A Missive for Feeling Steady in Uncertain Times

For me, 2024 was a mixed bag. I'm calling it my Year of Being Uprooted.

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ― Pema Chödrön

Photo by Roger Erdvig on Unsplash

As a family, we once hiked across a River of Rocks.

These weren't big boulders you had to scramble across or lift yourself up onto to keep moving forward.

This was a literal field shaped like a river filled with medium-sized, oddly shaped rocks that you had to balance across consistently for a long time without breaking an ankle. There was no rest. There was no place to stand on solid ground to catch your breath or pause your shaky muscles. 'There was no certainty to grasp on to. You had to remain steady at all times. You had to keep going. You had to take one shaky step at a time until you reached the end.

You had to trust yourself.

Balance wasn’t just part of the game — it was the only game. To be successful and reach the end, you had to intentionally step rock to rock, choosing those that seemed most secure and grounded into the earth.

You had to be steady in mind, body and spirit.

You had to find balance in each little pause along the way.

The river didn't stop flowing until you reached the other side where your two feet had never felt more grounded.

Being human these days feels a lot like scrambling across a river of rocks.

Life requires us to be on guard, balancing and keeping a steady pace to keep making some kind of progress just to survive. If you aren’t balanced in all things, you’ll easily topple over from the stress of it all.

For me, 2024 was a mixed bag. I'm calling it my Year of Being Uprooted.

I started the year in anticipatory grief about our twin daughters' graduating high school and the idea of them going off to college — and in the fact that I was turning 50.

Fifty!

With this in mind, I spent my morning Yoga listening to MILCK's Metamorphosis over and over and crying a river of tears.

The year 2024 came in strong with a feeling of being tossed around and full of uncertainty about the future. For my own health and wellbeing. For our family.

I'm ending the year recovering from the seasickness of it all, like trying to find your balance with sea legs.

With all of this in mind as the year begins to fade, I'm releasing so much as well: The over-functioning. A fear of aging. Those anxious (false) feelings of losing connection to my daughters. The lost hours spent on Amazon buying all the unnecessary and necessary things for two different dorm rooms on two different campuses. The lost hours of picking a graduation cake, ordering pictures, filling out forms, nagging the kids to fill out their forms.

So. Many. Forms.

Then, another toss and turn when one college student decided she wasn’t ready to “go away” to college and returned home after just a week and will start classes at the local four-year college in January.

And so, I return to the River of Rocks, where progress was slow and torturous but once we got to the other side, there was celebration, a moment of elation of doing really hard things.

We did it.

We got to the other side.

We passed the test!

That’s what 2025 means for me.

I did it!

I got to the other side!

I passed the test!

And, yet … I know that the test continues. There is no finish line to this journey of being human until the Ultimate Finish Line.

So … the journey continues, thankfully.

Sometimes Braving YES isn't about climbing the big mountain of a dream.

Sometimes it's simply balancing everyday life and suffering so gently and so steadily that you don't lose your balance and break an ankle.

Finding Balance in the Small Pauses of Life

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.” ― Pema Chödrön

For so many of those I work with and surround myself with, 2025 is already filled with anxiety, uncertainty, fear and frustration.

We are already shaking our heads by the nonsense and lack of sincerity unfolding from the incoming administration. The circus of the bro-ligarchy very obviously doesn’t intend to mend the real struggles of our people, the real concerns of our times, the real hardships of our families.

And yet, what is unfolding is very much out of our circle of control. (Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys, anyone?)

So that leaves only what you can shape: Your words, your actions, your service, your thoughts, your beliefs.

Knowing what’s what for yourself begins with what’s in front of you.

Just like walking on the river of rocks, one small, fragile, balanced step at a time — you can pause and find balance by focusing on what is most steady and secure for you.

You can move your mind and body out of uncertainty by being present with what is certain in the current moment.

In uncertain times — or when things are falling apart, Author Pema Chödrön is a teacher I draw wisdom from as she writes about this messy middle so easily. I especially love the pause practice she offers to create a gap between our spiraling thoughts and fear and the present moment.

Fear lives in the future not the present.

“Pause practice can transform each day of your life. It creates an open doorway to the sacredness of the place in which you find yourself. The vastness, stillness, and magic of the place will dawn upon you, if you let your mind relax and drop for just a few breaths the storyline you are working so hard to maintain. If you pause just long enough, you can reconnect with exactly where you are, with the immediacy of your experience. When you are waking up in the morning and you aren’t even out of bed yet, even if you are running late, you could just look out and drop the storyline and take three conscious breaths. Just be where you are! When you are washing up, or making your coffee or tea, or brushing your teeth, just create a gap in your discursive mind. Take three conscious breaths. Just pause. Let it be a contrast to being all caught up. Let it be like popping a bubble. Let it be just a moment in time, and then go on. In any moment you could just listen. In any moment, you could put your full attention on the immediacy of your experience.” — Pema Chödrön, an American Buddhist teacher, author, nun, and mother.

Pausing to find balance begins not with some grande meditation practice, but with a small framework.

Simply create an intention.

Offer yourself a breath or two to create that gap.

Allow a recalibration from mind to heart to body to feet to unfold.

What do you need to be present for in your life right now? How can you pause and anchor yourself to that for your own steadiness going forward?

My word of the year for 2025: Rooted.

A Missive for Feeling Steady in Uncertain Times

When the earth wobbles beneath you,

when your own balance feels shaky ...

Do not look to others for they will

distract your attention from what matters.

Instead, look ahead to the horizon and

keep your gaze on what matters most ...

Slow, sure, steady progress of one step,

one mistake, one rock, pebble, boulder

at a time. And once you notice just an ounce

of progress, celebrate. Relish in your own

steady growth and the lessons learned.

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XO

SHAWN

P.S. In the New Year, I’ll be opening up paid subscriptions for Braving YES. I’d love to know what you would want to receive as a supporter? Journal prompts? Worksheets? Braving YES Writing classes? Group experiences? Hit reply and let me know — or send me a message through the app!