Navigating Uncertainty – gaining perspective

The first of a three part blog from discussions between Helen Green, Jane Bytheway, Julie Barnes and Lise Ribeiro from Oasis School of Human Relations in response to the unusual way 2020 unfolded. We share these blogs to raise questions and what we have learnt.

As a small group of Oasis School of Human Relations Associates, we have been talking about our own experiences of navigating uncertainty during 2020 and reflecting on what we are learning about it and about ourselves. Our common and different experiences showed us that we are not alone, even where our perspectives and beliefs vary widely, and that what inspires one of us can bring learning and hope to others. So we are sharing this collaboration with you – not to bring answers but to stimulate thinking and hope.

What can we ever depend on? What do we ever know for sure? Isn’t life always uncertain, bringing unexpected joys and sorrows, and often when we are least prepared for them? At the beginning of 2021, as we look back on a year of profound uncertainty, here is an opportunity to reflect on what we have learned for ourselves.  

How have we met the crisis of spiralling climate change, the interminable US election that was, and, above all, COVID19, which has brought the world to a standstill, killed over a million people and changed all our lives. The pandemic has raised new dilemmas about our rights, rules and risks even down to who we see, where we go and who we can touch. What uncertainties have we met and what have we learned about navigating them and about ourselves in the process?

We shared our common experience of the strain and weariness of navigating uncertainty continuously:

·       The inner cost of struggling to make good decisions in a changing context where personal wishes confront personal risk and government imposed regulations. Weighing risks, breaking rules, being caught breaking rules. Can I see my family or is the risk too great?

·       The impact of uncertainty held in our bodies – areas of tightness or dis-ease – managing processes largely out of our control, meeting deadlines, working with others in whose hands we are placing our destiny. How can I co-ordinate everything when it will all be different again tomorrow?

·       A sense of the known road running out – the anxiety of how to act and be when you can’t see the road in front of you.  How to decide on the best path when you can’t see what is ahead?  How can we manage everyone’s different needs and expectations? How to plan when planning seems impossible?

·       Adapting to change only for it to be disrupted by the next shift or two - how to live in a discordant rhythm of disruption, adaptation and change?

Uncertainty shakes us to the core – things we thought we knew are turned upside down.  Decisions made easily before, become clunky and hard.  Choices become limited and hardly choices at all.  Our previously reliable signposts no longer fit; fear stands in the shadows.  When we are confronted by such doubts and indecision to what can we turn?  Facing our fears is just the start.

This poem speaks of the fear of letting go of what we know and of what we will lose.  We cannot even imagine what we might gain, or become.  In the bleakness of our uncertainty, can we surrender and embrace the unknown? Can we trust what lies ahead? If we are even willing to listen to such ideas, what will support us in this new place?

It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has travelled, from the peaks of

the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there

seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river cannot go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean, because only then will fear disappear, because that's where  the river  will know it's not about disappearing into the ocean,  but of becoming the ocean.

Khalil Gibran

As we shared our personal stories, we noticed what sustains us in navigating uncertainty and even more, what helps us to survive and thrive. We focused on:

1.       Knowing what really matters to us - grounding ourselves in our own beliefs, values and priorities

2.       Embracing discomfort

3.       Seeking certainty within uncertainty – what can we rely on?

4.       Understanding our choices and our decisions

5.       Knowing what comforts and supports us

6.       The power of hope

Our discussions on each of these lessons can be found in a separate post, If uncertainty is sent to teach us … what are it’s lessons?