A week ago a friend and I were talking and these wise words struck me and have been with me since them:
“Trust is the other side of the fear coin”.
I know I’ve talked about fear a few times here, but it seems like it’s the root of so much, at least in my life! So what does it mean to say that trust is the antidote to fear? How does that even work? Fear comes from projection. It comes from dwelling in past and future thought, melding what’s happened in the past, and what we therefore don’t want to have happen in the future. Fear makes up stories – often times these stories are so much worse than what the situation might be, and even if for some reason they aren’t, we end up suffering or feeling pain twice because we have experienced it in the projection as well as the reality. But above all, fear has us spinning in our mind. Weaving stories, and going down all sorts of paths. So we suffer, and then we suffer again.
Trust, on the other hand, relies on deep presence. (Hello yoga training!) Trust is knowing that in this moment I am ok. The world hasn’t fallen down around me. Trust is the belief that life isn’t good or bad, it just is. Trust is the essence of being in the present and recognizing that our seat of wisdom is in our heart space. It comes from our soul connection with Spirit or God or whatever name you have for it. And when we drop into this seat, we can trust what is there. Living and acting in trust doesn’t mean we get to have things go our way, but it means we get to control how we respond to situations as they arise. We can acknowledge that we aren’t in control of other people and situations, but we are in control of ourselves. And, if we get out of the way and stop trying to fix the situation, we can see that God is handling it. Can we trust this? Can we leave it in God’s hands and then trust that we will be ok?
As a “fixer” this is hard. Trust is hard. I feel responsible. But if the burden truly sits on my shoulders it feels much scarier, and it feels like everything I do is so important and will lead to either a “good” or “bad” outcome. In reality the circumstances around me are beyond me always, and the desire to try and orchestrate things all the time not only makes life frustrating, but it also potentially puts me in the way of things going as they need to go. So what would happen if I just got out of my own way? What if I said:
“this is beyond me? God, Source, Universe, this one’s all yours”?
To get out of my own way means releasing my attachments to outcomes and instead relying and trusting that whatever comes, I will have the strength, humility, grace, wisdom, and all the support I need, to make it through. It’s the “how” that matters. How do I surrender into the moment? How do I let myself free fall and know that it will be ok? Purify intentions. Take action for the right reason, and above all, trust.