A Mason's Work

Doubt is one of the most difficult concepts to overcome when it comes to understanding

where it's sabotaging versus productive.

Because Doubt is a tool of the mind used to test veracity of, you know, and the truth

of a situation or what have you.

But that looks like when it's used in a way that's destructive is that it justifies

in action.

It justifies perpetual analysis and inquiry without essentially allowing for action to

be taken as a result of that inquiry.

It's the kind of you run into the forever recursion.

Well, what does that mean?

What does that mean?

What does that mean?

And you do that forever and ever and ever again while sitting in the same place.

Doubt shows up in a lot of ways and ways that are intellectually defensible like I want

to learn more or I want to go grab more information to come to a better answer here or I don't

know enough.

And that's where it gets really difficult because, you know, like you may have heard

some other sort of religious texts or in the work of people in Alan Watts, you can't

taste your own tongue.

You're using the mind to undo the mind is very difficult if not impossible.

So when Doubt kicks in and turns into these other things or becomes subversive, it's very

difficult to detect when it's legitimate or when it isn't.

So when it's being selectively deployed though, there are some sort of signs, right?

So how do I know if my doubt is essentially being used to justify an action?

Well, first things first, if you knew the answer, if there wasn't answer, would it make you

afraid to take action?

If the answer to that is yes, then there's a good chance that your doubt is being used

to hold you back.

Like the other tests, this is kind of a great first step.

Like if I knew how to solve this problem, would I have the courage to do it right now?

Am I, you know, terrified of the outcomes here that this, the truth of this situation

creates?

When we start down this path and continue that sort of inquiry, there may be some other

indicators or symbols where this doubt has become more of a driver than it should be.

One of those would be if the situation that you're currently sort of investigating requires,

you're trying to get more answers than you normally would relative to other questions

of a similar nature.

You are looking for more details or more justification or the rabbit hole just keeps going beeper

and you continue to pursue that.

There's a good sort of sense there that perhaps you're just chasing doubt to avoid moving

forward.

Another sort of test or indicator for this might be, you know, how long have I been doubting

this situation?

How long have I been investigating what's going on here and essentially using that doubt

as a weapon relative to the sort of pace in which action is required?

Again, this gets back to a little bit like the uncertainty masquerading as patients

doubt might do the same.

When you're looking through the sort of mental landscape here and you are identifying the

things that are holding you back, there's a good chance that if you can't label it as

fear and you can't label it as uncertainty, that doubt is kind of a last piece.

These are levels of abstraction.

Fear is pretty direct.

When fear translates, it translates oftentimes to those super aggressive emotions, strong

ones.

When uncertainty kind of transmutes, it transmutes into virtue in a lot of ways and

doubt just kind of looks like perpetual appreciative inquiry.

We want to make sure that as we go through this process, we take these things that were

happening and again, this doesn't delegitimize, you know, doubt itself as a function.

But when it becomes pathological, when it's interfering with your ability to solve problems,

when you need to have more specificity than the environment or the situation allows, you're

using doubt to stay still.

And in fact, that is counter to your interests.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow's episode, which is the kind of the

three ruffians in action and why we all struggle as much as we do with some of these more

obvious emotions and what it looks like across the board.