I think it was Spring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it was a Saturday afternoon, me sitting on the balcony of a friend\u2019s charming apartment in Clarendon Court, a slightly dilapidated Victorian apartment block at the foothills of the Union Buildings. Sunlight filtering through the Jacaranda branches, a glass of white wine tear dropping on an uneven side table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was lazily flipping through a book my friend just pulled from his eclectic but fascinating bookshelf (very similar to his circle of friends). It\nwas before I pursued my studies again. It was after an extremely difficult\nre-settling in South Africa \u2013 working in a draining job that I really didn\u2019t\nwant to do anymore. Then I stumbled upon this paragraph ~ the book was \u201cAfter the ecstacy, the laundry<\/em>\u201d by Jack\nKornfield:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the root of suffering is a small\nheart, frightened to be here, afraid to trust the river of change, to let go in\nthis changing world. This small unopened heart grasps and needs and struggles\nto control what is unpredictable and unpossessable. But we can never know what\nwill happen. With wisdom we allow this not knowing to become a form of trust.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waiting\nwith bated breath on that which we have no idea about, allowing not knowing to\nbecome a form of trust. I lived by this maxim for a few years after\nencountering Jack Kornfield. And then it started fading again, overtaken by\nplans of action, trying to make a living (\u2026and money) and managing everyday upheavals.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying\nto predict, trying to control, trying to possess. A few years went by\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then\nre-reading the words of Maxine Sheets-Johnstone while writing my previous blog\n~ to draw back \u201cfrom an easy, ready-made everyday language and our turning\nfirst of all to experience itself\u201d; to \u201cbracket\u201d our natural attitude towards\nthe world and \u201cthereby meet an experience\nas if for the first time<\/em>\u201d, a process where everyday judgements, beliefs and\nreactions are put aside, as well as \u201ceveryday habits of languaging experience\u201d;\nto move experience itself to the foreground and listen to its interior\ndynamics, with the body as the foundation of experience\u2026triggered the memory of\nthe experience of sitting on the balcony, haphazardly reading Jack Kornfield. The\nmemory had to ferment before I could write again\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not have a clear vision for my future. I struggle to imagine the next five years of my life (the tyranny of Facebook slogans and self-help books). Perhaps it\u2019s to do with growing older. Perhaps it\u2019s okay not to have a clue. Perhaps it\u2019s a form of wisdom. Perhaps I should allow this not knowing to become a form of trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:\nI shall explore the connection between not knowing and bracketing within\nnarrative therapy (and theology) in the next blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think it was Spring. I think it was a Saturday afternoon, me sitting on the balcony of a friend\u2019s charming apartment in Clarendon Court, a slightly dilapidated Victorian apartment block at the foothills of the Union Buildings. Sunlight filtering through the Jacaranda branches, a glass of white wine tear dropping on an uneven side …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}