Often, when I listen to myself, an inner (child) voice is saying, "I don't know what I'm doing! I'm not sure of myself! I don't know how to accomplish what I want! I don't know what to do! I have no idea what to do!" I've been trying to listen to that voice and have compassion for it. (Often I feel like I don't know what it means to have compassion; then the voice becomes, "I don't know how to have compassion!") Some small child (me) was in a tough situation ... it seemed that nothing she tried worked for her ... she tried and tried, but it didn't work ... others told her she didn't know what she was doing. She lost confidence in herself and placed her trust in the voices of others. But, of course, it wasn't a deep trust, not at all.
Today I was listening to this voice during our lab meeting ... extending compassion ... allowing ... listening. Something relaxed and opened a little. I became more present. And then I recalled this Buddhist notion, "the wisdom of I Don't Know" ... on some level, I really never do know, I never can know. And yet I do know. The panic I felt as a very young child was partly due to being in a specific impossible situation ... but it was also due to my experiencing the human condition, the fact of this universal not-knowing.
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