THE DOORWAY OF DOUBT
This has been a Tough Bliss year for me. Perhaps it was always going to be, having released a book by that very title this January! I have often reflected that perhaps I should be more careful of what I wish for. Yet these tough times always pass and often lead through to new epiphanies, relationships, opportunities and grace if we have the courage to ride their waves.
Deliberately courting new experiences and life adventures brings new challenges that we have likely never dealt with before. New situations ultimately help us to grow, but take a lot of focus whilst we are learning to acclimatize to them. There is no avoiding the amount of mental, emotional and physical energy that we are called to expend when we jump outside of our comfort zone and paddle into new waters. Of course anything new (or old for that matter) comes with a degree of risk to it. Stories rarely unfold the way we wish them to. This is part of the magic and mystery of adventure but often causes stress to the human part of us that likes to feel in control of our destiny.
Risk creates one of the biggest sabotaging energies in the universe: Doubt.
Doubt can be a healthy sign that we are transforming. When we doubt things, we enter into a state of ‘unknowing’. We seek answers because we can’t see clearly how things are going to turn out. This process can result in a healthy openness, where we allow our doubt to lead us into new ideas, options and circumstances. Alternatively, it can become unhealthy, leading to worry, anxiety and eventual shut down to opportunities through fear and perpetual uncertainty of which way to go next.
The reality is that we all experience a spectrum of doubt on a daily basis and are asked to fall back on our fundamental beliefs and stories in order to lead us through the confusion.
I split my daily dose of doubt into two categories that help me to make empowering choices. These are:
- Distracting Doubt
- Divine Doubt
Distracting doubt is the kind that brings low (and high) levels of worry with it. This is the kind of doubt where my inner voice loops around in stories of fear and doom, creating technicolor movies of what might happen if I fail. I entertain this for a while and then come to an ‘enough’s enough’ moment where I call an inner timeout. A deep conscious breath, a visualized image of burning up my worries or simply calling in angelic assistance to release the sabotaging stories. The more aware we can be of these worry narratives, the faster we can release them and the less they can distract us from our purpose.
The other form of doubt can be more useful to us if we can discern it’s more refined frequency. I call this ‘divine doubt’ and its qualities are that of epiphany, revelation and consideration. Divine doubt sneaks into our established narratives and worldview, showing us where we might be limiting how we are choosing to see our current situation. It comes in the quiet moments of ‘pause’ when we are called to challenge our own established beliefs about something and see if there is a wider pattern at play that will help us to grow. Divine doubt asks us to question our patterns of thinking and behaviour, loosening them to a degree to allow space for something new to emerge.
Divine doubt leads us to a doorway. A door that we can step through into a whole new worldview if we choose it. Divine doubt leads us down the path of conscious evolution. It leads us beyond our current stage of development into the process of alchemy. On an inner level, we know that there is gold waiting to be revealed from within us. We have to be courageous enough to let go of everything that is getting in its way. Everything that is distracting us from the process of living the adventure of our lifetime.
Where are you distracting yourself with worry?
Can your doubt be transformed into divine discernment?
Perhaps it’s time to let go of distraction and step through the doorway?
