Tend the Sparks Consulting

the unknown and good roots

I was in many coaching conversations last week, some as coach, some as coachee, and was reminded of the sometimes great lengths we humans go to avoid feelings of failure, rejection, and disappointment. So far, I find that when I get past a few outer layers to what someone says is at stake for them, their relationship with the unknown starts to reveal itself. It takes time and trust, but it’s important context for better understanding someone’s values, priorities, and the barriers they identify between themselves and getting where they want to go.

The coach I worked with most last week helped me dust off some sources of self-doubt. I found myself laughing in recognition with this coach a lot; it was impossible to deny the things his questions were surfacing. They were old things, things I thought I had addressed to the point of little to no relevance. This life never ceases to humble.

Fear of the unknown is part of our human obsession with seeing “certainty” as a realistic and primary source of security. A healthy caution with the unknown used to help us survive way back in the day, but, in modern times, it also puts itself to work in other areas where literal survival is not what’s at stake. We want to know whether we will get hurt before we set out. The answer is yes, probably sometime, because no path is pain free. Every elder and poet tells us this, yet we often believe that if we somehow do everything “right,” we’ll be spared discomfort and heartbreak.

All this reminded me of what a dear friend invokes sometimes when the unknown comes up: “We must risk delight.”1 It’s one of her favorite lines of poetry, and I always hear it in her voice. Those words feel delicious and essential.

“We must risk delight.” …it’s a great invitation to connect to the beauty in a world that could easily break us and the good that is possible on the other end of our decisions. To me, risking delight is most about how we move through the world — which feelings and possible futures we use to make our way. In my experience, we often let our assumptions and fears about “what’s next” come ahead of, even determine, our priorities, instead of the other way around. The belief that we can already know what will happen shuts out a lot of possibility.

As long as we’re grounded in the realities that might make us responsible for more than ourselves, I think it’s healthy to entertain the most delightful outcomes. Audacious, even. Risking delight is fuel for getting us somewhere fulfilling and medicine for our hearts, minds, and bodies. It’s not a stretch or a fantasy to go there; it can help us recover possibilities that we haven’t felt in a while or help us discover new ones. What we do with those insights next is entirely up to us.

We’re all out here choosing our own adventures. What if, instead of assuming we’re risking rejection, we risked delight instead? I’m making that big perspective shift sound easy and linear. It’s not for most people, but it is simple and radical.

I like Angela Davis’ definition of “radical”: “grasping things at the root.”2 While she originally used it in a different context, harvest — treasures I have pulled up from gardens — come to mind in this one. I believe that delight is one of our good roots; it needs our attention just as much as the conditions that help us survive and care for others. Delight is easily buried by fear and avoidance, and we sometimes need another pair of hands to help us brush away the excess. It is ours again with a firm grip and a tug.

Risking delight isn’t an easy way out. It can be nearly as scary as the uncomfortable things we avoid. It usually involves some change and the fear of eventually losing said delight. It also requires letting go of an imagined future that we will lose control over once we start actually living it. I have heard relationship therapist Esther Perel say that it is natural to have feelings of grief about some decisions because you are closing the door on a possibility that had meaning to you.

While many doors can be revisited another time, some can’t. This grief doesn’t diminish the excitement of new possibilities, but it can cast a shadow. Being gentle with that feeling is just as important as bravely stepping through a threshold.

The possible sources of delight are infinite, as is our capacity to receive it. We are graced with as much as we allow, as much as we risk. Happy 2026, y’all.

-Cheyenne

photo: a few good roots from my CSA farm box here in Oregon

1 from A Brief for the Defense by Jack Gilbert

2 “Let Us All Rise Together” address in 1989. It can also be found in her book, Women, Culture, & Politics. I first encountered it in the writings of adrienne maree brown. While I did not apply it to a social justice context, that is how Angela used it.