No guarantees

I cannot guarantee you anything, because there are no guarantees

This week I got reminded in a quite painful way that there are no guarantees in life and that it is not me who is “in control” of things.

Sometimes we feel like we only need to “figure it all out”, create a “masterplan” to follow and then things will turn out exactly the way we want them to. In fact many clients come to me with exactly this kind of
expectation.

However, isn’t it presumptuous to assume that we actually have this kind of “godlike” power? Isn’t it just an attempt to ease our fears of pain, disease and death?

Even if you – or I – did everything “right”, sometimes things are just meant to happen – or not meant to happen – or not meant to happen yet.

We need to respect and be humble before the Higher Power that created us all and that somehow has its very special plan with each and every one of us. A plan that is always in our best interest, no matter how unfair or punishing it might seem at first sight. This plan may not even be about us, as individuals, but about those around us, or even about society – the collective. 

Of course it’s good to take responsibility and to do the best you can to create the ideal circumstances to achieve your goal. In fact, that’s exactly what I am helping my clients with.

However, even if things seem to go exactly as planned, don’t let this lull yourself into a false sense of security or allow it to infuse you with a sense of over-enthusiasm or even pride, like it happened to me again just recently. Be grateful, yes, but always stay humble. There are no guarantees and what seemed to work well yesterday can take a completely different turn tomorrow. Life is inherently insecure and unpredictable and we
have to learn to respect and to even relax into that. This gets easier the more we are able to trust in our worthiness of love and happiness and in our own capacities to deal with whatever comes our way, in other words the more we grow our self-esteem.

This has been an important reminder for me personally this week, but of course it is also true for my work with clients:

I cannot guarantee or promise you a concrete outcome. All I can promise you is to put at your service all my skills and knowledge to help you create the ideal conditions to lose your unwanted symptom or habit, but ultimately, it’s the Universe that decides what you have to learn before you can in fact do so.

I cannot even give you a “masterplan”. Even though I do provide you with concrete advice, I always make clear that it is not meant to be a written-in-stone process that you need to follow to the letter. This would not pay justice to the fact that we are all individual. Rather, my intention is to provide you a FRAMEWORK, a structure, a toolkit to fill in and to assemble according to your individual case, situation and needs. I want to EMPOWER you, by making you understand, look beyond the surface, connecting the dots, giving you permission to go against “conventional advice” and helping you to reconnect with your own body and mind. I also aim to help you adopt a positive perspective on Life and disease, to reframe your story and to foster in you the feeling of self-worth and self-efficacy. I do NOT take away from you the responsibility of actually doing the work, of trying my suggestion on, of testing them out and of verifying in your own body, what works and what doesn’t work for you.

I cannot guarantee you anything, because there are no guarantees