The Practice of Not Knowing

There is something about the end of summer that always feels like an in-between. The days are still long. It’s still incredibly hot. You’re squeezing in those last summer adventures — but you can almost feel the season beginning to shift underneath it all. And lately, I’ve been feeling a shift too. I’m currently in a period of transition in a few areas of my life. I’m simplifying, detoxing from some things that haven’t been making me feel my best, and trying to create a little more space for what comes next.

But something I’ve been thinking about a lot throughout this process is how uncomfortable we can become when we don’t know what comes next. Our minds want answers. We want to know how something is going to turn out. Whether we made the right decision. What next month will look like. And when we don’t have those answers, it can be incredibly tempting to create them ourselves.

Our brains don’t particularly love uncertainty.

There is actually a psychological concept called intolerance of uncertainty — essentially, how difficult we find it to sit with situations when the outcome isn’t known. Research has increasingly connected intolerance of uncertainty with worry and anxiety, and scientists now consider it relevant across many different situations rather than something that only appears in one specific disorder. Which makes sense. When we don’t know what is happening, our minds start searching for information. Before we know it, we’ve turned an unanswered question into an entire story.

I’ve been catching myself doing this lately and practicing something incredibly simple instead: not knowing. Not everything needs to be interpreted immediately. Not every silence needs a meaning. Not every transition needs a plan. Not every question needs to be answered today. Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is separate what we actually know from what we’re assuming.

Interestingly, this isn’t just a mindfulness philosophy. A recent scientific review examining intolerance of uncertainty found that practices involving attentional awareness, de-centering — observing thoughts rather than automatically identifying with them — and acceptance can help change the way people relate to uncertainty.

In other words, we don’t necessarily need to eliminate uncertainty. We can become better at being with it.

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A little practice for this week

If you notice yourself spiraling around something unresolved, pause and ask yourself:

What do I actually know? What am I assuming? Can I allow this to remain unanswered today?

Take a breath. Come back to your body. Come back to whatever is actually happening in the room you’re sitting in. Maybe the reset isn’t figuring everything out.

Maybe it’s creating enough space to let the answer arrive.

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🌿 This Week’s Reset

I’m personally using this transition between seasons to reduce some of the noise. Less of what leaves me depleted. More water. More whole foods. More movement. More sleep. More time outside. More space to hear myself think.

So this week, I invite you to ask:

What am I ready to consume less of?

Maybe it’s scrolling. Processed food. Alcohol. Overcommitting. Comparison. Late nights. A habit that isn’t making you feel like yourself. Or simply the stories you’re creating about things you don’t yet know. You don’t have to overhaul your life. Choose one thing. Create a little space. And see what wants to grow there.