Trusting the River: From Discomfort to Peace

I had a beautiful conversation with a dear friend yesterday. She listened with her whole heart, soaking in what I was sharing. And almost immediately—like so many of us—she asked:

“What do we do now?”

I recognized that question instantly, because I once lived inside it. The impulse to want to fix it, to know the answer, to do something that would carry me across the uneasy waters of change.

But the truth is, none of us are going back to the way things used to be. How could we? The world has changed, and with over 8 billion souls on this planet, the old maps and measures just don’t work anymore. There’s no return, only the unknown that waits ahead.

I want to be honest: I don’t have answers.

I’m learning to trust the unfolding, to allow life to show me what’s next, one step at a time. Most days, I feel like I’m in a river—sometimes flowing gently, sometimes tossed by rapids, but always moving. Maybe that’s all any of us can do: have one honest conversation, then another, letting each ripple outwards until it becomes a wave, a current, a force for change.

I want to honour the discomfort that lives in this threshold—this place between what was and what is not yet.

I want to honour the full range of experience that lives here, for me and for so many others. I know what it is to sit in despair, to feel the ache of resignation, the weight of sadness, the hollowing out of hopelessness. I know the numbness of not wanting to hope, for fear that hope itself might be a kind of betrayal.

There have been nights when the not-knowing felt suffocating, when uncertainty pressed down on my chest like a stone. There were days when I longed for the illusion of control, for my carefully constructed ten-year plans and the comfort of certainty.

But something happened in the depths of all that discomfort. When I finally let go—when I stopped fighting the river and let it carry me—I discovered something that felt, at first, impossibly small: a quiet, persistent peace. Not the peace of answers, but the peace of presence. The peace of breath. The peace of being exactly where I am, even if I have no idea where the river is leading.

Returning to the Circle

What I am discovering, again and again, is that we don’t have to travel this threshold alone. In fact, we never were meant to.

There is a remembering, deep in our bones, of gathering in circles. Not circles designed to fix or judge or give advice, but circles that exist simply to witness. Spaces where we can show up as we are—tender, triumphant, weary, or wondering—and just be seen.

This is not about solving each other’s problems. It is about breaking the silence of isolation. It is about sharing what it feels like to be human, what we are noticing, what we are remembering in ourselves and each other. In the circle, something ancient wakes up: the part of us that knows belonging, the part that remembers we are not alone in the river.

These circles are where healing happens—not because someone has the answer, but because we share our stories and our silences, our questions and our laughter. Here, wisdom emerges—not as a commandment, but as a shared remembering.

So if you find yourself lost or uncertain, see if you can gather a circle, or step into one. Share honestly. Listen deeply. Honour the places you and others are in—whether that is despair, resignation, peace, or possibility. Let the circle hold what is too heavy to hold alone.

I don’t know what comes next. But I believe that if we keep listening, keep gathering, keep taking the next true step, the path will rise to meet us. Surrender to the river, trust its wisdom, and keep showing up—one conversation, one circle, at a time.

May we all find the courage to rest in the unknown, and may peace find us, quietly, in the midst of it all.