Navigating the shoreline of non-certainty for growth

Plunging into possibility

I remember trying to stand during my early paddle boarding lessons. Balanced uneasily, core engaged, eyes towards the setting sun on the horizon. A gentle breeze skims the water’s surface, and for a moment, everything feels in perfect alignment. Then - one distraction too many, a subtle shift, and with a foot released at the wrong moment, I fell in.

Cold rushed around me, I caught my breath, and time seemed to slow. Yet in that suspended instant, there is an awakening: senses sharpen, heart races, and I felt so vividly alive. Golden colours became sparkly teals, and then in reverse, as laughing, I hauled myself clumsily back onto my board to try again.

That sudden ‘fall’ wasn’t a failure. It was an initiation, an invitation. The first courageous embrace of trusting the process when learning something new. Each time we step (or tumble) into uncharted waters, we’re rewiring our brain for curiosity, openness, resilience, creativity, courage… and more!

Wobbles, vulnerability, laughter and connection

Taking young people canoeing also has its risks. A series of playful wobbles, and we all went into the icy water. My heart lurched then, trying desperately to locate heads - and as each one resurfaced I was thankful that eyes were sparkling, hair slicked back, arms wide in triumph, and laughter rang in the air. Their mission - to tip their leader in the water - accomplished!

In those moments were emergent truths. Joy blooms in the unexpected. The cold water became a surprise gift of aliveness. Connection deepens through shared laughter. In the seeming indignity of scrabbling back onto a board or canoe, vulnerability was mutual - there was no hiding from the plunge!

The fear of falling in was worse than the fall - and we spend so much of our lives trying not to fall, or to fail! These stories aren’t simply enduring memories - they are a metaphor of how leaning into discomfort with a trusted companion can transform fear into courage, joy, connection, and enlightened learning in the pause.

Still small voice

If you're someone who puts others first, living life in the service of others, someone who carries heavy personal responsibility and who leads from the heart and from the front - the idea of pausing, letting go, listening inward, creating space can feel risky. Selfish, even. There’s always someone else to take care of, another task to complete. So we override the signals. Push through the weariness. Make sure we don’t drop any spinning plates. Tune out the body’s quiet call to pause, or even stop. We keep moving, heads down, hearts tired, hushing that still small voice inside that is longing for creative exploration, laughter, learning, vulnerability, connection, leaning into possibility… But that quiet wisdom never disappears. It waits.

And it often speaks through the body first. The tension in your chest. The knot in your stomach. The tears that flow for no clear reason. The headaches, the tension in the jaw, the deep fatigue that no amount of sleep can touch.

The body remembers. The body knows. Long before the mind can explain or justify or rationalise, the body is already whispering what we need to hear. We’re just perhaps not willing or open to hear, and it’s easier to let our busy minds to push it away.

Instead of dwelling at the edge - that fertile, uncomfortable, powerful space between what was and what could be - we press past it. No time, things to do. We choose momentum over presence, control over trust, doing over being.

But what if we stopped? What if we paused at the edge and made time to return to ourselves rather than run? What if we paused long enough to consider - and make - helpful change?

The littoral zone:
where stillness invites transformation

Learning into the edges, these spaces of non-certainty, challenge and wobble, take courage.

As a child I was always eager to see what was below the edge of a cliff - while out walking on holiday mum would grab my hood in fear as I moved forward with curiosity. And on the beach there are other edges which are perhaps safer to engage with: the ever changing littoral zone. That meeting place of land and water where change is happening in real time. Here, the shoreline breathes with ebb and flow - sand shifting underfoot, tiny creatures adapting to tides. It’s messy, tangled even, perhaps an echo of what is going on inside? And it’s teeming with life. Nothing stands still: the littoral zone changes with each wave, each tide. Likewise, in our inner selves, the edge of non-certainty is alive with possibility, growth, nourishment, new beginnings - if only we pause long enough to notice!

We talk of feeling on edge or being edgy. In life, edges can feel unsettling, which might look like a growing discomfort in your work; a longing you can’t quite name; a decision you’ve been avoiding; a relationship change or needing career development; a tiredness in your bones that says, This isn’t working anymore; a sense of feeling lost; a new way of being; a curiosity you’ve been brushing aside. It can feel like you’re about to fall. But maybe, just maybe, falling in is how we come home to ourselves, and a way to move froward from clarity and insight, and with self-compassion. Edges promise something more.

David Whyte reads his poem Finisterre

David Whyte, in his poem Finisterre, speaks of this experience so clearly:

‘The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken,
into the western sea, and the moon rising behind you
as you stood where ground turned to ocean…’

There’s such power in the image of standing where the solid ends and the shifting begins.

There’s no way forward in the way you’ve known. Letting go of what brought you here, not out of defeat, but because something else calls, and you must find a way.

‘…you would find a different way to tread,
and because, through it all, part of you could still walk on,
no matter how, over the waves.’

*An abundance of thrift, or sea pinks, growing at the edge of the cliff*

Dreaming of cliffs: mapping steps with intention

During the time of my own transition into coaching, I had a recurring and vivid dream of standing at the very edge of a cliff I knew well - feeling not terrified, but alert, aware, and a sense that it was going to be tricky to descend to the beach below. I could not see clearly.

And so I visited the cliff, discovering as I sat on a different edge, assessing the sheer drop in my dream, that there were narrow ledges and resting places, and that there was a more manageable way - a leap over the edge was not necessary. A careful descent was possible - a new perspective gave reassurance and insight.

There were also treasures to be found - wildflowers, choughs and stunning colours injecting joy into what seemed difficult and intimidating terrain. I found greater ease to move - not all at once, but in small steps. I was reminded that fear and clarity can arrive together, and that taking time to pause at the edge, and see afresh what was before me, quite literally, gave courage to embrace a big transition.

Discomfort invites noticing

Discomfort at the edge is not failure, it’s be your body’s way of saying something is ready - and needs - to change. It invites noticing. David Whyte captured this beautifully in Finistere:

…No way to make sense of a world that wouldn’t let you pass
except to call an end to the way you had come…
and to abandon the shoes that had brought you here
right at the water’s edge, not because you had given up
but because now, you would find a different way to tread.

*A coastal path calling me forward, to pause by the water’s edge*

That’s what I want for you - to give yourself permission to dwell at the edge, at the littoral zone. To see non-certainty as an invitation to hear the small, persistent voice and wisdom inside - the one we often drown out in thoughts because it’s inconvenient, or hard, or painful. To hear the voice of the heart, and the gut. To pause the striving and find that new way to tread - a gentler, wiser, more embodied and aligned path forward. A pause long enough so that you stop overriding your inner knowing, where discomfort isn’t a red flag, but a compass, encouraging you, giving direction..

In Burnt Norton, (Four Quartets) T.S. Eliot wrote: At the still point, there the dance is. It’s a quote that is framed on my desk, a reminder for myself, and of the importance of the ‘still point’ in coaching conversations with my clients. The ‘still point’ is the place where the magic happens.

Deep stillness is not inaction. It is deep attention. Presence that allows insight to rise, creativity to surface, wisdom to speak. It is the place where your mind-chatter softens enough to hear your heart and your gut. Where you can allow that still, small voice - full of wisdom - to be heard.

When we’re constantly in motion - doing more, giving more - we can lose our connection to that still point where the next step is created not because you pushed for it, but because you paused at the edge long enough to let it rise.

In the still point, the true dance of transformation begins.

If you’re ready to explore your shoreline of non-certainty - with compassionate challenge, intention, and practical support - let’s walk that edge together.

Book a discovery call by clicking the button below.

Book a call

Pause for reflection at the water’s edge

A short and gentle reflective practice, simple way to return to ‘the still point’ of inner knowing

I invite you to take a moment, to sit quietly.

No distractions, no expectations.
Just you, your breath, and your deep, attentive awareness.
Close your eyes if it feels safe. Feel your feet, your seat, your breath moving through you.

Imagine yourself at the edge of a lake, river or sea.
The shore beneath you is solid. Familiar.
Behind you: everything you’ve been carrying.
The to-do lists. The responsibilities. The busy-ness, the noise.

In front of you: water. Possibility. Mystery.

Find your edge.

Take a breath.
And ask yourself, gently:

What am I standing at the edge of right now?
What have I been avoiding, pushing down, overriding?
What is my body saying - not my thoughts for now, but the quiet sense underneath?
If I didn’t need to fix anything right now… what might I just notice?

Let the answers rise slowly. Don’t rush.
You don’t need to dive in today. You don’t need to leap.

But maybe, just for a few minutes, you can dwell here.
Stand where ground turns to ocean. Let yourself feel what’s true in this moment.

The world pushes us to move fast.
But transformation doesn’t happen in the rush.
It happens at the edge. In the stillness. In the pause.
That’s where the whisper of wisdom dwells.
The kind that feels like a cool deep breath after holding it too long.

So pause. Release. Rest. Listen.
The water is waiting.

And the edge?

It’s not simply an end. It’s also a beginning.

Finisterre

The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken,
into the western sea, and the moon rising behind you
as you stood where ground turned to ocean: no way
to your future now but the way your shadow could take,
walking before you across water, going where shadows go,
no way to make sense of a world that wouldn’t let you pass
except to call an end to the way you had come,
to take out each frayed letter you brought
and light their illumined corners, and to read
them as they drifted through the western light;
to empty your bags; to sort this and to leave that;
to promise what you needed to promise all along,
and to abandon the shoes that had brought you here
right at the water’s edge, not because you had given up
but because now, you would find a different way to tread,
and because, through it all, part of you could still walk on,
no matter how, over the waves.

from David Whyte’s collection, Pilgrim,
Many Rivers Press

Edge Walking