Making friends with uncertainty

One of the constant themes running through my classes is that of “getting comfortable with not knowing”. If I had owned this idea years ago, I could have saved so much time, energy and money.  I would have relaxed into curiosity and invited my clients to join me there, with the burden of being the expert nowhere in sight.

Whenever I do a demo for my students, I am always pointing out the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing. And it’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay; it’s the way I want it to be. It keeps me flexible and open to all the surprises that happen in this mind field we play in.

I don’t know what I’m going to say, until the client says something. I don’t know what processes we will do until I hear the how they talk about the issue and see how they gesture or look, when they do. The client is the expert on their particular problem because everyone has their own way of doing even the simplest of fears, limitations and problems. I think a big part of our job is to help them find their own solutions.

I recently had a client come into my office who said his anger was like a tight fist in his gut. I asked him to allow his mind to drop right down into that fist, and I asked him what has to happen in order to let it go? He said he “needed to pry his father’s hand off his fist because he was the one keeping it there”.

I asked him what would be the best way for him to do that and he said he “had to kiss the fingers and let them loosen up and go. His father didn’t need to make him tough anymore. He did his job”.

I had him drop into trance and told him to allow that happen. I sat back and watched as this tough man started to cry and his face showed me all the different emotions he was going through. I told him to allow his eyes to open only when he felt complete with this.

And five minutes later, he emerged, grabbed my hand and thanked me and said it was done. He told me he has never felt so at peace. He insisted on paying me the full amount even though the whole session was less than 15 minutes. An email two weeks later let me know he was continuing to feel more and more at ease and hadn’t had an anger flare up since.

This is just one example of letting the client do the work. I didn’t really do anything and I couldn’t have prepared for that session in any way, except to trust in his unconscious mind’s abilities to give him what he needed. I never would have come up with kissing his father’s fingers away. That much I do know.

I love it when my clients get as curious about their issues as me. It takes them into a very different head space when they have to tease out the unconscious strategy with me. They learn along with me, and together, we figure out a counter strategy. Ask your clients to teach you how they do their problem and they will show you the solution inside of it.

One client said she had severe social anxiety. I asked her how she knew. She said, she didn’t know, she just felt it. I said Okay, talk to me about the last time, you just felt it. As she described walking into an office party and feeling the panic, I noticed she looked up to her left and and then down to her left and right and then tensed her jaw. I suspected she was seeing an old image, talking to herself about it and then feeling anxious. But, I wasn’t certain, of course.

I asked her if she was aware of the image she made as she imagined walking into the party and what she might be saying to herself. She glazed over and looked up and said “I imagine everyone smirking at me and I tell myself I gotta get the hell out of there! ”. I said that if I imagined everyone smirking at me as I walked into a party and then told myself to get the hell out of there, I would be anxious too.

I asked her if it was an old picture and she gasped as she realized it was from high school. Now we had a few different places to change the strategy. I told her I didn’t know what was going to be the thing that made the difference but I was willing to play with the pieces and see what happened. We messed with the image, the internal dialogue and we spun the kinesthetic backwards. Each step taught her how “in charge” of this anxiety she was.

I love giving up the idea that I have to be the expert. Change work is a dance. A fluid, ever changing interaction, that’s full of possibilities. When you allow them to show you the steps, the pace and lead seem effortless. Most of our client’s (and our own) issues stem from the need to be in control and our search for certainty in an uncertain world.

So give it up. Let go of the need to be right. The idea of finding the perfect script, or training, that will make you feel like the authority on the subject. Make friends with uncertainty and get comfortable with not knowing “the best” way to fix it all and your sessions will flow very differently. Of that, you can be certain.