Confusion to Clarity

Confusion is a defense mechanism that functions to hide clarity that will disrupt something we believe is important- a relationship, our sense of self, or our understanding of the world.

Break through the confusion. Find your clarity. Then give yourself time and space to contemplate what your clarity is. Let it bloom from within you. Let it fill your body, heart, and mind.

Ultimately, trust that you can wisely decide what to do with what you newly know.

Once you allow yourself know your truth, let yourself live it.

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Confusion is a cloud of fear that we experience mostly as sloshing around and muddying our thoughts. For those of us who tend to think before we feel, sometimes confusion hides our emotions from us, since it stops us from actually anchoring into an opinion about what’s happening. If we don’t know what to think or what to feel, then we can’t acknowledge or truly experience our reality. We certainly can’t feel the pain of our reality. This is the logic that confusion uses to keep us safe. In obfuscating our thoughts and feelings, confusion provides us with a facade of stability and sanity. It anchors our awareness in a muddy cloud of ‘I don’t know…' when it believes what is actually happening to us wouldn’t lend us any security at all.

The purpose of confusion is to block our clarity. It protects us from acknowledging and experiencing what we think and feel. It stops us from knowing what we know, when it believes we can’t handle the truth. If you find yourself saying, “I don’t know…” frequently in conversation, take a beat and consider whether that’s actually true.

Confusion has a logic to it. Our psychologies manufacture it for us at a time in our development when we needed to be protected from what was happening around us. But confusion can be like an overprotective big brother. It has a tendency to stick with us even when we’ve outgrown it. It has a tendency to underestimate our strength.

Clarity moves from inside of our bodies out, from our bone marrow through our soft tissue (where we experience it as emotion) and through our mind (where we experience it as thought). As it expands in our bodies, it informs our thoughts and feelings until we experience enough clarity that it can take shape in our actions. This process takes time. Moments, hours, days, years. Thoughts can block the natural flow of clarity by activating our body’s fear response: “I can’t say that, I would be so [insert negative adjective]. I can’t do that, it’s not the right [time/place/person/choice/decision].” Or, perniciously, “I can’t think or feel that! That would be devastating.” When we think fearful thoughts, our bodies experience the emotion of fear. Fear shuts down our capacity to take clear action. It dampens and arrests the flow of clarity as it moves through our bodies. Fear can reinstall the cloud of confusion that keeps us from taking our thoughts and feelings seriously. Fear maintains the status quo - which is safe, but inauthentic.

Your clarity never goes away, no matter how enduring your fear about it may be. The truth is patient and unwavering. It will always be there, in your bones, ready to take greater residence in your body and mind. Your clarity is always on the verge of expression. It guides you toward what’s best for you.

If you’re in a period of hesitation, uncertainty, waffling, or afraid to acknowledge something, or say or do something you know you need to do… give yourself time. Familiarize yourself with your clarity. What does your clarity feel like in your bones? In your body? In your emotional landscape? What are the physical sensations of your clarity? Open, soft, relaxed, peaceful, joyful? How does clarity shift your thoughts? What new ideas does it bring you? What actions would flow from your clarity? What would feel right and natural for you to do out of your clarity? If you served only your clarity, what would it have you do? Also observe how quickly you respond with fear. What does your fear feel like? What physical sensations come along with fear? What does it think like? How long does it last? What would it have you do, if you served only it? And how long does it take you to reopen, relax, and soften back into your clarity, and repeat this cycle?

The more familiar you are with this process - with the inhale and exhale of being you - the longer you’ll be able to hold yourself in clarity and the closer you’ll be to taking clear action. Think of it like weightlifting. With practice, you can lift heavier weights and do more reps. Similarly, with practice and intention, you’ll make your clarity feel like ‘home’. It will be a familiar place within yourself that you know is safe, that is always available to you, that you can always return to no matter how much time you’ve spent locked in fear.

When the tables turn and your clarity begins to feel like safety instead of your fear or confusion, that means you’ve created a stable-enough jumping off point to take a clear action, whatever it is that you’ve imagined in partnership with your thoughts (bolded above).

Your confusion - and the fear underlying it - believe you are too weak or vulnerable to live your truth. Your clarity knows you aren’t. As soon as you know your truth, and can fully embody it - live it.