How to Use Confusion as a Growth Tool (even when it doesn’t feel good)

I’ve put writing this blog off, even through loud and clear guidance to do so, until the very last on-tap item of the day because I’m that frightened.

“What if he reads this? Nah he knows better than to read your stuff. But what if? Would it freak him out? Or anyone else for that matter? And should you really be divulging the weird, magical, and unconventional details of your personal life to the public? I mean, you serve entrepreneurs and business people and people of age groups and walks of life that might prefer to have a more subdued perception of your love life. Do they really need to hear this, Jordanna?!”

If I didn’t recognize those words running through my head as coming from the very same thing that led me to writing this for you in the first place, they could have stopped me.

Do they sound familiar?

They’re the kind of words that render you speechless through the mixed emotions of your heart and spirit, leaving you feeling void of clarity, but filled with feeling.

Is the feeling enough to fill you up? Do you even need the clarity anyway?

Three months ago, I broke up with someone. It wasn’t just any relationship or any man. It was a man I had had visions and dreams of for 3 years prior; a man who I recognized the moment we first locked eyes; a man who I had no trouble moving to a different country with, without a word; a man who soon after, woke up to the same realization and did everything in his power to prepare himself to be ready to commit to me.

That is, until our connection led him down rabbit hole of growth that catalyzed a shattering of his sense of self into a million pieces.

At which point, we both became clear and surrendered to the recognition that he had to walk his path alone.

I’m quite familiar with the Pandora’s box of grief and joy, sadness and trust, anger and gratitude that a loss like this can create. And so I embraced the flow and processing of deep feels, and I soon found myself feeling free of any confusion or question of “why” around our experience.

I soon found further peace when my visions began to gently sweep back in. Only this time, though they looked and felt like the same man, it was clear to me they were someone different — the “beloved” I’ve known in my heart would eventually be there waiting. Not because my mind wanted to create one, but because he was the one that had always been there; had always occupied this space within my heart.

“Ahhh so I’ve been seeing two different men for the last 3 years?!” I realized. “It all makes so much sense!”

I am the farthest thing you could meet from the type of woman to crave a puffy white dress, a white picket fence, or a happily ever after. I have, however, always stood in complete and utter clarity around aspects of future layers of time in my life that, for whatever reason, I can just sense clearly are a part of my path.

I know better than to try to figure out why I need to know these things, but I can stand powerfully in my awareness of their truth as much as any other part of my past or present.

And I’ve always found so much peace in surrendering to these “knowings” for my life.

Until last week — when my world began to be rocked.

On Wednesday, I had a beautiful conversation with said previous partner, in which we both felt even more gratitude for each other and an increased sense of closure and peace with where we’ve been and where we are now. And on Thursday, my perception was cracked wide open.

Over the course of 3 days, with 3 separate people, in 3 very different situations, I received guidance, messages, and flat out in-your-face signs that maybe, just maybe, my beloved to be is not a new man, but a 2.0 version of the very same man I released 3 months ago.

I found this interesting. And at first, I had no trouble just being with the possibility of this as a, “maybe yes, maybe no, but right now I’m just so not concerned about it” scenario.

Until today. Today, when I was stupid enough to look at his Facebook feed — only to find pictures of him that show how quickly he’s growing and changing, how much more he’s already beginning to look like that 2.0 version of himself that just so happens to look freakishly like the man from my most recent and most powerful visions.

I was thrown for a loop. It took me into an emotional tailspin of confusion, sadness, curiosity, grief and loss. One that seemed completely counterintuitive to the peace and trust I had felt before it all hit.

As I sat with the confusion today, I was reminded of the perfection of confusion itself.

In confusion lies curiosity. It cracks and holds us wide open. It takes us up to the face of a big old sense of “hmmmm” that, when truly surrendered to, lets us dive deeper into the ocean of possibility that will grow and shape us.

And that’s what it’s all about — the growing and the shaping. So today I bring to you four tips to use confusion to shape you, instead of driving you batty.

1. Just let it be.
It’s not the mind#%&@ of the confusion that’s the hard part. It’s what happens when we allow our minds to run rampant with the ifs, ands, and buts that it gets difficult.

Allow the many thoughts and feelings within the confusion be exactly what they are, and nothing else. It’s when we try to make them more than that, try to “solve” them or make sense of it all that our minds run wild and we become overwhelmed with thought.

2. Feel, and feel some more.
When our bodies get overwhelmed with feeling, they tend to shut down. But you have the power to grow your capacity to feel, and through doing so, your capacity to heal old wounds you may not have even been aware were still there. So the best thing you can do for yourself when hit by overwhelm is to slow down and feel it all.

We sometimes mistake the physical feeling of contraction as a sign to stay caught in the wound-up-ness — feeding into it with a wound-up mind or wound-up behaviors or actions. But most often, your body’s contraction is just a sign that it is being hit by rampant fire of feeling receptors, one after another, going off like a firecracker of feels.

3. Forget about the future and focus on the now.
Overwhelm is more a state of mind than anything else. Though you may feel it in your body, it is the perception of it in the mind that makes it so hard to be with. When you’re faced with confusion, it will do you no good to try to predict the future, or get caught up in various possibilities of it.

The only place you have to feel is in the present moment. The only place you have to find peace is right here, right now. So leave the future to show itself to you in due time, and come back to the gratitude, presence, and relishing of this present moment that’s available to you right now.

4. Feed the future with love.
Being in the present doesn’t prevent you from being able to intentionally and consciously create the future. Once you are completely at peace with what you have now, and completely unattached to anything, especially as it pertains to the original onslaught of confusion, you’re ready for this step.

In this peace, allow yourself free reign to dive into intention setting, journaling, visioning, or whatever helps you consciously create your truest desires. Bringing yourself back to the purity of your desires will help you to see beyond the original confusion and into the perfection of your divinely co-created present and future.