Just for a moment, let go of needing to figure anything out. Let your shoulders drop. Let your breath settle. You don’t have to have the answer right now. You don’t have to have any answers at all.
There is a question that visits most of us at some point. It tends to arrive not when life is falling apart, but when things are fine. Maybe even good. You have done what you were supposed to do. You have built something. And yet, underneath it all, there is this quiet whisper. Is this all there is?
If you have ever felt that, I want you to know something. You are not ungrateful. You are not broken. You are asking one of the oldest and most important questions a human being can ask.
And here is what I have come to understand about it. That question is not a dead end. It is a doorway.
Because when you really sit with “is this all there is?” and you follow it all the way down, it doesn’t lead to despair. It leads to mystery. We don’t know what consciousness is. We don’t know what happens when we die. We don’t know why there is something rather than nothing. The biggest questions about existence remain completely unanswered. And rather than that being frightening, I find it quietly thrilling.
Rumi put it beautifully. Cleverness, he said, is mere opinion. But bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge. We spend so much of life trying to have the answers, trying to know, trying to categorise and file everything away. And the moment we decide we have it all figured out, the world gets very small.
But when we let ourselves not know, when we stand in front of life with our mouths open again like children, everything cracks wide open.
Think about the first time a child sees a butterfly. It is magic to them. The colours, the movement, the impossible delicacy of those wings. They haven’t filed it away yet. They haven’t labelled it. It is all brand new. That is beginner’s mind. That is bewilderment. And it is available to all of us.
The wonder never actually left. We just stopped looking.
Go outside or look through a window and choose one thing. A tree, a cloud, the way light falls on the pavement. Look at it as if you have never seen it before. In a very real sense, you haven’t. This exact moment, this exact configuration of light and shadow, has never existed before and will never exist again. Let that land for a moment.
When did you last allow yourself to simply not know? And what might open up if you gave yourself permission to sit with that more often?
This week, I will let not knowing be enough.
New meditation: Awakening the Child Within: A Window of Wonder or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
A gentle practice to help you move from fighting to accepting, from clenching to opening your hands.
I've also done a podcast about this subject you can listen here: When letting go feels impossible or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
A personal note
This episode came from a place that has stayed with me for over thirty five years. When I was eighteen and lying in a hospital bed after breaking my neck, I could not move, could not speak, could not escape my own mind. I had no phone to scroll, no distractions. Just me and two questions going round and round. Who am I? And is this all there is?
At first, the second question felt shallow. Almost embarrassing. But over time, I realised it was one of the deepest questions I had ever asked. Because it didn’t lead me to despair. It led me to mystery. And through that mystery, I could see that life was far bigger than I could ever imagine.
I still don’t have the answers. And I have made peace with that. Not knowing is not a wall. It is a window.
Be gentle with yourself this week.
Let something ordinary take your breath away.
Much love, Steven
Thank you to everyone who supported me with a coffee recently: Angie, Helen, Suja, Suzanne, Lorna, Liz, Daphne, Sarah, Mikey, Jen, and a few kind anonymous souls. It means more than you know.
If you would like to support, listen to the podcast, or just say hello: stevenwebb.uk