What to do when there is great uncertainty in your life? How do you deal with those sorts of challenges? As a kid growing up in an alcoholic/dysfunctional family, I had two ways of dealing with uncertainty:

• I escaped into a fantasy world by writing.

• I became an overachiever and hyper-responsible.

Both coping mechanisms worked well for a while, but I can’t live my life always chasing rainbows and being a work alcoholic. Neither solutions are feasible for the long term.

Recently, I heard Rabbi David Aaron on Cathy Heller’s Don’t Keep Your Day Job podcast and was struck by his wisdom on dealing with his life’s mission: “When I start to talk and take ownership of what I’m going to say, I then start saying positive things to myself. And I say, ‘God, you are my higher self. Give me the clarity, give me the strength, help me serve. I just want to do good.’ That’s what all I really want to do in my life. I just want to serve good and feel that I can do a little good.”

What the Rabbi said hit home and made me think.

There are no guarantees in life.

Right now, I’m living amid the Coronavirus pandemic, and billions of people around the globe are sheltering at home.

I can’t see when the pandemic will be over, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that life on the other side of this crisis will be extremely different that before.

I feel anxious, worried, and unsure. The world in front of me is filled to the brim with uncertainty.

In times like this, people of faith leap. They move forward and hope that God will hold them up.

But I’m a doubting Thomas and I worry that I’ll fall.

The Rabbi’s wise words hit home because they mirror my inner dialogue. I do believe in God, and I pray to know what my path is.

I pray for strength and clarity and also want to serve.

But where? How? When?

When I look down at my toolkit, I see that I can write. I’m not a masterful writer but I can string words together. In life, I believe that, no matter how difficult our childhood, we can use imaginative stories to heal ourselves and lead lives filled with love and hope. The stories I tell, the worlds I create, are all meant to help us learn how to heal ourselves from past trauma.

There is one thing that I’m certain of: I’m meant to write and share my stories.

But I still pray for strength and clarity and I want to serve. I’m afraid of screwing up, that I won’t have the strength to go on, and that I’ll be a failure.

These are the thoughts that ramble inside my head and that I struggle with each day.

For you, what can you do to deal with your own uncertainties in life?

Do the Rabbi’s words offer you some comfort? I hope that they do and I also hope that you are easy on yourself. We can’t know what tomorrow will bring. We only have today.

Peace.

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.