Facing the Unknown
How do you feel about facing the Unknown?
If answers like anxious, uncomfortable, scared, queasy are coming to mind, you’re not alone.
Unfortunately, there are many times in life when you must face uncertainty. And if you are starting on a personal journey, you’ll have to face the Unknown a lot more often. So how can we learn to meet the challenge?
The threshold
You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path.
Joseph Campbell
For my understanding of personal journeys, I lean on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey concept. In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell compared myths from around the world and distilled them into a pattern of a journey. He found that in journey myths after a hero starts out, they will arrive at a threshold between the known and unknown world. This threshold may look different from one myth to another, but in order to continue the journey, the hero must make this crossing. Beyond the threshold, they find darkness and danger.
I believe that in order to grow, in order to truly live, you must face the Unknown. And so, when you begin a personal journey towards a big goal, or destination, you will experience the threshold moment. Whether your personal journey is a huge project, a new phase of life, or another challenging goal, you must metaphorically cross the threshold. And you will enter a new landscape with new challenges to face.
Facing the Unknown isn’t easy.
The journey is hard. It is far easier to stay the way you are and remain in the comforts of home. Or to follow the well-worn paths society creates for us in the Labyrinth.
Even if we strongly desire to achieve our goal, our own fear and self-doubt often hold us back. Just setting out, and then sticking with the journey, takes enormous courage and inner strength.
In order to achieve a challenging goal, you cannot stay the same; you have to learn and overcome obstacles. The personal journey forces personal evolution.
Facing the Unknown repeatedly
“The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown.”
Joseph Campbell
On a true personal journey, you’re not following the path of anyone else. Rather, you are carving out your own path in darkness. Therefore, you must confront the Unknown again and again.
If you struggle on your journey, if you feel like you’re trudging uphill through mud, know that your experience is normal. Facing the Unknown frequently is taxing. It can make you feel overwhelmed.
We need to find ways to be stubborn and keep going, even through uncertainty and challenges.
My experience with the Unknown
My personal journey is this site, Go Bravely Co. I once assumed that after I had started out and crossed the threshold, the journey would get easier. I thought I would build momentum and be able to tackle my goals one after another.
But I soon found out after I had started down the path, that it is not just the threshold moment that is fraught with danger and uncertainty. Each tiny step can feel like groping through the darkness.
I’ve had tests of endurance and resolve. I’ve climbed mountains. I’ve lost my confidence and stalled out for weeks and months. I’ve spent so much time in the Waste or in a deep fog. I spent long periods of time in the complete darkness of tunnels. I have been tempted to give up many times. I’ve debated with myself what Go Bravely Co. even is, and where it is heading. I’ve been frustrated by how slow my progress has felt.
But through every challenge, I am learning so many lessons. I am learning that in order for the journey to get easier, I have to accept uncertainty and change — not just sometimes, but as a way of life. And I have to consciously push through the fear and doubt until it gets easier to do so. That is how I will get stronger.
My advice for fellow adventurers
My site is named after what we must do in the face of the Unknown: We must go bravely. This does not mean that we feel no fear — after all, feeling fear means that we are human. It means that we find ways to continue despite the fear. In each moment, we can decide to continue making our way through the Unknown.
If you go on the right personal journey, you become closer to your best and most authentic self. So just trying is always worth it.
There is no rush.
Feeling hurried will only increase your stress. You aren’t behind, because you’re not in a race with anyone else. This is your path.
Accept whatever comes.
The journey rarely goes according to plan. Let nothing surprise you: you are in the Unknown, after all.
Be present.
Each moment, focus on making that next tiny step. Be present and enjoy where you are. It’s about the process, not the destination. There may come a day when you reminisce fondly about your humble beginnings. So appreciate everything you are learning, and how far you have come.
Stay positive.
Be proud of yourself for trying and for doing your best. Support and encourage yourself, as you would your best friend.