“Leaping into the Abyss Requires Faith, but Will Set You Free” KEW Episode 90: Improvisation, Yin-Yang, and the Grateful Dead

Have you ever had Analysis Paralysis, or been unable to make a decision?

I’m sure you have – it happens all the time. Basically, we have two or more options, but we can’t know for sure what the outcome of either decision will be.

Carlos Castaneda, in the books about Don Juan and the Toltecs, described this as leaping into an Abyss.

When my wife and I were contemplating marriage, we viewed our individual and collective futures as a leap into an Abyss. Were we both willing to take the risk of how we will fall or land? The answer was yes, and we have been married for almost seven years.

The key to this leap is faith. Like the adage, ‘a leap of faith’, faith requires you to let go of the ‘not knowing’ in lieu of a belief that things will work out ok.

This faith is the other side of knowing. It’s the opposite. The Yang to the Yin. The Darth Vader to the Luke Skywalker. It’s how the universe is made.

It’s also an agreement to take the good with the bad. Take my marriage. Not everything is unicorns and rainbows. We made an agreement to deal with the good and the bad, the ‘sickness and health’, of it all. We did NOT assume things would always be one way or the other. Because they aren’t. There is good and there is bad.

Take the Grateful Dead. They asked their audience to leap in to an abyss. Some shows might be great, others might not be. But the agreement states that everyone would be together and love one another regardless of the outcome. The WHOLE THING was about the journey and not the result.

This theme of focusing on the unfolding of life over the result or outcome is key here. It’s the point I’m trying to make.

If we surrender our need to KNOW the outcome, and focus on having FAITH that the outcome will be fine, or at least how it is meant to be, it frees us not only from worry but from not being able to enjoy the ride.

Like the Dead say, “I’m going to hell in a bucket, but at least I’m enjoying the ride”.

I hope I, and all of us, can remember to enjoy the ride and break the agreements focusing on positive results. When we start to believe things will be ok, they are.

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