Do you ever catch yourself thinking in the middle of the night, ruminating about situations that are unresolved or unclear and, basically, not how you’d like them to be? We do this kind of ruminating during the day as well, for sure, but it’s particularly prevalent at times when we’re trying to rest. We obsess over situations we’ve already thought through a hundred times and for which we probably already have a plan in place or a way of understanding—situations that we’ve already processed but that haven’t yet been resolved in real life and thus remain uncertain.
So then, why do we loop on what we have already thought through and already understand? We do this, in short, because we can’t bear uncertainty and because we loathe anything that feels messy, unresolved, or uncertain. Uncomfortable is not our forte and not a state we know how to inhabit.
We imagine that life should be wrapped up with a bow, clean and tidy, certain and knowable, all the time. Unfortunately, that’s not how life is—ever. Life always contains situations and feelings that are unclear, unfinished, uncomfortable, and messy. Life always includes situations that are in the process of becoming what they will be and are not yet determined. The fact that we have something uncomfortable going on in our life tells us one thing and one thing only—that we’re alive. When the time comes that all is clear, tidy, comfortable, and known, I have bad news: We won’t be here to enjoy it. This is what we have to enjoy in real life, the whole miracle and catastrophe, the comfortable and uncomfortable, both and…but always both.
That said, our work is not about getting all our ducks in a row but rather about learning to get more comfortable with some ducks being in the row, some ducks in the process of falling into the water, and some ducks climbing out of the water and getting back in the row. For some strange reason, despite reality consistently disproving it, we still imagine that if we can just get this situation under control and successfully completed, back in a place we want, then we’ll be OK forever, and all will be well going forward. But that’s not how it goes in this life, not for anyone. As soon as one situation resolves and becomes clear, another appears, a new source of uncertainty and discomfort. There’s no bottom of the pile or end to the line; if you are breathing, there will always be more ducks behind the ducks.
When we wake or can’t sleep in the middle of the night because we’re rehashing the same material we’ve already rehashed, we can remind ourselves that there’s nothing to be fixed here, nothing broken because a situation feels uncomfortable, and nothing to have to figure out further. The situation feels uncertain because it is; it’s in the process of becoming what it will be; it can’t, in fact, be anywhere but where it is. This unfolding cannot be rushed, and our nocturnal ruminations do nothing to move the dial forward. The messy is normal and natural, even if it’s not comfortable…just life doing life. Our work in the middle of the night is not to figure out or resolve these situations but to get more comfortable with the uncomfortableness of life and more OK with the not OK-ness that’s always here. Unresolved, in process, messy, uncomfortable, unknown…welcome to the ground of reality.
Sweet dreams…
