Hi Friends-

I hope you are finding joy where you can this week. I am appreciating the little things: The first blue bird I have seen in my yard in six years; the view of the tall pines from my desk; this mug of hojicha tea, a gift from someone special.

I am learning that part of the way that I deal with chaos is to try to come up with new metaphors to understand what I, and we, are experiencing. To use a linguistic frame to make something that feels difficult just a little bit lighter.

This week I’m musing on the idea of “uncertainty training” in the hopes it offers some solace.

Sending love,
Jocelyn

p.s. My apologies that this newsletter has been rather slow in coming. I had to take a momentary pause to tend to my health.

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Uncertainty Training
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​Wherein I talk about the power of metaphors, what uncertainty can teach us, and cultivating tiny anchoring practices day by day…

I’m currently working on a book project that shares different metaphors as tools for reshaping the way we relate to ourselves and to our minds.

Metaphors are, in my opinion, incredibly powerful. Because the internal language that we use to frame our experience shapes how we process that experience. One cannot be separated from the other.

And so: By changing the frame, we can begin to change our experience.

I have a friend and teacher who is incredibly good at doing this — helping me to turn my perspective around so that I can see things in a completely new way.

For example: Imagine that you are climbing a mountain. It’s a slow and steady incline, and you’ve been climbing for hours. And every time you think you’re almost to the top, you come over a slight crest and another slow, uphill grade appears. All you can see is more rocks and more effort ahead.

But then a friend, a fellow traveler on the journey, calls out to you and beckons you to stop, and they take you by the shoulders and slowly turn you around.

Lo and behold, behind you, there’s a magnificent view. Undulating blue waves of mountains and water stretch out before you, reaching out into the distance as far as the eye can see.

And it was all there the whole time, you simply needed to turn around — to change your perspective.

The metaphors we use matter, and the frames we use matter. They are extremely potent. Is this an uphill battle? Or is this an opportunity to appreciate the majesty of nature? Or maybe both?

As a Capricorn Rising, my disposition is to gravitate toward struggle. Give me an uphill battle any day. Which is probably why I need new metaphors as much as anyone.

One metaphor that I’ve been working with lately to cultivate a more friendly attitude toward the current state of chaos and disruption is the idea of “uncertainty training.”

Depending on our level of privilege, each of us have had very different experiences of “uncertainty” in this life so far. But now, given the precarious state of our planet, our climate, and our democracy, we all seem to have been collectively enrolled in a new kind of “uncertainty training.”

Again: With the severity of that uncertainty being meted out at wildly different levels, depending on wealth, influence, class, race, gender identity, and so on.

So some of us enter into this uncertainty bootcamp with quite a bit of experience, and others with less.

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On a walk through the woods the other day, I was interrogating this idea of “uncertainty training” — what does that phrase even mean? And what, exactly, would uncertainty training look like?

I suppose the appeal of the “training” reframe is that it creates the feeling of a useful learning program that you are opting into with some long-term benefit in mind. That it’s not just that everything is falling apart and you’re holding it together as best you can, but that there’s some kind of method to the madness, some greater purpose to everything that’s unfolding. The idea that you’re training for something.

But what? What’s it all for?

I wish I had a crystal ball that would tell me the answer.

But I don't. (Not yet anyway.🧙‍♀️)

In place of that knowing, in place of that certainty, all I have is my routines and my practices. Going on my morning walk everyday, making a cup of tea, taking time to breathe and come back into my heart, writing in my journal, talking it out with a friend. Assembling tiny little anchor points minute-by-minute, day-by-day, to keep myself grounded and sane.

When I fell apart this morning, my writing practice brought me back. To try to put my experience into words is its own kind of medicine.

And maybe, in the end, that’s all that we are training for. To attune more deeply to the medicines we have to offer each other and ourselves, to the practices that help us stay rooted, to our own capacity to breathe in, to breathe out, and to hold more.
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Footnote: Originally, this essay featured a long excerpt from the pages of Pema Chödrön’s book "Comfortable with Uncertainty." I would still encourage you to go read the first few pages of that book here. This is one of my favorite lines: “When inspiration has become hidden, when we feel ready to give up, this is the time when healing can be found in the tenderness of pain itself.”

LINK ABOUT IT

“When you’re scared, you cannot play. And the two — creativity and play — are indelibly connected. As Carl Jung said, ‘The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.’ And being able to play and therefore create feels vitally important in moments like this.”
​—Elise Loehnen, “Getting Over Creative Disappointment”

“The architecture began to shape my attention. I started reading to extract. Listening to summarize. Thinking in formats I could file. Every experience became fodder. I stopped wondering and started processing. This is productivity as performance.”
​—Joan Westenberg, “I deleted my second brain”

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​A masterclass in connecting status, power, and the economy with Tressie McMillan Cottom.​

​If you enjoy “petrichor” — the smell of earth after it rains — this podcast is a very fun rabbithole to go down.​

​Astronomy photographer of the year shortlist 2025.​

​Brian Eno on the creative process: “It’s a muddle.”
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Ways to Work with Me:

​Book a 1-1 alchemy coaching session​

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​Take RESET, my self-guided course on heart-centered productivity​

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Shout-Outs:​
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​The artwork is: Seb NIARK1 FERAUT, who is based in Paris, France.

Link ideas from: Fiery Feather and Kottke.
​

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Hi, I'm Jocelyn, the human behind this newsletter. I host the Hurry Slowly podcast, teach online courses, offer alchemy coaching, and practice energy work. You can learn more about me at jkg.co. If you have a question, you can always feel free to hit reply. 🤓

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Website: jkg.co​

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