Why You Must Claim Your Ignorance

Our culture, which strives for the holy grail of “expertise,” often dismisses those who are ignorant in an area.

We blame people for their ignorance.

The common thinking is that there’s no excuse for ignorance in the age of Google. We have access to all the “data” — all the “information.”

Maybe, or maybe not.

Problems With Information

Here are some of the problems with “information.”

Information doesn’t show you your blind spots.
Information doesn’t reveal your shadows.
Information doesn’t tell you what is relevant.
Information doesn’t convey the truth of a human being’s experience.

Information may not even be true, even if it’s a “fact.”

I’m willing to go to the dark shadow places and illuminate what I can’t see. I do my own work so that I can masterfully lead my clients through their dark places.

We grow by navigating through the dark.

It is vital that we claim our ignorance about matters such as racism, and other topics that we don’t talk about in our society.

What It Means to Claim Your Ignorance

When I say we need to “claim our ignorance,” I do not mean that we should do this as a point of pride, as in “that’s beneath me, I don’t need to know it” or “that’s not relevant to me.”

Ignorance without a desire to do something about it is avoidance.

At the same time, our ignorance must not become a source of shame.

We simply do not know everything, nor can we expect to. Maybe we never learned, or we were exposed to only one part of a larger ecosystem.

We can only truly know what we personally experience.

What you see is true. What you don’t see is also true. — Nevine Michaan, founder of Katonah Yoga

I love the parable of the blind men describing the elephant. Each one describes an elephant based on the part that he is touching. Each man is correct based on his experience, but each is also ignorant about the elephant as a whole being.
We are all blind to some part of the whole, and we learn from people who are blind to that part of the whole.

The Discomfort of Claiming Our Ignorance

In a culture where everyone seeks to be an “expert,” it may feel uncomfortable and vulnerable to claim your ignorance. All the more reason to do it.

I believe that claiming our ignorance is a sign of true strength.

Claiming our ignorance does not diminish the work we have done, what we have learned so far, or the breadth and depth of experience and “expertise” we have accumulated over time.

There is no shame in admitting what you don’t know, in acknowledging that you are open to hearing another viewpoint.

I am not threatened by someone else getting the spotlight to share their experience; it doesn’t invalidate anything in my own experience.

Claiming our ignorance gives us the space to grow.

Why I Am Willing to Claim My Ignorance

I am willing to claim my ignorance because it opens me to learning what I don’t know.

I am willing to claim my ignorance because it allows me to see what I couldn’t see before.

I am willing to claim my ignorance because it helps me open my ears and my heart for deeper listening, so I can hear the experience of my black friends and my friends of color without filtering it through my own traumas and experiences.

I am willing to claim my ignorance because it opens the door for those who have experience and expertise to share what they have to contribute.

I am willing to claim my ignorance because it opens me to doing the deeper inner work required of all of us.

I am willing to claim my ignorance because it is the first step to healing.