Losing one's contours...on dealing with uncertainty

 

What is this? This is a close-up of Teddy's face, a character that appears on this blog now and then. Teddy is a little bear with many "big" questions.....

With the event of this new craze of "Mindfulness colouring-in books"; books with pages and pages of images made up of outlines/contours, and all that is needed is to colour them in; my mind started to ponder the importance of "contours".

(When I paint, or sketch, I love to use strong, definite contours, perhaps I could even say that for me it almost feels as if a work is un-finished if there are no definitive contours/outlines.)

If asked by someone: "How would you describe yourself?", how would you answer?

I am guessing, but, I have a feeling that you would use some sort of "contours": "I am Australian, (or whatever your country), I am a female/male, I am x years old, I am tall/short/medium in height, I have blue/brown/green eyes, I am a plumber/electrician/personal trainer/etc.etc., I see myself as....xxx, I believe in...xxx", and so on. These "contours" are important to us, they help us define who and what we are, but also how we view others. "He/she, is......xxx...", we may surmise, but that may not necessarily be correct, i:e, how we view others "contours" may not be how they would define their contours.

Sometimes things/events/experiences can lead us to question our contours: "I thought that if .......xxx...it would always mean that.......but now it seems as if that's not the case."

In conversation with a friend, I was grappling with trying to describe the feelings one can have when events take place that seem to dis-integrate some of one's most treasured and reliable contours....and out came: "It feels like losing one's contours."

(Lucky for me, my friend instantly understood what I meant!)

According to some research I read, human beings make thousands of decisions everyday. From what to eat for breakfast to what time to go to bed, and all the other decisions in between. In order to make it easier for ourselves and to not have to make the decisions afresh everyday, we create habits/routines: "I get up at x o'clock, I have x for breakfast, I wear x kind of clothes, I like x, I dislike xz, I believe in..., I don't believe in...., I stand for...., I don't stand for....", and so on. By creating routines for the "small" stuff, we lessen the amount of decisions we have to make each day, and this can be experienced as quite comforting, I believe. But we don't stop there, uncertainty is a pesky critter, so often we decide "that's how it is" even for "bigger" stuff such as: "who am I, why am I here, where did we come from, where do we go when we die, what's the meaning of life, etc."

Once we have decided what the answers to those questions are, we can often experience a sense of relief and to a degree, keep uncertainty at bay.

Until, something happens that collides with our "contours" and makes us question our answers to those big questions and like Teddy, we may feel like "we have lost our contours".

Once, when I felt like I had lost some of my contours,I decided to entertain a for me, new notion: "what if some comfort and certainty can be had by viewing "uncertainty" as a certainty?"

Accepting uncertainty as part of the human condition, (=turning an uncertainty into a certainty) can be, well it was for me, wonderfully liberating. Routines and habits can be helpful when it comes to the lightening of the burden of decision making, but in my view, not terribly helpful when it comes to discovery, creativity, and expansion of what it is to be fully alive.

Two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, without contours, could belong to: a bear, a rat, a cat, a fox, a badger, a dog, a dingo, a wolf, a teddy, and so on....the possibilities are many.

Perhaps losing one's contours at times can be viewed as an opportunity for reinvention?

New contours, a new "creature", new experiences?

 

“The journey of reinvention is one of raw emotions
Emerging from dormancy
Surprising as a paper cut
Overwhelming as a hailstorm
One part vulnerability
One part rage
One part surrender
Uncomfortable
Unfamiliar
Unsure
Fearful
Alone
Damaged
Broken
And finding a new Self
Slowly
Different
Healing
Humble
Present
Open
Longing
Free"

(David Rudbarg)