Indecision Road: Can't Decide Your Next Step?
3 Ways to Discover Clarity Within
As we traverse this human journey, we face many crossroads that invite us to choose the path most aligned with who we are becoming. Some choices, like a career change, a move, or tending to a relationship issue, feel weighty. Some crossroads seem foggy, like a nagging sense that some area of our life needs change, though we can't pinpoint exactly what. It's easy to get caught in the thinking mind and feel paralyzed by overanalysis, fear, or confusion.
Our mind spins with questions. Should I stay or go? What will happen if I choose one path over the other? Which choice aligns with my values and who I want to become? The stakes feel high, yet the way forward is murky. However, beneath the chatter and indecision - there lies a vast inner wisdom that effortlessly knows the way.
By sinking into stillness or permitting ourselves not to have the answers, we can attune to our intuition—the soul's inner compass—to reveal the next evolutionary step that will lead us deeper into our truth, purpose, and wholeness. The following are a few practices for making soul-informed choices in your life.
1. Time To Not-Know
It's okay not to know. Taking a posture of not-knowing helps relieve tension and frees up energy to assess your situation through a wider lens - what I call "pulling the camera back."
Sometimes it's necessary to sit in the sticky center of indecision to gain clarity. This may sound counterintuitive, but you can ask many self-reflective questions from this place of uncertainty. What practical information or facts do I need to make an informed decision? Is this the best time/timing? What is still maturing within me that necessities me slowing down? By giving yourself an extended allotment of time - hours, weeks, or months depending on your situation - you create spaciousness to sink into not knowing and listen for the inner wisdom that naturally bubbles up.
Standing at the edge of the unknown takes humility, courage, and vulnerability.
Parts Dialogue:
Have a free-writing dialogue between the part of you that feels uncertain and your inner wisdom.
Give each part or character a name and personality.
Write back and forth between these two voices without editing and see what emerges.
Take Your Question for a Walk in Nature. With your decision question top of mind, visit your favorite park or hiking area and verbalize the question aloud or internally at the start of your walk. Then consciously release it into the wilds of nature. Stay open to receive whatever returns. Let everything in the natural world “speak” to you. Trust whatever comes—even if this includes no new insights.
Set a Decision-Making Deadline. Sometimes the pressure of an impending decision can create a profound sense of clarity. When the proverbial rubber has to hit the road, details surrounding your decision can snap into high definition and tell you if you are on the right path. Pick a date and time, decide, and proceed with curiosity, committing to this next step as an experiment.
2. What Part of You May Want To Remain Stuck?
Is staying stuck more comfortable than taking a brave step into the unknown? If so, what's really at the root - fear of failure, learning something uncomfortable about myself, feeling unworthy of growth?
Journaling Inquiry
Ask yourself - is this feeling familiar? Have I been here before? If so, what do I gain or get out of feeling stuck?
Freewrite for 20 minutes on the prompt "If I remain stuck, then..." Make an exhaustive list as you keep your hand moving the whole time. Then go back and review what you wrote. Is there any kernel of truth or insight worth exploring further?
3. Start Close In
The best first step is often quite small, but sets momentum in motion. Small steps build confidence and forward traction. Before long, these small brave steps compound into huge progress. Each mindful step illuminates a little more of the path. Eventually, your next right step becomes clear.
Read the David Whyte poem included below.
Journal the Following Inquiries:
What is the close step I can take?
What step am I avoiding or resisting?
Start Close In
by David Whyte
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.
Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.
To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes an
intimate
private ear
that can
really listen
to another.
Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.
Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.