What do you run from?

How do you sit with ambiguity, with discomfort, with not knowing?  

Driving my son to football this sunday morning, i was heavy with malaise, an unnamable cloud. 

We chatted. 

We talked. 

We loved. 

We laughed. 

And drove. 

And yet… the cloud. 

It sat heavy in my bones. A cellular sediment. Pulling my belly deep. 

A sadness? A tenderness. Something unknown. Or in between. 

This not the first time these last weeks either. 

Last Friday, a beautiful breakfast with an old friend, much joy and opportunity in our chat, in his moves, and yet.. 

That day, a sadness 

Something unfulfilled. 

A wishing or wanting. 

A feeling inadequate.  

And even here now, as I sit and write. 

Throat pinched. My body compressed. De-pressed. 

Something is cloudy in my being. 

Something unknown, unnamable. 

And maybe this is the point. 

A few weeks back I slept on a question. A reframe of the MIQ exercise I’ve written about here. This time something more particular. 

Teacher James Hillman shares an idea that in us all is an acorn, a seed of an idea, bigger than you, wanting to manifest in your life and work. A homecoming, if you will, lying obscured under the bushels and detritus of everyday commitments. A response to the questions of our time, perhaps. 

Flipping the MIQ slightly I slept instead on a particular question: 

Am I living true to my acorn?

Nothing immediately surfaced but, looking back, the malaise, an undercurrent of sadness, these all a feature of the subsequent few weeks. A sign, a signal? 

Is this the answer I was searching for? 

Maybe. 

Psychologist CG Jung said all discontents are resolved in meeting with the sacred, the divine. Or put differently that the small parts of us melt in union with the very large, with the bigger than us. If we'll slow enough to allow their meeting. And open enough to allow their talking. 

Maybe this more to the point. 

Sadness. 

Jealousy. 

Malaise. 

These just few of the discontents available for hire. Like ambiguity and uncertainty too. They feel uncomfortable. 

Which brings us back to the first question : 

How are you sitting with what is uncertain? Unknown? 

Trying to make sense of the malaise I look for causes, meaning, connection. I look to make sense. Maybe the malaise is a response to the acorn question, a clue that I'm not living mine. Maybe. But something else too.

Talking to a LeanMind member last week, he'd asked how things were since my dad died. I'd found this a difficult question to answer the last months as I'd essentially felt fine. Until now, perhaps. Maybe this malaise is a sadness, a wave of grief. Unprompted. Unannounced. Just sadness, needing a feel. A process running it's course. 

The Acorn 

The beauty of the MIQ - or whatever version you play with - is that it works deep. On levels of intuition and insight deeper than we typically allow for. That I'm searching for a response misses the point. The response reveals in signs, signals and feelings. And these are read by a slower moving heart. 

A remembering here too. I am drawn to depth. I am drawn to intuition and imagination. I am drawn to the slilghtly wild, the mythical, mystical and magical. To diving deep. My acorn. And maybe helping others see theirs. This a steadier ground from which to act, to create, in these temultuous times. 

Uncertainty 

One of two things underpins everything you do. 

Either grasping at and holding onto a feeling you like - and that you associate it with. Chocolate, person, place etc.  

Or rushing away feelings you don't. 

Uncertainty, we don't like. 

Nor sadness. Or malaise. 

But before you rush it away, what might these be gifting you? 

Quoting the great literary artefact that is the kid’s book," We're Going On A Bear Hunt - "we can't go over it. We can't go around it. We can only go through it". 

How are you at going through yours?