“The only think I know for certain is that I could be wrong.” – Martha Beck
I sometimes have clients that are just sure they know a thing about themselves, about how they work in the world, about the meaning of something that happens to them time and again, and about who they are because of that. They know what they know.
The mind blowing thing is that what they know is usually only part of the truth and the meaning they have placed on those experiences can also be only partly right or sometimes completely off base. In my work I meet lots of sensitive people, intuitives, energy healers, readers, and many of them severely limit how they work with people and how they interact with the world because of all the negative consequences they have experienced. It’s like having super sensitive hearing and living in arena where there are heavy metal concerts going on all the time. They protect themselves as best they know how by limiting how much they interact. When I point out 5…10…15 different ways they can deal with this in ways that don’t require them to limit their access to other humans or restrict their lives, it’s not uncommon for them to get the deer in the headlights look. Not that the information is shocking, but the fact that a fundamental way in which they knew themselves and the world was missing information, that they didn’t know what they didn’t know, causes a shockwave that can take time to settle.
So many people talk about wanting to find themselves, to discover who they truly are, to let go of the roles and rules that they have inherited or had put on them by others and by circumstances. They often picture this as a release from prison or like a trip down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. It’s positive and amazing and fun, so goes the propaganda. But sometimes it’s not. Having our notion of self challenged is…well…challenging. The rewards are exponentially positive, but we first have to let go of knowing what we know and allow ourselves to ask “What if I don’t know what I know?”