The Healing Power of "Maybe"

Uncertainty can be an antidote during stressful times.

Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

Key points

• Unchallenged beliefs about oneself often leads to psychological suffering.
• Uncertainty is not the same as fear and can be an antidote during challenging times.
• Taking on a 'maybe' attitude allows for both acceptance and growth.

"The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately." — Seneca

Despite living at a time when “the more we learn, the less we know,” many people appear to be very certain about issues as broad as politics, religion, and the weather. On a global level, the clash of certainties can have disastrous consequences; on an individual level, when the certainties are related to how one perceives the world, the results can lead to stress, anxiety, or depression.

Not only are we told that uncertainty leads to fear but that it is fear itself. We are cautioned against self-doubt which only raises the fear factor as we are often frozen by questions of “what if?” Left wondering if we are lacking in confidence, we seek false refuge in knowledge and hold our personal truths to be self-evident and our inalienable right to cling to them despite their negative impact.

When providing trainings on stress, I often address the impact of allowing our beliefs about the world and ourselves to go unchallenged—to act as if our “truths” are reality, or what's known in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as thinking errors or irrational beliefs.

Neuroscience tells us that our brains are wired for negativity and hate uncertainty. This implies that even bad news may be better than no news and that, in the absence of facts, the brain will make up stories to fill the gaps. Therefore, the headache becomes a brain tumor; a tightened chest, a heart attack; and the worried thought proof that something bad is about to happen. These predictive scripts take on a life of their own and run on autopilot leaving us shackled by mental processes beyond our control.

The good news is that we are in mind-prisons of our own making and the door locks from within. The worlds of psychology and psychotherapy have developed multiple techniques for freeing ourselves from those certainties that hold us back and make us anxious, depressed, and exhausted. A go-to technique from cognitive behavioral therapy is the simple act of thought stopping. The process has only 2 steps:

1. Catch yourself having negative thoughts.
2. Tell yourself “Stop!”

Despite its simplicity, it often fails for two frustrating reasons: First, we often miss the “catch” and, second, the momentum brought about by years of practice requires a braking system beyond the reach of most weary souls. To counter this, I teach the power of ‘maybe.’ I tell clients that if it’s too much effort to put the brain into reverse—negative thinking into positive thinking—they can instead put it into neutral.

‘Maybe’ leaves room for other possibilities and allows one to be right as often as wrong. ‘Maybe’ brings the relief that comes from no longer trying to, as the Zen master would say, “Fix the river in place”—trying to make a world of ambiguity and motion more stable and predictive.

The Zen tale of the farmer points out how often one’s notion of what is good or bad is a moving target: A farmer seeks the wisdom of the local Zen master complaining that his only workhorse has run away and questions the master as to why this bad thing has happened to him. The master replies, “It’s hard to say what is good or bad.” The next week the farmer returns to the master with the good news that his horse has returned and brought five wild horses with it. The master replies, “It is hard to say what is good or bad.” The following week the farmer returns with the bad news that his son fell and broke his arm while training one of the wild horses and bemoans this bad news. Again, the master replies, “It’s hard to say what is good or bad.” The next week the farmer is all smiles as he reports that the local army arrived looking for conscripts but due to his son’s broken arm, he was not chosen. (You can guess how the master replied).

I’ve been able to assist my clients in looking back over their personal histories and identify times when what they initially thought to be one way, turned out quite differently. These trips down memory lane often are accompanied with laughter at how, repeatedly, one’s certainties turned in the blink of an eye and the wasted energy spent worrying over milk that was never spilt seemed so pointless.

De omnibus dubitandum est: "Everything must be doubted." The fact is that much of our lives are spent in the land of uncertainties where “leaps of faith” are more the rule than exception. More to the point, learning to doubt the voice in one’s head—remaining skeptical about the inner dialogue that routinely gives the thumbs down to who we are—leaves room for both acceptance and growth. This is the healing power of maybe.

To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.