Dropping into confusion 

Opening into the mystery

Confusion is a gift.  When was the last time you embraced it?  Most of us are fighting tooth and nail to do anything and everything possible to not feel confused.  We make up elaborate stories that seem ordinary to us about who we are and the way the world works and then we believe those stories, not ever questioning if they are actually true or not.  Those stories make us feel safe, secure and like we know what the heck is going on.  There is no way in hell we want to ever let those stories go because if we did then what?  What would we know… who would we be… would we be able to stand the pure state of knowing absolutely nothing about anything?  

I have found that almost no one that I’ve ever met enjoys confusion.  It seems as if everyone has a hate relationship with it.  For some confusion seems to makes them feel scared, for others like a failure or worthless, and still others depressed, hopeless and powerless.  There are all kinds of ways we compensate for our lack of knowing and strategies we use to avoid confusion altogether.  Some people keep themselves as busy as possible so that they never have time to notice that they have no idea what’s really going on.  Others get angry, defensive or attempt to prove themselves with whits and smarts when challenged with confusion.  Some attempt to control themselves or their circumstances to no avail.  Many people look outside of themselves to other people to tell them what’s going on, as if some other confused person knows more then they do.  

Pretty much no one stops and revels in the mystery that confusion brings.  Even fewer seem to make it to the pure delight and freedom that allowing complete confusion provides.  Why is it that we grip, tense and try to figure out with our thinking minds everything we sense, feel or experience?  Why is it so hard to simply be, not have a clue, and be ok with not knowing what things, sensations or feelings mean or how to get to the next place?  What if things don’t actually mean anything at all and what if there is no next place to get too?  I invite the perspective here that the purpose of life is not to figure it all out or plot and plan the next phase of it, but instead to simply be and experience it.  

Submerged in the mystery 

Going beyond ordinary

Within the mystery, the not known, lives the non-ordinary.  The non-ordinary is full of aliveness, energy, bliss and total freedom.  Most of us are super hungry for this and are trying to “get there”, but the thing is that our minds don’t know how to navigate within that place, which is why we must get comfortable within confusion.  We must learn how to relax into and with confusion rather than resist it and try to figure it out.  “Figuring it out” will bring us back into the ordinary and although we may have a sense of perceived safety and ok-ness in that, no growth or learning occurs, instead just more of the same ordinariness that is familiar to us.

Confusion always means that you are being presented with an opportunity to grow and learn beyond what you currently have learned you are, yet most people perceive it as an indication that they are lost and moving in the wrong direction.  Rather than seeing confusion as an obstacle that must be conquered or as a sign that you are moving backwards, see it as the most precious gift and an indication of forward movement as that is what it truly is.  Don’t attempt to alleviate it, but instead invite it, include it, allow it.  Open into its pure unknowingness and stay there.  Soak it in.  

Fears may arise.  Doubt may arise.  The need to know may arise.  Simple let it and recognize it as it does.  When you can recognize the fears, doubts and uncertainty you become less merged with them and can further submerge yourself into the mystery of the unknown.  With continued practice and diligence those fears will loosen their grip on you.  It is only through being present in the mystery that the mystery can reveal itself to you.  Use every experience of confusion as an opportunity to dive further into the mysterious unknown as this is the place of magic, wonder and enchantment.  It is where you get to experience yourself beyond what you think you are, beyond your stories, labels and definitions.  For this is the place that is beyond meaning.  It is the place that all the control, tension and gripping in your mind-body keeps you separate from, but which is always here just beyond them.  

Sweetly surrender what you know or have known for that which you don’t yet know, but which you have intuited exists.  For it indeed does exist and can be directly experienced.  There is an intelligence there which knows.  It knows beyond what your mind knows and as you begin to drop into it, it further reveals itself and guides your seeming personal, individuated life and existence.  With this all those things which previously created so much concern and confusion for you dissolve as your perspective is broaden to encompass more of you.  

Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado