Alive Without Doubt

When I heard about the experiment, to “live two years without doubt,” my Box freaked out. How could it even be possible, to live without doubting?

My story about myself is that I am riddled with doubt, and that this is not something I consciously choose, so how can I consciously choose NOT to be riddled with doubt? And for TWO WHOLE YEARS? I doubted that I could live for two minutes without doubt.

Gah!

Yet something about this experiment lit me up.

I made an agreement with a friend that I would try it: living without doubt. I also agreed that I would write about it by a date a month off, and off I went. I was so keen to give this experiment a try.

I was also keen to make myself some lunch.

I got an impulse to make pizza, and in a split second, some doubts came: I was staying with friends and I doubted if there was any yeast in the kitchen, and that there may not be enough toppings in the fridge to make the pizza interesting.

I doubted whether I could make a pizza in time to make it to my next appointment.

With the living without doubt experiment and agreements fresh in my mind, I caught these doubts!

I noticed also something that had happened when the doubts showed up: a drop in my enthusiasm about having pizza for lunch. I took a closer look. I felt joy about noticing. And I felt anger. Pesky doubt, dampening my aliveness!

I used my anger to turn up my commitment to making this pizza, without doubt.

A famous shoe company slogan came to mind: Just do it!

I just started to look for yeast. I rolled over the doubt, checking in the fridge, several cupboards, then ha! I found some.

It was traditional yeast, not quick yeast. I doubted it would work so well.

I rolled over that doubt too, as if “just do it” was suddenly a ladder in an energetic game of snakes and ladders. Rolling onto the ladder cut out the distance all the way through the doubts and hesitations, making it possible to go straight to the next thing.

I rolled into looking for flour. A doubt started to surface: I didn’t remember how much flour it took to make one personal-sized pizza. I paused. I noticed this ‘doubt’ was more of a question than a doubt; a question fuelled by low intensity fear. I used the energy of the fear to look up a pizza dough recipe online for the flour to water ratios and amounts for one small pizza. That took care of that. I got rolling again.

I mixed together yeast, flour, sugar and salt, and another doubt came, in the form of a voice: “You should have dissolved the yeast first.”

“Yes,” I answered. “And I did not, and here we are.”

“No problem. We’ll see how this goes.”

No problem!? This was new!

“No problem” turned out to be another way to roll onto the ladder island bypassing the doubt.

“We’ll see how this goes” got me into the identity of Experimenter more clearly again. An experimenter tests out doubts!

I started to look for toppings while the dough rose, and noticed fears sparkling. I turned up my attention, and made the search more of a treasure hunt. A burst of joy happened. I felt joy because I couldn’t get it wrong! I was committed to making a pizza! I’d put whatever I found — that I wanted — on it!

The sense of rolling onto ladders in a game, to side step doubting, got more clear, lifting me. Budding fear was usable, and if I missed it and a doubt formed more fully, it was like landing on a snake, that would take me down energetically. The fear-doubt mechanism was becoming easier to spot as my attention did this new kind of noticing.

This was fun. I was not yet having NO doubts, but certainly living ‘with’ doubts differently than before, noticing them, noticing different kinds of precursors to doubt, and finding ways to NOT go with them: new ways to go.

Doing the experiment of “making a pizza without doubt” — in good time to enjoy eating it before my next appointment, was an extraordinary experiment.

I took a lot of attention, maybe 15–20% of my attention, splitting to be on the lookout for doubting.

I have to admit, that as I ate the pizza, as fun as the experiment had been, I unconsciously let it slide out of my attention.

It was a few weeks before I remembered that I had agreed to do an experiment about living without doubt and to write about it!

I took some notes and soon after it slipped from my attention again.

During the next weeks, the experiment came to mind from time to time. Sometimes it was thanks to the reminders I had asked my friend to give me as part of our Winning Happening agreement. I did not use my attention like I had during the pizza-making to really do the experiment, but I continued to watch for the precursors to doubt that I had discovered.

Other experiments became my focus, my interest fuelled by what I had been learning and noticing about fear. Since discovering that some of the doubts making pizza had been fuelled by fear, I wanted to shift into more experimenting about fear.

The time came for my article to be written, as per my agreement with my friend.

When I first sat down to write I noticed I was embarrassed that I had not done the experiment more diligently. Looking into the feelings of ‘embarrassment’, I felt sad, to have missed out on more discovery. I felt mad I had let it slide. I felt scared I’d not end up with a great article, about living with less doubt. Then it hit me: I HAD been living with less doubt! I was living with less doubt by putting more attention on my conscious fear.

Instead of doubting, which is to say, allowing my unconscious fear to trip me up, I was more often feeling my fear and turning my attention into it, to find out what it had to tell me. This produced the result of lighting up my senses, and brining information, which often in turn produced the energetic ladder-climbing I’d discovered making pizza: doubt was by-passed, and I ‘just’ rolled forward.

Here are two of the fear experiments I have been doing:

1. Each morning, before I get out of bed, I put my attention on lowering my Numbness Bar by choosing not to do the numbing strategy of tensing my shoulders, face and torso muscles. I notice what happens, and then I do it again. And again, for at least 20 minutes. Some amazing things have happened from doing this that I don’t want to tell you about. Try it for yourself!

2. At least 3 times a day, I do this same tension release and Numbenss Bar lowering at other times. Maybe in a zoom call, or on a walk, or while I am cooking. Wave by wave, I let the tension go, and noticing the fear that comes once I am not doing this numbing strategy. I discover what it is about and use it to handle things. Sometimes I discover a new emotional fear, and take it to my next Emotional Healing Process space.

The aliveness levels in my system have increased significantly in this last month. The evidence I see of it is that I am creating with less doubt. I more often notice and consult my fear and slide up the ladders into next steps, rather than lurching down into lower energy levels, as doubts and voices stutter through my mind.

I have also remembered in the past month more often than before to use my Voice Blaster on voices that come. My muscle tension is a great clue to that a voice might be happening. Blasting voices and having a quiet mental space makes for smoother rolling.

I suspect that committing to the experiment of living without doubt for two years would bring many more discoveries about what gives rise to doubts, to empower more easy to live without them.

I feel glad to have it in my experiment possibilities reptoire.

For now I am glad to report that I am more alive thanks to the brief experiment I did…without doubt!