When the Mind Seeks a Guarantee
The Courage to Leave Things Unexplained
An emotionally charged conversation can last ten minutes and occupy us for the next three days.
The other person has left. We keep answering them. We find the right words in the shower, defend our point of view while driving, remember a look just as we turn out the light. Sometimes, before falling asleep, we summon the entire encounter once more.
What are we looking for each time we return? An explanation? A better defence? Proof that we did nothing wrong?
Sometimes, what we seek in an answer is permission to be at peace.
Imagine an ordinary evening… Tea on the table. A message on our phone, read several times. The same words, the same punctuation. Nothing new has appeared.
Yet its meaning seems to shift with the reader’s unease. A brief reply becomes a sign of coldness. An omission acquires weight. Suddenly, the space between two sentences holds an entire story about what the other person thinks of us.
A finger hovers over the screen. Should I ask? Explain? Pull away?
The heavy cost of our vigilance
Vigilance can cost us the very peace it tries to protect.
The tea grows cold as we try to draw a trace of certainty from a handful of words. At such moments, I wonder how often we use thought to ask life for another guarantee.
If I understand exactly what happened, perhaps I can avoid being hurt again. If I find the perfect response, perhaps I will be understood. If I anticipate every reaction, perhaps I will no longer be caught off guard.
What are we trying to save by going back there again and again?
There is something deeply human about this longing. We need to belong, to be treated with care, to know that our relationships can withstand a misunderstanding. But the mind keeps searching, even when there is nothing new to discover. It begins to invent stories. Each return brings the same question and a little more exhaustion.
In the Internal Family Systems model, Dr Richard Schwartz describes protective parts that try to shield us from suffering. Through this lens, the urge to keep analyzing can be approached with a gentler question: “What are you afraid might happen if we stopped now?” This offers one way of understanding rumination, rather than a universal explanation for it.
What do we know about the small gestures that can soothe us?
Research offers some support for seemingly simple practices: breathing exercises, meditation, putting our thoughts into a journal. The findings do not promise that a hand on the chest or a written page will quiet every worry. They do, however, give me a reason to pay attention to these gestures without asking them to perform miracles.
The trap of unfinished work
We can leave something unexplained …
The need to solve everything can make rest feel irresponsible. There is still a conversation to clarify, a reaction to understand, a decision to reconsider. We begin to treat every uncertainty as unfinished work, as though leaving it alone would mean failing to care. Yet caring does not always give us the power to put things right. Some answers belong to other people… some become clearer only with time.
Change may begin when I stop making my peace depend on the answer I hope to hear. Something can remain unresolved, and I can still get on with my evening. I can return tomorrow to a conversation worth continuing. I can acknowledge that, for now, there is nothing more I can learn.
I place my hand on my chest and leave it there for a few moments, without expecting an immediate result. I call to mind the light that shelters me and try to allow myself what I would allow someone I love: to feel confused or sad without being scolded for it.
At other times, I open my notebook. I write down what happened, then ask myself a question: “What am I afraid of?”
That question can take the writing deeper. Beneath a brief message, I may discover the fear that I no longer matter. Beneath something I agreed to too quickly, the desire not to disappoint. There, I can begin to answer more honestly.
And before my next “yes”, I can give myself a moment. Do I have the time? The energy? Do I want to? A few seconds in which my own needs are allowed into the conversation.
Returning to the warmth of the present
Longing for Inner Harmony.
A quieter evening may be the first sign that something is changing. One possible result is small, almost invisible to anyone else. The phone stays untouched on the table, and a reply waits until morning. A page ends with a clear decision, or an honest admission that, for now, I do not know.
The thought may return. I notice it and turn back, once more, to what I was doing.
I would measure progress in the time reclaimed, too… a dinner I savor, a few pages read with attention, a walk on which I greet the flowers and trees along the roadside. That ordinary life, still available even when something is on my mind.
I begin to regain my peace when I accept that even the questions that matter to me may have to remain unanswered.
Some conversations will remain unfinished. Some people will never explain exactly what they meant.
I can leave the question open until tomorrow. Tonight, I would like to drink my tea while it is still warm.
by Anisoara Laura Mustetiu
If you are working on finding peace in life’s uncertainties, explore Forgotten in Foreign Lands by Anișoara Laura Mustețiu.
Anișoara Laura Mustețiu is a Romanian writer, born in Timișoara, who spent 24 years in Germany and has been living in Sydney since 2014. She writes prose inspired by real events, love stories, and reflective texts on identity, resilience, personal development, and the meaning of life. With works published in Romanian, English, Italian, and German, she blends literature with insights drawn from psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy.
As a writer, editor‑in‑chief of the magazine Emoții și Lumină, radio editor, founder of the Romanian‑Australian Book Club, and an active on‑stage participant in Romanian‑Australian cultural events for the past decade, she contributes to promoting Romanian literature internationally and strengthening intercultural dialogue. Her books, published in four languages, are available in some of the world’s most prestigious bookstores — including Harvard Book Store, Barnes & Noble, and the royal Hatchards bookstore in London — and can be found in most major international cities.
Photo by Matheus Frade on Unsplash
