The road to trust
It is so easily said: trust me, trust yourself, trust your intuition, trust your heart. But what does trust actually consist of?
Taking more time for yourself, not getting so carried away with the hustle and bustle around us, many people have this desire.
So after my last post, a friend came to ask me how I do that, how I have gained more trust in the natural flow of life. I could answer that very quickly with: “through my connection with nature", but I also know that trust has a bit more ‘feet to it’, than just that.
It took me several mugs of tea to somewhat arrive at an answer. Because yes, how do I do that, trusting life?
After all, trusting that life will give us what we need is not so easy. Especially not in a world that teaches us mostly that we personally fall short, that there is not enough for everyone and that we have to work hard to have enough for now and later.
I came to the conclusion that there is no single, simple answer. First, everyone is different, second, it is so easily said. Trust me, trust yourself, trust your intuition, trust your heart. But what does Trust actually consist of?
During my pondering, I recognized a few steps that I took that proved important in growing my trust in life.
Acceptance
Gratitude
Letting go
Being
Connection
Pleasure
I like to discuss these steps separately, as I could write a whole chapter about each one. But today I want to talk about the door to more Trust. Because although these steps will take you far, you will only get there if you dare to open the door which I will explain here.
That this is not an easy task, I noticed once again over the past few weeks, when I was, for the umpteenth time, standing right in front of it.
To earn my daily biscuit that goes with my tea, for years I wrote all kinds of texts for websites. To live, I don't need much, but to do that work, three things are important: a good Wifi connection, electricity and a smoothly functioning computer.
Be it the case that everytime I started working one of these things just failed to do its job.
First the Wifi didn't work (turned out we pushed a button on the router that turns off the WLAN), then the electricity failed (we're on solar panels here and it took a while to figure out where the problem was) and then my laptop decided to go on holiday mode.
My first reaction was going into modus control. Because some panic struck after all. When it turned out there was really nothing I could do about it, my second reaction was....
Anger.
I was angry at my laptop that finally completely stopped working, my full tea mug that fell over, the pole that wouldn't go into the ground, the ladder that wouldn't stay up against the tree, the cat I tripped over....
Until, after two weeks of fighting everything and everyone, it was New Moon. New moons are the time of letting go and starting over. This New Moon was in the sign of Taurus and, someone told me, it asked me to trust in the natural course of nature.
So.
"You gain strength, courage and confidence with every experience in which you decide to face your fear." - Eleanor Roosevelt
Opening the door to more trust is essentially having a tea with what is blocking you from having that trust. And those blockages usually stem from Fear.
The best thing you can do is stop, breathe and feel where the fear resides. Look it in the eyes in a way you would look at a friend in her moment of panic and ask, "What do you want to tell me and what do you need?"
So there I was, once again sitting with my anxiety over a good cup of tea, feeling where she was coming from and seeing if I could help her. I felt my fear mostly in my chest, somewhere between my heart and my throat. It was the fear of having no money to 'get ahead in life', therefore having no control over my future and thus being dependent on others for much longer than desired.
The first step to trust is to sit down with these thoughts and feelings. Taking a moment to really feel, hear and acknowledge them. That's what 'looking into the eyes' is, after all. It's not a fight, denial or re-thinking.
It is Seeing Them.
As they are.
Did I get what I wanted? No. Have I taken a step towards a more independent future? Not necessarily. My fears are still there too, but the urge for control is gone and the anger faded away. All because the fears no longer have to scream so loudly to be heard and that provides a whole lot of relaxation. A relaxation that gives room for solutions that I could not have thought of in the moment of panic.
A friend offered to overhaul my laptop for free, I was allowed to work in the neighbour's office for a while, a very long extension cord is also a solution and it turns out that five liters of olive oil can pay for a service. All in all, a great outcome of an intense tea moment, I think.
This is the first in an in-depth series of seven posts I wrote in 2020. Learning to accept is the next step you can take towards more trust in life. The post about Acceptance will come right in your inbox if you subscribe to my substack in the form below.
(Just for your peace of mind, I now write on a new laptop, which I could buy with the help of many friends and family. Also an outcome I could not think of in my moment of dispair.)
Love,
Daphne
In the meantime, tell me, which fears would you like to ask for tea?