Anxious Openings

I see the Opening before me. It makes me uneasy. What is it about? How will it change my life? How am I to make it through?

Presence of the Unknown

We often come back to the presence of the unknown in this blog. It is part of our existence and is not going away. The rub is that the unknown is difficult for us to deal with. We can lose our steadiness and stability. We are faced with making decisions without any certainty regarding potential outcomes of our choices. We take a leap into an unknown, knowing only that our leap will bring changes to our life.

In Lynn Andrews’ book Crystal Woman she writes about her work with her teachers in the Australian outback. She decided to create a sand painting of her life. She gathered color sands to do so. As she worked, she saw her life in front of her. She had been working on the painting for a few days when one of her teachers came in and walked right through the painting, scattering it. She was upset and asked her teacher why she had done this.

Her teacher replied that by  leaving the unknown out of her painting, she showed a lack of honor for what she cannot see. Lynn got it. She had represented many areas of her life but had no representation of the unknown. She took some black sand and made wavy black lines through her painting to represent the presence of the unknown in her life.

Facing Anxious Openings

Anxious Openings are uncertain ones. They can make us uneasy and apprehensive. Often, they contain unknown elements, but still beckon us to choose whether to enter them. We may face an Opening that involves moving to a new place that we do not know much about. We can explore and learn about the area, but we do not have solid experience of what our life will be like there.

Dealing with fear helps us in facing anxious Openings. There is a definition of fear that captures it well. “Fear is an emotional reaction to a future event that may or may not happen, with you focused on a negative outcome. I look at fear as negatively focused uncertainty. (John Davis). It helps us in so many areas of our lives to learn how to perceive and handle our fear. Accepting the presence of the unknown in our lives, rather than fearing it, is a big step towards successfully facing anxious Openings.

We will be facing anxious Openings throughout our lives. Best to acknowledge their presence and find ways to deal with them with courage and persistence. We can examine our responses to Openings that leave us facing the unknown or bring up our fear. We can search for ways to handle our fear and accept the presence of the unknown in our lives. Ways to deal with anxious Openings are out there. We will not have to go far to find them.