So now that you have your dharma list written, let’s look at some of the challenges. The biggest dharma killer is doubt.  Doubt can kill your urge to take action in life.  Doubt sucks the enthusiasm out of you and makes it tough to get off the couch.  Doubt makes you feel ambivalent, or at worst, paralyzed.  But the truth is that you’ll never have full certainty when you’re making a decision.  And you owe it to yourself to figure out how to get going with the things on your dharma list.  Heck, you might as well do something you’re passionate about while you wander around this earth, right?

So strategies for dealing with doubt:

1. Name it.  As with any emotion the key in dealing with it is to put a label on it.  It’s the best first step you can take when you’re tired of wallowing and want to move on to something more productive.  As Stephen Cope said, it’s the first step in disidentification, or getting some distance.

2. Investigate it.  Move into it. What’s it about?  If you’re deciding between A and B, what’s on either side?  What is a possible third or fourth option? Be brave, jump in.

3. Find your sources of faith.  People?  Institutions?  What gives you faith?  And if faith is too big a word, what about finding the touchstones in your life.  The person you trust who can say - “yeah that sounds like you”, or “I can see you doing that”. 

Decisions *can* cut off options and that’s why they’re scary.  But remember that it’s not necessarily a black and white choice.  It’s not about abandoning your house and family and moving to Paris to be a painter.  There are plenty of ways to exercise your dharma and play out your passions.  And when you’re ready to do it full out, then it’s time to commit.  As the AA folks say “Half measures avail us nothing”.

A doubt example for me would be teaching yoga.  It showed up on my dharma list, I love helping people experience the benefits of yoga but that doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts for all kinds of reasons. 

I generally have a freak-out that no one will register for my next session.  And that my marketing skills suck even though that’s what pays my mortgage and I should have special skills in that area. 

Sometimes in a class I’m convinced it’s not going well and people will start to slip out, which is ok, but it would clearly confirm for me that I should find something else to do with my evenings. 

And in the summer when my break is coming to an end I generally have a period of “why on earth do I think I can teach yoga anyways?”, you know, because I haven’t proven to myself I can do so in the last week or so. 

But I have gotten good at naming it (I’m just being a dork, or on a good day my response might be more compassionate).  And I can dig into it (just because I experience something other than absolute joy or bliss doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t do it.  Teaching can be hard, so suck it up princess).  And best yet, I will check in with my sources of faith, the folks who take my classes.  I especially like to check in with my BFF whose addicted to my Power Yoga class and will roll her eyes when I tell her about my doubts.  And then she yawns and tells me to shut up and changes the subject.  She rocks.

So if you took on the mission from last post and did your dharma list, go through it and see where the doubts come in.  Are there any areas you can dig into to get to the truth of your ambivalence?  Are there people in your life who can support you and give you the faith to soldier ahead?  Or tell you to shut up and get on with it?  My BFF *is* available for hire, a decent bottle of wine is all the payment she needs.