Searching for answers seems to be an incessant part of some people's need for clarity and purpose in order to ultimately feel a sense of safety in their life. It is almost as if, to feel safe, we must search for a reason to be so. If we cannot find an answer we may become uncertain, and exist in life with this sense of uncertainty and this is not something the vast majority of us take in our stride. Fear of the unknown can enshroud our inner child with acute anxieties, fuelled by a multitude of emotions. The bottom line seems to be that 'if we know the answer, (whatever it may be,) we are safe. 'Why then do we experience such acute trepidation with the sense of uncertainty that we must search sometimes obsessively for resolutions? In this article I hope to make it clear that we do not need answers to all of our uncertainties, I see uncertainty as a part of the human condition.
I believe it as simply this; we can choose to accept uncertainty as an on-going reality by putting as much positive energy into a belief that 'uncertain can be OK and exciting' as we do the negative energy into 'desperately seeking an answer'. Whilst this might seem straightforward or 'worth a try' even to the most skeptical of us, it requires going against one of the most powerful core belief systems we have learned, which is 'so long as we have an answer to everything in lift we are OK'.
The relationship between needing an answer and feeling safe can be traced back to early childhood. A child may seek a route or path psychologically or physically and may look to their parents for the acknowledgement and security that, it is OK to take that path. 'Am I doing the right thing?' 'Am I alright?' However if a child had very controlling parents who have a tendency to over protect the child thus limiting the child's ability for learning through trial and error, a child may learn to believe that only one way, (the parents way), is correct. Growing up with the belief that unless they find this answer from their parents (or subsequent parental figures,) entrenched ultimately in their own inner parent, the individual may on some level believe that they cannot function without the familiar, yet uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty. It's as if the individual limits their option, this being that they are compelled to find the 'answer,' and this answer must always be from someone else. They must find out quickly because the level of scare (in Child) seems threatening to the foundations their very existence was built upon. The lust for the familiar is so powerful that many people are unwilling to ever accept uncertainty and will stay in unhealthy situations rather than feel that level of fear in uncertain circumstances.
A person's ability to change requires they want to do so. Followed by the actual pro-active doing, no amount of persuasion by any exterior influence will alter this until they are ready to change, very often an individual is more likely to adapt under pressure, thus it is clear to me. 'A teacher will only be understood when the person is ready to be taught.'
Gradual change, with lots of small steps over a period of time, is the process in which the person is more likely to develop the change so fundamentally that it becomes a new habit. Although thinking solves problems, searching desperately for answers creates anxiety and people who search for a world with only black and white choices will eventually find that they do not exist.
Go forth, you are safe.