The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” — Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (2005)
On October 22nd, we introduced Brené Brown’s ten guideposts for wholehearted living—daily practices that invite us to trade striving for self-connection, and performance for the simple act of being present. Today we continue with Guidepost #5: Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith—Letting Go of the Need for Certainty.
Brown admits this guidepost pushed her in ways she never imagined. As a researcher, she felt logic and reason were under attack. But after a year of focused study, she discovered that intuition is not independent of reasoning. It is reasoning—just faster than we can track. Psychologists describe it as a rapid-fire, unconscious associating process: the brain observes, scans its files, and matches what it sees with existing memories, knowledge, and experiences. When the pattern completes, we get a gut feeling. Sometimes that voice whispers to follow our instincts. Other times it shouts that we need more information.
What silences this inner voice? Our need for certainty. Most of us are not very good at not knowing. When we feel disconnected from our intuition, we poll everyone around us, seeking assurances—and people to share the blame if things don’t work out. Sometimes we go the other direction, charging headlong into decisions because we can’t tolerate the vulnerability of being still long enough to think things through. Brown offers a new definition: “Intuition is not a single way of knowing—it’s our ability to hold space for uncertainty and our willingness to trust the many ways we’ve developed knowledge and insight, including instinct, experience, faith, and reason.”
And faith? It is not reason’s enemy. It’s our human need for certainty and our need to be right that have pitted faith and reason against each other—when we need both to make meaning in an uncertain world. Faith is not the belief that “there’s a reason for everything”—a phrase that substitutes certainty for faith. Faith is the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to release our fear of uncertainty.
The Serenity Prayer asks us to accept what we cannot change and find courage to change what we can. That’s not certainty—it’s faith. We turn our will over to the care of a power greater than ourselves not because we have proof, but because we’ve exhausted our own attempts at control. We spent years trying to manage outcomes, predict every angle, and eliminate risk—only to find ourselves more lost than ever. Recovery taught us that surrendering the need to know everything opens us to wisdom we could never have manufactured on our own. The quiet voice within is still speaking. We just have to get still enough to hear it.
When do I seek reassurance instead of trusting what I already know?
Do I rush decisions to escape discomfort—or avoid them because uncertainty feels unbearable?
What if I held space for mystery today instead of demanding answers?
Can I release the need to be right long enough to discover what’s true?
