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Originally Posted by WadudaNura  First, THANK YOU. your post is amazing. |
Hi WadudaNura -- thank you very much for saying that.
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Originally Posted by WadudaNura You say to just start doing something, you want certainty. That's true. I do want certainty.
I want certainty that what I'm doing is worthwhile. That it will have results. |
Just an extra sidenote to this: The human mind (which all of us live from), in its present divided state, demands certainty at all times. It doesn't care what form that certainty takes, it can be a pain, a pleasure, self-glory, self-loathing, confusion, procrastination, indecisiveness, compulsive ambition. Anything at all will suffice, and it has no discernment or care whatsoever in the type of certainty it grabs hold of. Tormenting confusion is just as safe and secure as a compulsive ambition.
Take a close look at 'tormenting confusion' and 'indecisiveness' -- those are two favorites for pretty much everyone (and apply directly to what you are asking about). Notice how finding yourself in a state of confusion gives you a solid secure sense of identity: "I'm the one trapped between these two choices, and who doesn't know what to do!" It seems like a contradiction, but the fact is, confusion is a place of safety for our present mind because, incredibly, a confused state of myself is just as rock-solid certain as a pleasurable one.
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Originally Posted by WadudaNura Sometimes when you don't know what path you want to take, and you just exhausted your brain thinking about it, you just have to pick a path, which is where I am right now.
But I am having such a hard time keeping going, because I keep questioning myself, am I on the right path? did I make the right choice?
I have the hardest time doing the work. My brain goes in all kinds of directions... and 2 pages can sometimes take 2 hours.
I feel certainty that there is a higher power... but I'm always afraid of taking the wrong action in service to that higher power, to those eternal principles.
Any advice? |
Indeed, sometimes you just have to choose a course and set sail.
But keep this in mind: When you make a choice simply because you can't see which option is the best of the two and can't stand remaining in indecision, it may not be until you complete the task that you find out whether it was "right" or "wrong" for you.
You chose the one that you did simply because it was driving you crazy to sit there in indecision, right? OK, that's good and fine. Just realize that making that initial decision doesn't put you any closer to knowing which is right for you. But it
WILL LEAD TO THAT.
So you've basically decided, "I'm going to do one of these two
all the way to the very end and let the results reveal to me whether or not it was the right thing to do."
The part of your mind that starts coming up with doubt-filled thoughts is the same mind that wants to stop you.... that wants security in the form of re-creating that "sense of yourself" as the one who is confused and locked in indecision. Once you've decided that you're going to do A so that you can find out if A or B is the better choice, then you must refuse any attempt of your mind to drag you down into self-doubting.
When those self-doubting thoughts show up, think this to yourself, "I already know full well that I presently
don't know which of these two things is the best choice. The doubting thoughts aren't telling me something I don't already know. So they are totally useless to me. A distraction that's trying to get me to stop and build a camp back in the world of indecision. Forget it. I'm continuing on."
See the difference here? Normally
when we make a choice simply to take us out of indecision, we expect it to give us a reassurance that we've made the "right" choice. At the outset it can't deliver that reassurance, but we always forget that. So when doubt shows up, we're tricked into believing it when it whispers, "You made the wrong choice."
The real choice we made -- and the "right" choice" -- was to refuse the drain of indecision and simply commit to one path.
Where we get into problems is thinking that our uncertainty over which is the best course is somehow going to be wiped away simply because we made a choice.
The uncertainty will most definitely still be there... after all, you didn't learn anything new about the two options simply by choosing one over the other, right? But by completing whichever direction we have chosen, to our best possible abilities, we will find that either it works just fine, or it was the wrong choice.
But at that point WE WILL KNOW IT WAS THE WRONG CHOICE. No more torment from painful indecision. Quote:
Originally Posted by WadudaNura I feel certainty that there is a higher power... but I'm always afraid of taking the wrong action in service to that higher power, to those eternal principles. |
I can assure you that that Higher Power knows you don't know what the next best step is for yourself. It knows you're in confusion. It knows you need help. To you it feels like the next action is connected to the two opposing desires... the two options in front of you, and you're afraid of making the wrong choice out of those two. But the next action that that Higher Power is concerned with isn't really connected to which of the two options you choose. The "action" It is actually concerned with is the level of being -- the spirit -- by which you either a) step forward from where you are to gain clarity through action; or b) wait patiently for a clarity to arrive through a subtler communication.