Pema Chödrön’s book, Practicing Peace in Times of War, (2007) advises her readers that instead of trying to get away from the uncomfortable feeling we have with the unknown that we develop an aptitude for what she likes to call 'positive groundlessness, or positive insecurity.' “We need to develop an appetite for groundlessness; we need to get curious about it and be willing to pause and hang out for a while in that space of insecurity,” she counsels.
This seemingly abstract dictum is precisely what improvisation teaches: how to live vibrantly in a field of flux, an office of uncertainly, even an apartment of landmines. We cannot let this not knowing paralyze us. We need to stay in motion, in action during this groundlessness.
This seemingly abstract dictum is precisely what improvisation teaches: how to live vibrantly in a field of flux, an office of uncertainly, even an apartment of landmines. We cannot let this not knowing paralyze us. We need to stay in motion, in action during this groundlessness.
We do not know or need to know what comes next. We create it. And we have a choice in how we enter the present. Much has been written about mindfulness, or waking up to the “present moment.” Dr. David K. Reynolds once quipped: “What other moment is there?”
I'm a great believer in making friends with groundlessness.
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