Uncertainty: Friend, Foe or a Door to New Possibilities?
© 2022 Anat Baniel
The sense of predictability in the daily flow of our lives is essential to our ability to function. When walking down the street, as we place one foot in front of the other on the sidewalk, we expect there to be a solid ground. When having a conversation with a beloved friend, we inherently assume the ongoing exchange will be friendly and safe. Our brains are molded by the connections and patterns that are created in response to our experiences. In turn, we apply these patterns with the built-in, implicit expectation that the world is going to be and remain the way we already know it.
In other words, we prefer to experience the world as predictable and certain. But since the start of the pandemic, for the first time in many people’s lives, certainty has been in short supply. So how do we handle this? In this article, we’ll explore why many of us find uncertainty so challenging and learn how it can actually be a pathway to newfound freedom and potency.
Early on, while in grad school studying to become a psychotherapist, uncertainty was not a topic I associated with my main interest. That changed when I studied with Amos Tversky and later became his teaching assistant in a course titled Statistics for Psychologists. I had the enormous good fortune to listen to him talk about the discoveries he and Daniel Kahneman were making at the time in the area of decision making under uncertainty. This became a new field of study and research for which they eventually received a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The study of unpredictability and uncertainty of outcomes as a central component of human learning, development, and behavior, has also become an integral part of my own work.
Certainty gives us a sense of safety. It makes our lives easier, and also facilitates how we function in groups and as a society. In order to help small children feel safe, we create routines and lots of predictability. Many parents have experienced the horror of the loss of their child’s favorite blanket. Even though as adults we are unlikely to become inconsolable if we lose a favorite blanket, this example shows how the experience of certainty is central to our feelings of safety and well-being, and for our ability to function effectively. Does that mean that when things become unpredictable, we have no choice but to become debilitated? The answer is “no.” In fact, it’s even possible to thrive under uncertainty.
In 2020, as we became aware of Covid-19, very few among us were able to foresee the horrific pandemic that was on the horizon. Those who did foresee the possible future path of Covid-19 were mainly those whose life’s work is in the field of public health, epidemiology, and pandemics. For others, the predictions with pictures of a very different world were too foreign to be fully comprehended and therefore were either ignored, rejected, or viewed as fearmongering which in turn led to opposition and polarization.
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As 2020 neared its end, there was a lot of talk of, and an expectation that, the end of the year (which, by the way, is an arbitrary notion created by humans) would be the end of the pandemic. Many expected that things would “go back to normal” or “go back to the way they were.” But they didn’t. By the end of the following year, there was very little talk about things going back to the way they were (even though many, understandably, still wished for it). By now, we have all woken up to the reality of uncertainty. Yet, many of us are still struggling to find ways to live well with such blatant, ongoing unpredictability.
Is Uncertainty a Bad Thing?
To think and believe that uncertainty is a bad thing is like thinking and believing that gravitational force is a bad thing. Yes, gravitational force pulls on us all the time but we need it in order to move and function. Our lives are built around the existence of this force (consider the amount of physical and mental training and preparation it takes before an astronaut is sent to outer space for an extended period of time).
The same is true for uncertainty. It’s always there whether we are aware of it or not. Uncertainty provides a door for new possibilities – it is what makes learning possible. For example, there are an estimated 7000 languages in the world. A newborn child can learn any one of those 7000 possibilities depending on the language/s they hear. There are also infinite ways to think, feel, compose music, and react to any situation we find ourselves in. If all was certain, choice and freedom, an integral part of the human condition, would not exist.
Habits Versus Change
So why do we have such a hard time with uncertainty? The answer lies with how we currently use and have used our brains in the past. When our experiences are generally the same with little variability and if we tend to stay the course and not seek and allow variations and novelty in our lives, our habitual beliefs, and ways of moving, thinking, feeling, and acting, get deeply grooved into our brains. We live under the illusion of certainty and when the proverbial rug is pulled from under our feet, we lack the freedom to respond with the agility and creativity that is needed to avoid “falling” and/or to recover quickly if/when we do fall.
Two Brains in One
Our brains serve two main purposes:
1: to form reliable, deeply grooved patterns that allow for automatic or semi-automatic responses to stimuli and situations, and to serve us in our daily lives by creating enough certainty and safety for ourselves and others.
2: to be alert, agile, uncommitted, and “at the ready” to create new connections and patterns so that we can continue to learn, to change, to bring awareness to our current reality, and to meet our needs better.
You may be wondering how such seemingly opposite core purposes can co-exist in the brain. From my experience in working with tens of thousands of people over many years, I came to realize that not only is it possible to change, even when we have deeply ingrained habits, but that our brains are actually designed to change, at any age. Healthy brains are at the ready to wake up to learn, change, and improve our functioning. Our brains just need the right conditions to provide them with the information necessary to create something new.
Why Are So Many of Us Challenged by Uncertainty?
Extreme uncertainty is very difficult to deal with emotionally, cognitively, and at times even physically. Researcher Jerome Kagan of the UNC School of Education wrote that the need to resolve uncertainty is among the four primary motives driving human behavior. This need is so powerful that Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman were able to identify and reliably predict the typical mistakes in thinking and in decision-making that people will make when faced with uncertainty. (The paradox of identifying predictability in how we deal with uncertainty is an interesting one!) If you would like to dive deeper into their thinking, you can read a seminal paper they have written. And if you wish to read the story of their friendship and how they developed their work, I recommend the informative and fascinating book by Michael Lewis called The Undoing Project.
The process of education in schools, in the home, and in social circumstances leans heavily towards children and adults developing highly reliable and predictable, deeply grooved patterns of behavior, thinking, and belief. Very little attention, if any, is put into developing in parallel the brain’s inclination to readily wake up and create something new. With such imbalance between these two qualities and skills of our brains, uncertainty can stump us, stress us greatly, and leave us feeling anxious, perhaps angry, and helpless. The 2+ year pandemic has certainly created extreme conditions that have, and continue to, challenge us on many levels.
A few basic things about the brain:
- The brain has a job to do like any system in our body, such as the heart and liver.
- The better the brain can do its job, the more we can successfully learn and overcome challenges.
- The job of the brain is to put order in disorder and to make sense out of nonsense.
- The brain is an information system rather than a mechanical system, and it’s governed by informational system principles. For example, when we try moving a heavy object, using more force typically leads to a better outcome (mechanical system). However, if we use force to get the brain to learn something new, this is likely to distort the learning process and create unnecessary limitations in the brain.
- For learning to occur the brain needs new information.
- The source of new information is the perception of differences in the flow of stimulation coming from the outside and inside. This is what is referred to in neuroscience as “signal to noise ratio.”
- When a difference in the flow of stimulation is not perceived, it does not exist, and the brain lacks information with which to learn.
- The chain of learning is: stimulation (perception of a difference) to evoking differentiation, creating new connections in the brain, providing the opportunity and possibility for spontaneous integration, (i.e. learning).
Freedom and Potency
The good news is that there are easy, direct, and simple ways to “wake up” the brain and turn its Learning Switch on (the Learning Switch is one of 9 NeuroMovement® Essentials that I have developed and that offer concrete, effective, and immediate ways to easily tap into your brain’s enormous potential). When we wake up the brain to create new pathways and solutions to match our current reality, we experience increased safety and well-being with our newfound freedom and potency.
3 Essentials to Help Calm Anxiety During Uncertainty
I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the following 3 Essentials and look to apply them in as many aspects of your day-to-day activities as you can. In addition, I invite you to do this NeuroMovement® lesson 1-2 times a day (it’s only 10 minutes long), every day for 7 days or more.
Variation
Introduce variation and playfulness into everything you do. Your brain will get a cascade of information it can use to create new possibilities in movements, thoughts, and actions. One of the easiest ways to bring in variations is by doing something the “wrong” way on purpose, or making intentional, yet safe mistakes. Over time, as you experience how powerful intentional variations are, you will grow to love and enjoy taking these careful and measured “risks” in your life. It’s helpful to bring in an element of playfulness by acknowledging that you have survived thus far, and you will continue to make it into the future.
Flexible Goals
When uncertainty is great, it is perfectly fine to set goals; just know that your goals might need to adapt as the situation changes. Try to embrace all the unexpected steps, missteps, and re-routes along the way. These are a rich source of valuable information for your brain and a great opportunity for you to feel good about yourself.
The Learning Switch
When the world as we know it keeps changing, becoming a highly potent learner is key to success and well-being. For the brain to properly do its job, the learning switch needs to be turned ON. Expect and look to learn something new in each situation you find yourself in, especially in the very familiar ones, by bringing curiosity to the situation or experience.
These Essentials are a way of being and a way of doing. Each Essential is a way of action. They sound simple and may intuitively make sense to you. Or they may feel quite foreign to what you are used to thinking and believing. Adopting them and using them takes intention, attention, and the desire to learn on your part. And by engaging with these practices, you will begin waking up your brain to its enormous potency to be healthy and creative, and you will learn to feel better in the midst of a “storm” of uncertainty.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anat Baniel is the best-selling author of Move into Life and the highly acclaimed Kids Beyond Limits, and founder of Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement® (ABMNM®) – a holistic approach to understanding learning, function, and acquisition of skills. Her work evolved from a background in dance, clinical psychology, and statistics, and from her close professional collaboration with Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais for over a decade. Anat and her team of expert practitioners work with high performers such as musicians and dancers, people suffering from pain or limitations, stroke victims, and an ever-growing number of children with special needs, as well as their parents and caregivers/therapists. She also collaborates with leading neuroscientists, doctors, and educators including, Dr. Martha Herbert, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Dr. Elizabeth Torres, and others.
Anat and her team offer in-person sessions at Anat Baniel Method Center in San Rafael, California, online private coaching, online courses for parents, therapists, and caregivers, as well as practitioner training programs. Anat developed the 9 Essentials of NeuroMovement® that offer practical, accessible methods, supported by neuroscience research, that take advantage of the brain’s ability to change through movement to overcome pain, and increase flexibility, strength, creativity, and vitality. You can learn more about the 9 Essentials and receive tools to powerfully wake up your brain to overcome pain and increase flexibility, strength, creativity, and vitality here.
Posted by mkeane on Thursday, June 2nd, 2022 @ 10:47AM
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