“Disorienting dilemma.”
This is the term Stephen Cope uses in his book, The Dharma in Difficult Times: Finding Your Calling in Times of Loss, Change, Struggle & Doubt, to describe those moments that rock your world. You know—the ones where life will never be the same.
Included in disorienting dilemmas are things like divorce, the death of a loved one, or having someone drain your bank account. They are unexpected, jarring, and demand a radical reshaping of how we relate to the world.
I’d argue that this moment in history is a disorienting dilemma for the collective. Some are longing for a return to the 1950s or the 1980s—“the good old days”—not necessarily because they were better, but because they feel more certain than now.
How we hate
uncertainty. For others, the illusion of safety in those eras is giving way. The veil is being lifted, and we’re seeing how those “good old days” weren’t good for everyone.
There’s grief in that, but there’s also awakening.
From planetary shifts to global health crises to identity politics—uncertainty is here.
Even as I write this, trying to communicate something meaningful about chaos and uncertainty, I feel my body tightening. My movements are speeding up, and my nervous system is following suit.
This era feels like this moment: a little cluttered, a little frantic (like my body and the dining room table I am sitting at).
So I pause. I breathe. I look up from my dining room table and let my eyes rest on the trees outside my window. This is what I know to do. I take refuge in what is true, and steady, and real, and the trees remind me of YEARS of standing tall–of deep roots and of quiet growth.
As I gaze at them, something inside me settles.
That shift—the body remembering safety,
the spirit remembering connection—feels like spirit.
But how is this enough when the world feels like it’s on fire?
I begin to listen inward. My quiet voice, the one that isn’t scared or rushing, reminds me: You exist inside a larger pattern. You are held in something bigger than this moment.
Listening for that voice—the one that remembers—feels like spirit.
Viktor Frankl once proposed that even in the darkest circumstances, we can find meaning through how we respond. True, I am not living in a concentration camp, as he was when he penned those words (but I also know that comparing pain only creates more shame).
When I acknowledge what hurts—however big or small—I open space for something else to arrive. Light enters through the cracks. The acceptance of darkness, rather than the resistance to it, often gives birth to our longing for light.
That movement toward light—that hope—feels like spirit.
Frankl also believed that meaning comes from our work—what Stephen Cope might call dharma—when we dedicate our life force to something that matters. My own life force has shaped itself in response to my own pains and dramas, becoming something steady and meaningful. That work ripples outward.
That transformation—from hardship to service—feels like spirit.
And finally, when our life force touches others, when we extend care into action, we fulfill what Frankl named as love in action. Love in action is not the fluffy cotton candy kind, but the gritty, generous kind. The kind that shows up when things are uncertain and still chooses to act.
The practice of love through action—especially in uncertain times—feels like spirit.
This is the heart of our upcoming retreat. September 27 (St. Louis) and October 4 (Cincinnati), we will be gathering to breathe together in the uncertainty and to reconnect with what is steady and real.
We will remember how to listen to that inner voice that knows and to live our dharma, our love & our roots. We do this not to escape the chaos, but to come back to the still point within it.
Because when the world is loud and uncertain, the greatest revolution might just be to slow down & return to presence.