…?” questions, we break out of the straight-jacket of fear and immediately put ourselves in the context of much wider vistas. We drop the threat-driven tunnel vision and consciously re-engage our “higher” brain (aka the prefrontal cortex). We neurologically change tracks out of survival mode, and switch into curiosity-led growth.
So…
What if we’re not stuck? What if we’re in the middle of an astonishing paradigm shift unlike anything we’ve ever seen?
What if the challenges of these times are secretly our greatest allies trying to break us out of a dysfunctional status quo? …and leading us toward an extraordinary future?
It’s humbling to stew in these questions. But when I wonder, I relax into the unknown.
I’d love to hear your thoughts or ‘What if' questions in the comments!
Melissa’s Reading & Watch List
What’s giving me hope?
That we can learn to befriend our nervous system
Over the last 10-15 years, polyvagal theory — which understands the nervous system as composed of 3 distinct branches (as I referenced above) — has helped modern science and psychology take a quantum leap in helping us learn how to bring our nervous system back into regulation. It has revolutionized my understanding of the body under stress, and what leadership requires in these turbulent times. If you’d like to go deeper into the science, check out this 1 hour podcast with Deb Dana (who also has a new book called Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System).
What’s making me curious?
The Q: Who knows what is good or bad? (2 min, YouTube)
You’ve probably heard the Chinese fable that asks this timeless curious question. I’ve thought of it often in recent years. And if you’ve never heard it (or want to hear Alan Watts retell it), it’s worth watching as a meditation on these times!
What’s making me laugh?
Omicron Xmas in a nutshell…
And in case you missed it…
This was the piece I had the most fun writing this year:
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