Relaxing into the unknown

Now, I’m going to talk about relaxing into the unknown as a skill in the context of coaching or counseling or in any helping profession. But please know that this skill is certainly applicable for anyone who wants to be a more effective communicator in the world.

Relaxing into the unknown may be one of the more difficult things that one can do as a human being. So it will naturally follow that this might be one of the more difficult things we could do as a helping professional.

Here’s what I mean:

Life comes at us with a lot of surprises.

As far as we can tell, life is not pre-scripted, and we don’t always know the outcomes. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. We don’t know when we’re going to get tired, sick, diseased when we’ll lose the weight when we’ll make more money, get a better job, find the perfect partner when the stock market will be more favorable to us – we really don’t know a whole heck of a lot in terms of what life is going to do next.

Life is a series of unknowns.

Each moment unfolds into the next and there’s no predicting what the next moment might bring.

A lot of people feel stuck, and they have no idea when they’ll get unstuck.

A lot of people are in pain, and they don’t know when that pain will go away.

A lot of people are depressed, and they don’t know when the sun will shine for them again.

A lot of people have eating challenges, and they don’t know when or how those challenges will resolve.

A lot of people have all kinds of health symptoms, and have no idea why those symptoms are there, or how to send them on their way.

So when a client comes to us, it’s useful to silently admit to ourselves, and to the wisdom of life, that we really aren’t sure what we’re doing. You might be confident, you might have years of experience, or not – but in either case – there is no certainty. There is no sure guarantee that we can guarantee anyone that we can absolutely help them.

There is no surefire way that we can make someone lose weight, take away their eating issue, or help them have more energy and love their body.

Welcome to uncertainty.

The Zen masters of old would often call this “the wisdom of don’t know.”

There is actually a beautiful wisdom in relaxing into the fact that we don’t know.

This isn’t an admission of weakness. It’s not an acknowledgment of stupidity. It’s in no way self-deprecating. It’s a simple statement of human cosmic truth. We’re telling it like it is. We’re being honest with ourselves, and with the Universe.

And from that place, we can relax, smile, sink into our body, sink into the moment, and actually show up for our client.

From that place, we can drop our ego, we can leave behind our agenda, and we can actually be present and listen to the person who is sitting in front of us.

From this place, we’re more humble.

That levels the playing field.

It’s honest.

It’s real.

And it completely changes the game and it brings our clients into a relationship that’s based on responsibility, as opposed to our client relying on us to fix them.

So, it’s time for each one of us as practitioners – and as people – to get comfortable being in the unknown.

Relax into it.

Celebrate it.

Welcome it.

The more we relax into the mystery of every session and every moment with our client, the more wisdom and insight can come through.

Relaxing into the unknown beautifully sets the table for knowledge to reveal itself.

Of course, this is one of the many, many strategies that we teach here at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating in our premier professional program – our Eating Psychology Coach Certification Training.

I hope this was helpful, my friends.

Warmly,

Marc David