Life Wisdom - By Words of Taoism - Learning to Trust the Unknown - Daily Wisdom

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Welcome back to Daily Wisdom.There is a moment, when you enter a dark room, when you think you can see nothing.At first, the darkness seems complete. The shapes disappear. The walls, the furniture, the distance between things, everything becomes uncertain. You may stand still for a moment, not because there is nothing there, but because your eyes have not yet learned how to see in that new condition.More resources:Free resources, books and more on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://wordsoftaoism.com/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My blog⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://taoismteachings.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music I use, as a playlist:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome back to Daily Wisdom. This week, we have been exploring what it means to trust what is not fully clear yet, learning that trust is not the absence of doubt, but the ability to keep listening while life gives us only part of the path. Then we entered the delicate passage of being between two lives when the old shape has begun to loosen, but the new one has not yet fully appeared.

We asked why clarity takes time and why the compass often becomes readable only when the hand grows still. And yesterday, through the old story of the farmer and the horse, we remembered that the meaning of a moment is not always visible at the moment it happens. Today, as we close this week, I would like to bring these reflections into one final invitation.

Let the unknown change you. Usually when we speak about the unknown, we speak about it as something to solve. We want to reduce it, manage it, fill it with plans, gather enough information to make it less frightening. There is wisdom in preparation. We do not need to walk blindly

when careful attention is available. But there is also a point where the unknown cannot be removed before we enter it. A new chapter, a new relationship, a creative beginning, a period of grief, a change in identity, a question about the future. These things cannot be understood completely from the doorway. They must be lived. And in being lived, they do something to us. They soften certain certainties.

They reveal what we were clinging to. They show us which fears have been guiding our choices. They teach us patience, not as passive waiting, but as a deeper form of attention. They ask us to become less dependent on having a finished story before we can be present to our own life. The unknown does not only hide what comes. next. It also reveals who we are when we no longer have the comfort of knowing. This is why uncertain seasons can feel so unsettling. They take away the usual supports. The old answers do not work as easily. The plan no longer explains everything. The identity we relied on begins to loosen.

We cannot always calm ourselves with a timeline. And yet, something important may be happening there. A person who has always lived by control may discover the beginning of trust. A person who has always needed approval may discover a quieter relationship with their own truth. A person who has always rushed toward answers may learn how to stay close to a question without turning it into panic. A person who has always defined themselves by usefulness may begin to discover who they are when they are simply present. The unknown is not always a punishment.

Sometimes it is a room where old habits lose their authority. This does not mean the unknown is comfortable. It often is not. It can bring anxiety, impatience, loneliness, and the strange fatigue. of not being able to explain your own life. But discomfort does not always mean something is wrong. Sometimes discomfort means that life is no longer allowing us to remain in a form that has become too small.

The dark room is uncomfortable because the eyes are changing. At first, we want the lights to come on immediately. We want the answer, the signs, the confirmation, the promise that everything will make sense. We want to be brought back to the kind of seeing we already know. But perhaps the deeper work is not always to turn on the light. Sometimes it is to let the eyes become capable of another kind of seeing. That has been the quiet movement of this whole week. Self-trust asked us to stop demanding perfect certainty before we take ourselves seriously.

The passage between two lives asked us to stop calling ourselves lost simply because we are unfinished. The slow arrival of clarity asked us to steady the hand before blaming the compass. The story of the farmer asked us not to close the meaning of a moment too soon. And now, The unknown asks one more thing from us. It asks whether we can let this season form us instead of only trying to escape it. This may be one of the most difficult forms of trust,

not only trusting that something will happen later, but trusting that something is already happening now, even if it is not yet visible. Something in us is learning how to, to wait without becoming passive, how to move without seeing the whole path, how to listen without forcing an answer, how to stay open without abandoning discernment. The unknown is not only the space before clarity, sometimes it is the place where we become capable of receiving clarity.

If the answer came too soon, perhaps we would only use it to strengthen an old way of living. We would turn it into control. We would use it to avoid patience, avoid humility, avoid the deeper listening that uncertainty asks from us. But when the answer takes time, something in us has to change. We have to become steadier, more honest, less attached to appearances, less frightened of the space between one form of life and another. In this way, the unknown can become a teacher. It teaches us that a life does not need to be fully explained to be sincerely lived. It teaches us that waiting is not always wasted time. It teaches us that not knowing can be painful without being

meaningless. It teaches us that the future is not the only place where transformation happens. Sometimes transformation happens in the very season where the future is still hidden. This is not the same as romanticizing uncertainty. There are moments when life asks us to decide, to speak, to set a boundary, to begin, to leave, to repair, to act. But there is a different between acting to escape the discomfort of not knowing and acting from what not knowing has taught us. The first is often driven by panic. The second has more depth.

It may still tremble, but it is connected to something quieter. Perhaps this is one of the gifts of the unknown. It teaches us the difference between reaction and response. Reaction wants to end the discomfort immediately. Response waits long enough to hear what is truly being asked. Reaction says, I need certainty before I can breathe. Response says, let me breathe first so I can meet uncertainty with more of myself.

The unknown does not require us to become fearless. It asks us to become more spacious than our fear. So as this week comes to a close, perhaps the question is no longer only, when will I know? Perhaps we can ask something gentler. What has this uncertainty been teaching me to see? What part of me is becoming steadier? What false certainty is being released? What kind of person is being formed while the answer is still arriving?

These questions do not remove the unknown, but they change the way we stand inside it. We stop treating uncertainty only as a problem to eliminate and begin to see it as a place where life may be working in us before it becomes visible around us. When the eyes adjust to darkness, they do not defeat the darkness. they enter into a different relationship with it. Maybe that is what we have been learning this week.

Not to defeat the unknown before living, but to become more intimate with life while it is still unfolding. To trust the small lantern of self-trust, to honour the passage between two lives, to give clarity time, to let the story remain unfinished, to take the next on a step, even when the whole path has not yet revealed itself. That may be today's wisdom, and perhaps the wisdom of this week.

The unknown is not only something you pass through on the way to an answer. Sometimes it is the place where you become someone who can receive the answer with more depth. The room may still be dark. The outlines may still be incomplete. The future may still be forming beyond what you can see. But perhaps your eyes are adjusting. Perhaps your heart is learning another way of seeing.

And perhaps in time, you will discover that the unknown was not only something you had to endure. It was also something that helped you. become. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.