A Note on Chaos

and self-limiting beliefs

It’s been a good while since I have written, mainly due to general and ongoing chaos that we all move through from time to time. I admit that when I hear the term “chaos,” I immediately feel a tension in the pit of my stomach, bracing myself for all that I sense is outside of my locus of control. The word to me has become synonymous with stress, trauma, and pain. Recently, I have heard the implied message from multiple sources that it is time to change my perspective.

Photo by JJ Shev on Unsplash

Rarely, if ever, have I thought of chaos as “the precondition for form,” (The Emerald Podcast, Enter the Dragon Part 2: On Order and Chaos) generative, dynamic, filled with possibility. Like many things associated with darkness and unpredictability, chaos has a feminine energy in my perception: the power to destroy, alongside the power to create and animate. I have focused my attention so intently on the fear of destruction emerging from chaos that I blinded myself completely to the notion of birth and growth alongside it in the same cradle. What comes to front of mind for you when you think of chaos? What images come forth?

My fear of chaos and the negative connotations that I assign it stem from one thing: the sense of powerlessness filling my body when tossing aside any illusion of control I had crafted. I wonder how others interact with the unknown that we are living in collectively and individually. Do you regard the abyss as a friend, or as a sandbox for illustrious ideas and possibility? Do you regard the void as something evil, threatening to your life and to what you hold dear? I feel I am beginning to broaden my capacity to hold both truths at once.

After surgery on March 31st to relieve a frozen shoulder and address rotator cuff dysfunction, I have been in a new kind of pain. There is, of course, the physical component, but what has struck me more than that is the psychological element. I began to spiral downward, desperately trying to push away the aching, the stabbing and the throbbing by leaning into it in physical therapy. I would bring myself to the brink of tears, stifling yelps that seemed determined to escape my throat. Why, asked my physician, would you do this to yourself repeatedly and cause greater inflammation to an already sensitive area? Why, indeed, I thought. Why not allow healing in its own time, without expectation? Why treat my body this way when it is already sending me clear signals that something is not right? And it dawned on me.

If I am going to hurt, I want to exercise agency over it. I want to decide my own level of pain, decide when the pain can abate, even if slightly. The unknown of my healing journey terrifies me because I do not see it clearly. It feels chaotic and unhinged. I am a boat on an angry ocean being tossed along the waves like a child’s toy. And that isn’t the only place.

Photo by redcharlie on Unsplash

My blood glucose roller coaster, crashes and spikes that often seem to come from nowhere, making my head spin and my bodily organs less pliant. Alarms in the middle of the night, blinking awake and wondering where and what I am. At the mercy of the Type 1 Diabetes God that punishes and rewards on a whim. Chaos. This has been my story.

And just as stories do, this one is evolving. I am fortunate enough these days to have a co-conspirator in the coaching and consultation realm, and we have spent the past two Sundays scheming and dreaming about what we can put forth and to whom, what our clarion call will be. We brainstorm, question, and experiment. Life-giving chaos, a pool of the unknown for us to swim in. Our life paths, trials and tribulations, offering us fuel for this fire. A chaotic petri dish of hopes that is growing something real.

All of this to underscore the fact that most of us hold onto self-limiting beliefs and assumptions, assigning labels and writing narratives that might not serve us anymore. What are you willing to examine right now? What one assumption do you have that holds you back? What beliefs carry you forward?