Is It Smoke—or a Fire?

The critical mind can be annoying like that. It’s like someone peeking through a crack, seeing the smoke from incense, and turning it into a what if it’s a fire? situation.

Doubt is one tool that can set off the ego-trip autopilot of striving to control or improve situations when sometimes we simply don’t have a wide enough perspective to see clearly what is going on.

Seeing that doubt can act like a chain the ego uses to yank our priorities around, how can we reverse this and use doubt to get a grip on our reality?

Our ego is that part of the mind that is always comparing: ___ not good enough, ___ should be better, ___ awful, etc.

So, each time doubt flares, instead of tripping into that ego trip of striving to improve something or emphasizing a deficiency, what if we viewed doubt as a smoke detector?

Yes, sometimes an extremely annoying smoke detector—the kind that wakes us up in the middle of the night not to warn us of a fire, but to tell us to change the battery. Annoying, yes. But that battery change protects us from sleeping through an actual fire.

That is why, when in doubt, think first:

1. What am I missing from this picture?
2. Clarity is a potent way to increase your purview over a situation and see what actually needs to change.
3. When doubt shows up, let it remind you to look at what is really happening. Is it projection? Rejection? An OCD tendency? Or are we simply in the funk of overwhelm and spraying everything with the stickiness of anxiety?
4. Check in before feeling that lurch toward that “F” word state. It may at least save you the energy and frustration of trying to fix things that aren’t broken—or at least aren’t broken in the way we think they are.

When the View Gets Too Narrow

When you find yourself in a binge of whatever—food, work, streaming episode after episode, or some repeating mixture of these—you may be looking at the situation through a very narrow crack. For a time, that might even be appropriate.

But if you’re in that state for more than a few weeks, you may need a lasso to pull you out of it. Before you get to that stage, notice if you’re heading toward it—or just dipping your toe into what might become a quicksand trap.

See if you can relax and open the view wider.

What is the real situation? What might help you see it more clearly?

Maybe it’s taking a few days off from the gym and going for a long walk instead. Maybe it’s simply being outside at night and recognizing how vast the sky is, even when it’s stuffed with clouds.

The Quicksand of “Should”

So many of us are pursuing important things all at once—education, careers, parenting, relationships, health.

When we push too hard to be what we think we should be and then collapse into a puddle of indulgence, we get a prime example of how desperately avoiding being nonproductive can end up sucking us into the quicksand of compulsions.

So be gentle with yourself.

Open your view to all that you want to invite into your life, balanced with the things you don’t particularly like doing but that are simply part of the journey.

Resistance will exhaust you, delay you and confuse you. And it often shows up as doubt. Making doubt your helper starts with getting a grip on what is actually happening—and what is actually happen-able—so that what we are experiencing isn’t lost to the distortions of expectations, so-called norms, or aggressive marketing campaigns.

Then we can recognize where we are in space and time and confidently map where we want to be.

And if you’re already stuck in the swamp—or sinking into the quicksand—reach out. It may not be as fast as you would like, but it may be much easier than you expect, especially with the increased ease that comes with clarity.