Uncertainty as Possibility

During this time of great turbulence, what if you took curiosity by the hand and pondered over your potential for growth? Clinical psychologist Dr Rebecca Ray invites you to consider what’s possible for you as you navigate this crisis and shares her powerful prompts for self-reflection.

In a time of all of us collectively experiencing the world through an unknown lens, uncertainty, anxiety and overwhelm are pervasive.

The world looks different. Our daily lives have been turned upside down. We are required to do things we’ve never done before and stop doing things we took for granted just a couple of weeks ago.

I see you if you’re sick and suffering in any way.

I see you if you’re standing paralysed in the storm of it all, trying to pick your jaw up from the floor.

I see you if fear has taken over the wheel of your life and hijacked your emotional GPS.

I see you if you’re seeking control in a flurry of ‘I’ve got this!’ action.

I see you if you don’t have a choice other than to do so much more now than you have time or energy to do.

I see you if you’re being swallowed by an all-consuming barrage of what-ifs.

I see you if you’re feeling calm because trauma is part of your history and you’re all-too familiar with chaos and crisis.  

I see you if you don’t know how to do today, or tomorrow, or the next.

I see you if you don’t know how to do today, or tomorrow, or the next.

We are in this darkened time together, connected by a string of fairy lights shining with hope, patience, kindness, gratitude and love.

And it’s here that I have an invitation for you, lovely one: I want to invite you to consider what’s possible for you in this landscape. If uncertainty was renamed possibility, how would you show up differently?

To do this fully, in the most self-compassionate way, we first need acknowledgement. Please take a moment to recognise and embrace any parts of you that are scared, grieving, shocked, puzzled, overwhelmed, frustrated and stuck in scarcity. Give a voice to these parts of you. What do they need from you? If you were to show leadership to yourself, what reassurance and validation would you give?

It’s from this place, that we can move forward – not away from the emotions, but with them held gently within as part of our present experience.

Then, we take curiosity by the hand and look to what’s possible.

My invitation to you is to make use of the white space in your world right now to explore yourself, your life, your relationships and your roles. 

My invitation to you is to make use of the white space in your world right now to explore yourself, your life, your relationships and your roles. 

I want to offer you some guiding questions to help scaffold this self-inquiry, because possibility is a powerful entry point to changing your experience, if you allow yourself to dive in without judgement and self-censorship.

1. What is your relationship with rest and doing less?
2. How could you best support yourself right now?
3. If you were to surrender to not knowing and allow it to be what it is, how might your experience change?
4. Where could you connect more deeply, and with whom, right now?
5. What have you been putting off making, creating, or doing, that could be brought into your world now?
6. Where are you resisting taking personal responsibility? If you were to show up for yourself and your community, what would that look like?
7. What (or who) have you realised that you’ve been taking for granted?
8. What are you grateful for?
9. If you turned your anxiety into action, who could you help right now?
10. Where have you been allowing yourself to catch the negative energy projected onto you? What would it look like to shield yourself from that as much as possible?
11. If you led with love and courage right now, what would you start doing? What would you stop doing?
12. Where are you waiting to give yourself permission?
13. What kind of energy are you contributing to your family, your community and the world at large?
14. What is your contribution going to be during this time?

May this invitation into possibility unveil the richness waiting for you in this experience. As always, go gently, lovely one. I’m with you.