This summer, life reminded us both how little we are in control of anything and how fragile our bodies are.
We began our European tour with a workshop in Cologne. Shortly afterwards, I (Krish) fell ill. I have many years on this body, but I am used to having a lot of energy, enough to play tennis at quite a high level nearly every day. Suddenly I had none. Fevers came and went. There was nausea, and an exhaustion so deep that getting out of bed felt like a project. Weeks passed and nothing changed. I don’t love being out of control, especially when it involves my body. This really tested me, and it has been a good lesson in letting go.
Finally, just as we were about to begin another group, I found myself in an emergency room in Siena, Italy. It was not a pleasant experience. My blood work did not look good, and as a physician I knew enough to be worried. An infectious disease specialist diagnosed an infection with Legionella bacteria and put me on a strong antibiotic. Despite its side effects, it worked, and day by day I came back to life.
I have now recovered completely. But something has stayed with me: a sharper sense of my own mortality and a great deal of gratitude.
I (Amana) went through a deep process during that time of uncertainty. Each day we both thought he would get better. I had reached out to several doctors who dismissed it as either heat stroke or the flu. It kept getting worse, and I was getting really worried. It got so bad that neither of us was sure he was going to get through this, and I knew we had to get to a hospital. We were traveling and working, I was dealing with everything, and on top of that I was hardly sleeping because I was taking care of Krish. Physically this took a toll on my body. At the same time, I felt so loved and supported by so many people. It was the most amazing and deeply touching experience.
At one point, as I was driving into Genoa on the way to the ferry to Sardinia with Krish very sick beside me, the navigation took us to the wrong place. It was rush hour, and we were getting further and further from the harbor. I was not sure we were going to make it in time. I rolled down the window and asked the man on the motorcycle beside me for help. He gave me a big smile and said, “Follow me.” He rode in front of our car for 25 minutes, guiding us to the place where we could board the ferry. I was so grateful I wanted to give him something, anything, and he just smiled and said, “Buona giornata” (have a good day). This is just one of many such examples.
I have had both of my hips replaced. For years they have given me the gift of walking without pain, dancing, and moving around freely. Recently, the older one began to hurt, so much that for a while I could not walk at all. I wondered whether the prosthesis was failing, which would mean a difficult operation and a very long recovery time without being able to travel. The surgeon examined me, studied the X-rays, and told me the replacement looks fine. Most likely it is inflammation. Anti-inflammatories, physical therapy, and let’s wait.
So, I am waiting and seeing. As I write this, I don’t know whether it will heal enough for me to be able to travel. This winter we are planning two and a half months in Bali, India, and Thailand, and right now I don’t know if that is possible. I started to notice an undercurrent of fear and uncertainty and how that was affecting me energetically.
As I am very passionate about transformation, I enjoyed diving into the energy to explore it more deeply. I discovered something interesting: the actual energy of uncertainty became a doorway to an amazing tenderness and delicateness. I felt that perhaps this could be an interesting topic to share as we all, in different ways, face uncertainty.
The journey of transforming uncertainty into tenderness is what this article is about.
A World Without Solid Ground
What we went through personally this summer, all of us are going through collectively in different ways.
Right now, artificial intelligence is reshaping the world and work at a speed that no one fully understands. The skills and paths that promised security a generation ago no longer carry that promise.
At the same time, there are wars. For many of you reading this in Europe, war is no longer something that happens far away. It is close, close enough to leave a background tension in the body that never quite goes away, or a compulsion to keep checking the news.
And its consequences reach into all of our lives. Everything has become more expensive.
On top of this, the weather has become more extreme. Heat waves, floods, storms, fires, and droughts are happening more often, and in places that were not used to them. Many people have been directly affected. Even for those who have not, it is unsettling. Nature and the seasons were always something we could rely on, and now they too have become unpredictable.
Underneath all of this is the sheer pace of change.
It is completely natural to be afraid. Our nervous systems are built to scan for danger, and right now there is a great deal to scan. Fear is not the problem.
What matters is how we relate to it and deal with it: whether we fight it, distract ourselves to avoid it, or open to the energy of it inside our body.
Uncertainty is a Fact of Life
The truth is that life is uncertain. None of us knows what tomorrow brings, no matter how much we pretend to be safe or in control.
When life brings challenges like the ones we are facing now, it doesn’t create uncertainty. It only reveals what was true all along.
In a strange way, these times support us to see and experience life more truly, more as it actually is, instead of living half asleep, telling ourselves that we are safe.
Think of how many people grew up believing that a steady job was the safe choice and that self-employment was the risky one. Any job can disappear at any moment: a company is sold, a machine learns to do the work. The security was never as solid as it looked. It only felt solid because we didn’t look too closely.
It is the same with a partner or a spouse. We build a life together and quietly assume it will always be there. But nothing is guaranteed. A relationship can end in divorce. A beloved can become ill. And one day, every one of us will lose someone we love, or be the one who leaves. This is simply the nature of life.
Life is uncertain and unpredictable, and that is also what makes it so precious. Because it is not forever, this moment matters. This conversation, this intimate hug, this morning light, this breath. When we stop pretending that we are safe, we stop postponing our life.
We begin to love more fully, speak more truthfully, live according to our inner wisdom, and savor what is here while it is here. Uncertainty, seen clearly, is not only the source of our fear. It is also the source of our gratitude, presence, and most delicate tenderness.
Life is uncertain and unpredictable, and that is what makes it so precious.
Why We Hold on So Tightly
In our work, we constantly meet people who have made security the priority of their lives and are now feeling the consequences of that choice.
Susan has felt for years that her thirty-year marriage is dead, yet the fear of financial uncertainty keeps her from leaving.
Cynthia, a successful lawyer, has built her life around achievement and security, and her relationships keep ending in disappointment. “It is just too frightening to let go,” she says. “I don’t know if I have the courage to find out what is inside if I stop all my doing.”
Michael is on top of his game at work but powerless at home, after discovering that his wife has been having an affair with his best friend. When we suggested using this pain to explore his vulnerability, he told us that right now he is too busy to prioritize inner work.
There are good reasons why we choose the familiar, and each deserves understanding rather than judgment.
The first is our need for belonging. Our family may not support our adventurous spirit, and we carry their fears and values inside us: have a family, do everything for a secure income, don’t rock the boat. Freedom begins when we see how this conditioning still shapes and limits us, and allow ourselves to feel the fear of breaking away.
The second is love hunger. Longing for someone to share our life with, we may choose a partner who fits our need for security but not our longing for truth and adventure. The growth here is to notice when it is our hungry self, and not our wisdom, that is making our life decisions.
The third, and perhaps the most powerful, is our fear of uncertainty itself, our addiction to control and familiarity. We can be passionate seekers of truth and still stay quietly in our comfort zone, without much growth.
How We Avoid the Feeling of Uncertainty
When the ground shakes, most of us do not turn toward the feeling. We turn away from it, and we are remarkably creative in how we do it.
We stay busy. We fill every hour with work, tasks, screens, plans, and news. Busyness has a wonderful disguise: it looks responsible, even admirable. But very often it is a way of not having to feel. If we stop, the fear might catch up with us.
We hold on to ideas. When the world becomes unpredictable, an ideology offers relief. Political positions, spiritual beliefs, theories about who is to blame and what will save us: any of these can become a raft to cling to. The certainty of the idea replaces the discomfort of not knowing. This is not about which ideas are right or wrong. It is about noticing when we use an idea or ideology NOT to feel.
We get angry with those who see things differently. If my sense of safety depends on my view of the world being correct, then anyone who disagrees with me threatens my safety.” With this frame of mind, we argue, we judge, and we cut people off. We turn the other person into an enemy. Much of the polarization we see in families, between friends, and across whole societies is fear dressed up as conviction.
In the Learning Love work, we understand all of this as the outer layer of protection. These strategies are not stupid or bad. They were intelligent responses to pain at a time when we had no other resources. But they come at a cost.
They keep us on the surface, and they place our safety outside of us: in the right job, the right partner, the right government, the right opinion, the right outcome.
When our safety lives outside, we are always at the mercy of what happens, and this naturally creates a tremendous amount of fear and a tendency to want to control.
We stop feeling our body. When we are so focused on finding safety and security outside, we lose contact with our body. And the body is where we begin to discover our wisdom and intuition. That quiet inner knowing that tells us what is right for us cannot reach us when we are busy, distracted, or running away from what we feel.
This inner guidance is exactly what we need most in uncertain times. When the outer world can no longer tell us which way to go, our wisdom and intuition can. Coming back to the body is how we begin to get a felt sense of safety and discover our flow and direction.
Underneath the fear and uncertainty is a sweet energy of tenderness and delicateness. It is what it feels like to be fully alive without armor.
Opening to the Energy of Uncertainty
Here is what we have discovered in our own lives and in many years of working with people: uncertainty is not only a situation or a thought. It is an energy. It lives in the body. And like every energy, it has layers.
When we first turn toward it, it is scary. There may be a tightness in the belly, a fluttering in the chest, a constriction in the throat, a restlessness in the legs that wants to get up and do something. The mind races through worst-case scenarios. Everything in us wants to get away.
But if we stay, gently, with breath and awareness, something begins to change.
Fear that is felt rather than fled from begins to soften. And underneath it, we find something most people never expect: a sweet energy of tenderness and delicateness. A rawness, like new skin. A trembling openness. It is the vulnerable self, the part of us that is soft, sensitive, and deeply receptive to life. Many of us have not felt it since we were small.
This tenderness is not weakness. It is a doorway to our essence, the part of us that can love, be moved by beauty, and be touched by another human being.
When we avoid uncertainty, we avoid this too.
When we open to uncertainty, this is the gift that is waiting for us.
This is how we invite people to approach it. Go slowly. The body knows its own pace.
- Pause and notice. A few times a day, simply ask yourself: Am I calm or disturbed right now? There is no need to change anything. Just notice.
- Recognize your avoidance. Gently notice how you are avoiding: reaching for the phone, making one more plan, rehearsing an argument with someone who disagrees with you, checking the news again.
- Drop from the head into the body. Ask yourself: Where do I feel this uncertainty right now? Perhaps in the belly, the chest, the throat, or the jaw. What is its quality? Tight, fluttery, cold, heavy, buzzing, painful, desperate?
- Breathe into it, not away from it. Bring your breath gently to that place. Not to make the feeling disappear, but to welcome it, to see it, to feel it, to relax with it. When we meet contraction with breath and awareness instead of more contraction and fighting, the body begins to open and the energy transforms.
- Become the witness. Notice the difference between “I am afraid” and “I notice fear in the body.” The fear is real, and you are also the space in which it is happening. You can feel the wind without being swept away by the storm.
- Let the fear show you what is underneath. Stay a little longer than feels comfortable. Often the fear begins to melt into something softer: sadness perhaps, or a trembling tenderness, a delicate aliveness. Let it be there. You might place a hand on your heart or somewhere else on the body, the way a loving parent holds a frightened child.
- Let tenderness guide how you meet others. From this softer place, look again at whatever situation is disturbing to you. It could be someone who often complains, a friend who votes differently, or a relative whose opinions make you furious. Underneath their certainty, they are frightened too. Once we have touched our own tenderness, it becomes much harder to make anyone an enemy.
- Surrender to the energy of life. As we open to the feelings that we have avoided, we naturally begin to sense the flow of life and a deep sense of inner calm and connectedness.
None of this makes the outer situation go away. The world is still changing rapidly. The wars are still real. Prices are still rising. The weather is still unpredictable. Opening to uncertainty is not passivity. We can still take practical steps, learn new skills, and stand up for what we care about. But action that comes from a grounded, tender place is very different from action driven by fear, panic, or anger.
Facing uncertainty in this way also deepens our trust. Not a trust that expects life to go our way, but one that grows each time we move through difficulty without collapsing, each time we feel the fear, stay with it, and discover that the ground holds. Each time, something in us relaxes a little more deeply into life.
I (Amana) feel deeply grateful that, after all these years, I know in my bones that whatever life brings can be used for growth and deeper exploration. And I know how to be with even the most painful feelings. I have learned that I can meet whatever comes, and even enjoy it, no matter what it is. That knowing brings tremendous freedom.
It doesn’t mean I stop planning or that I have no preferences. I would love to be able to travel the way we have planned this winter. I make the plans, but I hold them lightly. I am ready to pivot, to move with whatever changes become necessary, to see what is possible and move with that. I let life show me the way as it unfolds.
Whether this winter means staying at home and going through another operation, or traveling and enjoying the adventures we have planned, I know that I can be present with it. Both paths hold something for me. Both are life. And there is a sweetness in not having to know in advance which one it will be.
A Life Fully Lived
Facing uncertainty is a way of life.
The price of staying in our comfort zone is high, because some part of us always knows when we are not living life fully.
The price of facing uncertainty is that we will feel more fear. It asks for courage, and for perseverance when setbacks come. But it also gives us back our aliveness, and it lets us discover the tenderness that has been waiting underneath all along.
We don’t know what the coming years will bring. We don’t know how Amana’s hip will be this winter. Neither do you know what is ahead for you. Perhaps that is the truest place from which to meet one another: not pretending to be sure, but sharing the delicate, trembling, beautiful experience of not knowing, together.
With love,
Krish and Amana