The woods

I live next to a state park.

A couple years ago I started walking in the woods. I get bored easily. I was excited to explore every trail. They were quiet. Dense trees. I could go for miles and not see anyone.

It turned out not to be relaxing. Not at first. Because I was scared the whole time.

Not scared enough to stop. Just that steady low hum. Contemplating the whole time. My kids thought it was hilarious. They'd joke: get kidnapped in there and nobody's gonna hear you.

I told myself: I'm a large human. No one's kidnapping me. I kept walking.

 Then fall came.

 The leaves started dropping. The trees thinned out. And I could suddenly see straight through. Most of the trails were no more than a couple of feet apart. Right there. Always had been. What I thought was a remote, isolated trail in the woods was running parallel to the path everyone else used.

Months of low-grade dread. And the thing I was afraid of was never there.

My brain had looked at those dense trees and done exactly what it was designed to do. Fill the gap. When it can't see clearly, it doesn't wait for facts. It assumes danger and tells your body to be careful. Stay alert.

The leaves weren't hiding a threat. They were hiding clarity.

I've been thinking about this ever since. Because that's exactly what happens with every big decision you keep delaying.

Last issue we talked about cold logic. The fear that disguises itself as wisdom. That's self-deception. You don't even know you're afraid.

This is different. This is perception. You know you're scared. You just can't tell if the thing you're scared of is real.

You can't see through the trees. So your brain fills the gap with worst-case. The fear feels like information. It feels like data.

Sometimes it isn't.

The neuroscience on this is clear. Your brain has a specific circuit for uncertain threats. When the outcome is unknown, it defaults to vigilance. Behavioral inhibition. Don't move until you know more. Researchers call this the anxiety response. Different from fear, which fires at a known threat. Anxiety fires at the possibility of one.

The gap in the trees is anxiety's whole game. It doesn't need a real threat. It just needs you not to be able to see.

Seneca wrote about this two thousand years ago. The Stoics understood that most of what we suffer is imagined. The untrained mind fills uncertainty with catastrophe. The trained mind asks: is this real, or is this a story I'm telling because I can't see clearly yet?

I use a simple phrase when I'm caught in that loop. Is this fact or fiction? Because the only way to know if it's perception or reality is to move. Clarity comes from doing. Not from waiting to see.

I coached a senior leader last year. She had been sitting on a career move for eighteen months. Not because she hadn't thought about it. She'd done everything but move. She had a spreadsheet. Pros and cons. Risk scenarios. Timelines. She'd mapped it every way possible.

When I asked her what she was waiting for, she said: I just need more clarity.
I asked: what would clarity look like?

She went quiet. She couldn't answer and we both knew why. She wasn't waiting for clarity. She was using the need for clarity as a reason not to move. The trees were thick. The path felt uncertain. Her brain was doing exactly what it was built to do. Hold still until it could see.

She took the first step eight weeks later. A small one. A conversation she'd been putting off for months. She told me afterward: once I started moving, I couldn't believe how obvious it all became.

That's how the woods work. You don't get to see through them before you start walking. You see through them because you do.

The woods don't change. You just learn to see through them.

Until next Tuesday.
Ceaneh