Become Comfortable with the Unknown

“I’d love for you to ask yourself: how am I applying old logic to an entirely new set of circumstances?” – Lola Wright

We are close to the one year anniversary of when all of our lives were radically altered in a way we never could have predicted. As that date approaches, we can cling to our old ways of thinking, or we can accept the lessons of the new life we’ve created for ourselves.

There is a Jewish ritual called Yahrzeit, which is the day one year following the death of a loved one. It is a time to mourn and honor a loss through ceremony. As a people we are approaching a kind of collective Yahrzeit, a time to both recognize grief and honor everything that has come over the past year.

While the future is still as uncertain as it ever has been, we cannot deny that the last year has changed us in unparalleled ways. Instead of clinging to our old understanding of the world, how can we use this anniversary to take inventory of what has changed and what no longer serves us? I invite you to leave your desire for control behind and take a step into the next stage of your life.

• (1:08) – Yahrzeit
• (4:12) – Old logic in new contexts
• (11:37) – Stepping into the unknown
• (15:38) – Taking inventory
• (19:45) – Letting go
• (25:02) – Embracing your lessons

Do you want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself, and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created? We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in Our Circle, a vibrant membership community rich in opportunities for engagement and transformation. Find out more at lolawright.com/our-circle.

You can follow Lola Wright, on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com.

Chicago born and built, Lola grew up in wealth and privilege, yet always sensed something was missing. She sought out aliveness and freedom in music, immersing herself in the hip hop and house music scenes of 90s Chicago. After finding herself on her own at 23, as the mother of two young children, she became determined to create a new experience.

Lola is an ordained minister with a gift for weaving together the mystical and material, she served for many years as the CEO of Bodhi Center, an organization committed to personal transformation, collective awakening, conscious activism, and community-building. 

This podcast is produced by Quinn Rose with theme music by independent producer Trey Royal.

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Lola Wright [00:00:01] Personal transformation and collective awakening involve being the most alive, brilliant, inspired, creative, on-fire version of yourself. A version that is not consistent with the status quo. My name is Lola Wright and this is Find Your Fierce & Loving. This podcast is a wake-up call, a roadmap back to your holy purpose, an invitation to set fire to the box you’ve been living in, and watch it burn. 

Lola Wright [00:00:40] Welcome. I have been thinking about what I want to talk about today for like 11 months. Just keeps coursing through my mind since March 13th. I sort of relate to March 13th as the day that life really was altered by virtue of this global pandemic. But as I thought about, like who I’ve become over the last 11 months and or what this period of time really represents, I oftentimes think of the Jewish ritual of mourning and grief through the year following someone’s death. It’s called a Yahrzeit. So this notion of grieving for a year and then celebrating and completing that grief at the one year anniversary and I feel like this year is that collectively. That really the opportunity exists to consider what life looked like before March 13th, 2020. And we’ve had a year to grieve the loss of that life. In Eckardt Cartola’s book Stillness Speaks, he sort of recontextualizes as a scriptural reference, which suggests that we must die before we die. And the idea is that like, “Wow, what could it be like to actually die before we die?” And when he’s making reference to there’s allowing the ego to take a back seat. To die to the realness or the perceived realness of the ego such that we are free and able to liberate our true self, our essence. I feel like that’s really what the last year has been about collectivity. 

Lola Wright [00:02:40] There’s a dying before we die. And I think that the opportunity exists to really love and appreciate the grieving process. I remember saying to myself in May of 2020, “Oh, there’s a part of me that hopes this doesn’t end too quickly because I think that the discomfort of this prolonged experience may actually yield something very rich in the human experience.” And certainly, it has gone far longer than I anticipated and I imagine far longer than you have anticipated. But again, if all of life is really a metaphor and an opportunity for inquiry and curiosity, my sense is if we don’t take, say, the next 60 days or 30 days or whatever period of time and really reflect on life before March 13th, life since March 13th, and then perhaps life from March 13th, 2021 forward. You know, I realize it’s not that this pandemic is going to be like all wrapped up by March 13th. But again, I want to acknowledge the significance of the one year anniversary from the date that I think largely represents a vast interruption in the way our society was organized. And as I’ve been thinking about this a lot, I’ve realized like, wow, in my moments of despair, in my moments of frustration, in my moments of doubt over the last 10 months, 11 months, I have oftentimes attempted to use a previous state of logic to apply to a set of circumstances that are wholly and completely unknown by all of us. 

Lola Wright [00:04:37] And so it reminds me, you know, when my brother, my brother is four years younger than I am, and when he went to college, this was many years ago, he got caught up and started using cocaine. And my dad would call me and ask things like, “You know, it just seems very odd. What do you think your brother’s doing that he’s like going to the ATM and, you know, specifically 7-Eleven and taking out large cash withdrawals in the middle of the night?” You know, that was at a time where you could track like you would sort of tracking my brother’s bank account. And I don’t remember how he could know that specific detail, but I think it was reflected in his statement or something like that. And I remember saying to my dad, “Hey, I don’t think this guy is well down there. I don’t think that him being down there is good. Something feels off to me.” My dad’s like, “I don’t, I don’t think that’s true. You know, I just, but it does seem odd that he’s doing that.” You know, when we are in an addictive relationship, either in a relationship with an addict or in our addiction ourselves, realizing that we all have addictive tendencies, we oftentimes will use logic and apply it to an illogical set of circumstances. And so my dad would call me with regularity trying to tease this thing out. He finally decided to go visit my brother at college and was like wildly surprised by the state of my brother. He was not well. He was living in very challenging circumstances and my dad didn’t know and, you know, so it was sort of a sobering moment for my dad. And when my dad came back, he continued to call me with great regularity because my brother stayed and, you know, there wasn’t any kind of like an intervention or anything like that, and again, my dad just kept asking over and over and over, “Now, why do you think a smart kid like that would would be, you know, using drugs and alcohol excessively?” And he would ask these questions incessantly. And I would say to him pretty, pretty repeatedly in response, “Hey, dad, you’re, you are trying to use logic in a set of circumstances that do not make sense.”  

Lola Wright [00:06:57] And something about this last year feels reminiscent of that to me. It’s like there’s a frame of reference that I have about life. And it’s based on a past context, like there’s life the way that we knew life was prior to March 13th, 2020, and there’s a whole series of assumptions and understandings and, you know, expectations that we had in this previous life. And when I attempt to apply that same logic to the circumstances and conditions that I’m navigating today, I find myself in that same kind of insanity. And, of course, I’m sure you’ve heard this adage, you know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. And so we could say that that which occurred in this pandemic is a kind of hitting of rock bottom. That there’s been a pain threshold that we are hitting in the collective consciousness of humanity that is causing a kind of sobriety to come forward. That is my great desire for the evolution of this human experience that the discomfort and the reorganization over the last year is in service of producing something new. So as I record this we’re, you know, 45 days out from what we might call the Yahrzeit or the anniversary of this one year shift in consciousness. So if we were to say, March 13th, 2021 is the date of anniversary from this massive reorganization and recalibration of the human species, what might we be reflecting on as we approach that anniversary? What kind of inventory might we be willing to take? That’s what I’d like to invite you into, is really an inventory of your assumptions and patterns and expectations in your former life that perhaps needed to die, needed to be let go of, needed to be released. And how are you perhaps still using them or leaning on them in ways that are not of service to you? So I think about that for myself. I have spent more time with my kids over this last year than I think I ever have, quite frankly. I mean, my life before this pandemic, I imagine much like yours was moving very swiftly, going, going, going all the time between my career, between my personal interests, between events and relationships that I was cultivating. The stillness that I had at home was very infrequent. And ironically, in some ways that meant that, you know, a practice like meditation had to be much more architected because there was less time, seemingly less time for stillness. 

Lola Wright [00:10:10] Look, I’m a big proponent of bringing stillness into the business of our lives, so I am not at all suggesting that we need to have massive void in our experience to have access to stillness, but what I’m saying is I have had an experience of more boredom in the last year than is typical for me. 

Lola Wright [00:10:31] I have filled my life so fully that this has been a big reset. So, again, as we approach this year anniversary and if we look at the ways that we’re relating to reality today, I’d love for you to ask yourself, “How am I still using old logic to apply to an entirely new set of circumstances?” You can see this in every area of life, like businesses that are using old logic in this new reality are going to experience incredible degrees of pain and discomfort, much of which could be avoided. Life is dynamic. Life is emergent. And so if we are not moving and growing with it, then we stay in a kind of suffering experience. Now we don’t really know. Look, I have launched a new business over the course of the last year and it’s a weird time to do that because so much is unknown. And so I think now more than ever, if you’re stepping out into new experiences, new relationships, new careers, there’s an understanding that you are stepping out before the ground beneath you has appeared. 

Lola Wright [00:11:54] That’s how it feels to me. It’s like I am just, I am stepping and I am stepping. And I am like, right before my foot hits the earth, the ground appears. 

Lola Wright [00:12:06] So, again, like I just think our opportunity here is to look at the assumptions that we operated from prior to this massive reorganization recalibration and then see, do those really serve us to carry forward? I think in many cases they do not. And it is like you would never expect the awareness of a second grader to be able to understand the complexity of, say, a math equation that a sophomore in high school is working on. And I think that there’s sort of an adolescence that we were living in and I have often said we are in a massive maturation over this last year. So, again, as we approach the anniversary and if we actually allow ourselves to feel the significance of that, you know, “Wow, like that is significant. We have spent a year in a recalibration in something new.” Now, of course, what’s true is the future has always been unknown. But it felt before like we thought we knew what was coming. I think that’s the really beautiful experience that we’re in. All of the assumptions and expectations, all that we thought we could previously rely on is up for grabs. 

Lola Wright [00:13:35] There is a level of uncertainty that we are living in the midst of. 

Lola Wright [00:13:40] The only thing for me that does feel certain, is this kind of benevolent assumption that I carry forward, that this universe operates within. That in fact there is a kind of higher-order to all of existence. That at the end of the day, that’s the only thing I ever can count on. You know, I think about all of the things that have happened over the course of my life that I never could have or would have predicted. If I had, I perhaps would have made different choices or I would have prepared differently. Our ability to be in the unknown is our great superpower. Our ability to be in the fluidity of this human experience. Not to say that we don’t stand for something. I mean, you know, I’m all about having a big, clear, bold, audacious vision for yourself in your life but, you know, our visions that we desire are really when we get honest about it, it’s less about the specifics of the thing itself and more about the quality and the experience we have. 

Lola Wright [00:14:54] You want to be more alive, you want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself, and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created. We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in Our Circle. This is an affirming and radical space that will gather weekly on-demand or live whatever works best for your life. For more information on how you can engage in our circle, visit lolawright.com/our-circle.. I’d love to have you with us. 

Lola Wright [00:15:38] I want to encourage you to take an inventory of your life, perhaps do an inventory of your life before March 13th, 2020, and make a list of like the top 10 things that you can consciously say, “Wow, those were patterned ways of being that I don’t want to carry forward.” Now, there may also be experiences that you do want to carry forward but just watch for any attachment. I want to interrupt or disrupt the overscheduling tendency of mine. I’m being increasingly discerning around, with whom and how and where and why I invest my time and energy. That’s been a really, really powerful practice for me to say, you know, “Yeah, I think you’re a good fit from a client perspective. No, I don’t think you’re a good fit from a client perspective. Hey, I think you’d be a really great fit in Our Circle, my membership community. 

Lola Wright [00:16:41] Hey, to be honest, I don’t think you would be a good fit in Our Circle.” Our ability to trust this new existence, our ability to trust the unseen and the unknown gives us a kind of spaciousness and access to creativity, you know, to and it can look and feel like fear. 

Lola Wright [00:17:03] You know, when I think about my dad trying to figure out, like, what was going on with my brother, you know, “Hey, why would why would a young, handsome, healthy,” you know, “privileged kid go and screw up his body and his life with drugs and alcohol?” He was trying to make sense of something. It was like the best mechanism of control that he could have. But, you know, when you and I try to control outcomes, we actually limit the extraordinary when you and I try to control the effects. 

Lola Wright [00:17:40] We miss the magic. 

Lola Wright [00:17:42] It makes sense to me that my dad was trying to predict the future and to understand my brother. It’s funny, my dad, my brother is like super tatted up. He’s sober now. He has an incred- and he really is like a healing presence. I actually think his dance, you know, with his shadow, gave him so much breadth and width and depth that enables him to be an incredibly potent healer now in the human body and with his clients. But, you know, my dad does this still. My brother is super tatted up, you know, two sleeves, and every time my brother gets a tattoo, which does seem to correlate with anniversaries or births of babies, and he has four,

Lola Wright [00:18:28] so there’s some level of regularity that my dad asks me the same question, “Now, why do you think a good looking, healthy young man would want to put all of that on his body?”

Lola Wright [00:18:40] And again, it’s like this tendency to try to map my dad’s logic… My dad is a… sort of fixed in a previous time in space and so he’s using an older state of consciousness, and by older, I do not mean age, he’s using a previous state of consciousness to map on to a current set of circumstances that are outside of his control, not his body, not his life, but it’s a way that he creates safety for himself. So our great desire to understand what the future holds is completely located in fear. 

Lola Wright [00:19:23] By the way, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t like project things in our lives. We should. I mean, I think there’s great value in having budgets and planning and all that kind of stuff but anything that we do can, can be done from fear or can be done from love, you might say, can be done from a closed and defensive posture or an open and curious posture. You know, we’re approaching this year anniversary. 

Lola Wright [00:19:48] We might call this the Yahrzeit, the death anniversary of what was. You know, what part of our finite existence needed to die, has needed to die, needs to continue dying? What grief can we honor? 

Lola Wright [00:20:08] What… you know, I can look at former versions of myself and go, “Oh my gosh, I have so much love for that previous iteration of self that was doing the very best that she could given, you know, the circumstances that she was navigating and managing.” 

Lola Wright [00:20:29] And we are here to expand. We are here to grow. We are here to evolve. And so can I honor and grieve the loss of what was

Lola Wright [00:20:44] while expanding and accepting something new is yet to be? I imagine that the limitations that I can conceive of or the vision that I can conceive of for myself, my life, my business, my family, you know, it’s always inside of our framework. 

Lola Wright [00:21:04] It’s always inside of our consciousness. It’s always inside of what we know. So when we can trust in the unknown, in the unseen, in the vast expanse, we become open, available, receptive to something that goes far beyond our limited perception of what’s possible of reality, our limited sense 

Lola Wright [00:21:29] of existence. 

Lola Wright [00:21:32] So, again, the invitation is to do an inventory, make a top 10 list of ways of being practices, you know, a design to your life relationships. I mean, I think a lot of us have let go of relationships that we were previously pretty invested in, out of habit or obligation. 

Lola Wright [00:21:51] I think that there were relationships that this reorganization of society has more easily and gracefully let us release. So what are the top 10 things that you’re like, wow, you know, I can grieve the loss of what was, you know, I love running around town and being here, being there, being everywhere, I grieve the loss of that and I also can see the limitations and how I was organizing my energy, my time and my life. You know, what could these next 45 days and, you know, this is a practice that we could be doing eternally, oftentimes we hold these practices for like the first of the year, you know, what do we want to release? What do we want to embrace? And I would just encourage you like you can build that kind of ritualistic reflection into your life on a daily basis. 

Lola Wright [00:22:42] As we approach the Yahrzeit, the anniversary of a death, a previous state of consciousness, we must also release the logic that went with that previous experience. The ideas that you had before may not be applicable in this new society now is an incredibly valuable time to be really tapping into your creativity. 

Lola Wright [00:23:12] You know, our two kids are, we have four kids, our two older kids are home. They weren’t planning on being home. They were living in an apartment in Brooklyn, planning to spend, you know, the forthcoming years of their lives being artists and creatives and performers in New York, perhaps L.A., not in Chicago. They’re sort of underwhelmed by Chicago, to be quite honest. 

Lola Wright [00:23:38] But here they are. And so we said, “Look, this is an opportunity. This is the moment our fixed expenses change almost not at all by having you home, you have the rest of your life to pay your bills. 

Lola Wright [00:23:53] Be here now and invest in your art, invest in your creativity, allow yourself to be, like, deeply immersed in your imagination, your dream world, and create that.” You’ve perhaps heard me say like it is the artists, the activists, the musicians, and the mystics that are always playing us, painting us, dancing us, singing us back into a remembering of who we’re here to be. It’s not going to be the news anchors. It’s not going to be the financial advisers. It’s not going to be the traders, going to remind you of who you’re here to be. Now is really the time to tap into the mystery of existence? To allow yourself to die before you die, to release the old patterned ways of being and to question your assumptions, to challenge your previous logic. So many blessings on this last year, the heartache, the grief, the frustration, that irritation, the judgment, the angst, allow yourself to feel your range of humanity. You know, so often we live inside of these very narrow boxes that keep us safe. You know, if my brother just wouldn’t put so many tattoos on his body then my dad could feel safe. If he would just, you know, stop coloring outside of the lines so frequently. It’s just so, it’s so uncomfortable. Perhaps you can hear that in your own mind about your own self. 

Lola Wright [00:25:43] You know, where do I, you know, “Hey, stop being so racy, stop being so…” You know, for some of us it’s like, oh my gosh, you really need to color outside of the lines! 

Lola Wright [00:25:55] It would be a really, really great practice for you to embrace not knowing that the Earth will show up beneath you when you take a step. So many of us are living in these really constricted, overly cautious of very safe boxes and if ever there was a time to give yourself permission

Lola Wright [00:26:18] to let that way of being die off now is it. Tap into the collective consciousness of existence. Something has died. 

Lola Wright [00:26:30] And that means there’s a whole bunch of space, a big, massive void for creativity, aliveness, new beginnings to emerge right where you are. Top 10 list of what has died for you that need not come back after we resume this, you know, some semblance of normalcy, whatever the heck that means. There really will be like before March 13th and after March 13th. There’s going to be the before March 13th, there’s going to be this in-between state, and then there’s going to be like, what does life look like after we sort of figure out who we are in relationship to this new reality? 

Lola Wright [00:27:20] What do you want to carry forward from each of those periods? What do you want to leave behind? Wow. I became acquainted with some really unhealthy habits during this pandemic. 

Lola Wright [00:27:31] That may be true for you. I think some of us have been confronted by behaviors, habits, patterns that do not serve us. 

Lola Wright [00:27:39] What a gift. You could numb out to those things when you were super busy in the previous world. There’s a new world upon us. We are in like a collective existential crisis right now. We’re really sort of reforming who are we? What matters? What do I want to do with myself in my life? How do I want to reorganize my existence? We are in very rich soil. The unknown is where the magic is made. Magic is not made in the light where you can see everything. Magic is made in the shadow, in the darkness, in the mystery, in the unseen, in the unknown. When you and I know the answers to all our questions, not much innovation or imagination or creativity is required. It’s like…

Lola Wright [00:28:30] I have this funny, funny experience with my son, he’s almost nine, and I’ll say something to him and I’ll say, “Yeah, yeah, I know.” And it’s like, “How do you know? You didn’t even know what I was going to ask you.” “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know. I know.” Give yourself permission to know nothing, allow yourself to become increasingly comfortable with the unknown. Your capacity to become uncomfortable with that that you may not understand allows curiosity, creativity, imagination, and dreaming to emerge. When we go through life, always knowing what’s to come, we cannot experience the magic of existence. So grieve what what was. Give yourself the gift of an anniversary. Celebration of loss. There’s a beautiful process we’ve just gone through. However, heartbreaking it has been, something new is emerging, and that is very good news. 

Lola Wright [00:29:38] If you enjoyed this show and would like to receive new episodes as they’re published, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts, your review helps others find this show. You can follow me at Lola P Wright on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com. This episode was produced by Quinn Rose with theme music from independent music producer Trey Royal.

Lola Wright [00:30:24] Perhaps you’re familiar with the comparing mind, I am intimately familiar with the comparing mind, but nevertheless, that is not what we are here to talk about today.