Trust *#%@!

It really should only have four letters...

Oh this is such a hard one for me. I am not trusting which is why I control. I do not believe that the universe or you will have my back, so I have learned to do it all myself. Be in charge. Take control. Guide, lead, manipulate so that I can assure that the proper outcome arrives on time.

Except that is all crap...

True. But crap nonetheless.

I have such a hard time believing that I will be taken care of...by the universe, by you, by anyone. I have felt since I was little, like it was all up to me...I have to do it or perish. I know, very dramatic but it is how I feel.

Trust is the reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing. And that I lack...a lot, in all I do, say, feel or want. I am a life long doubter and anti-truster.

Oh, I don’t expect all of you to let me down all of the time, but I do expect that you will do it far more often than I will. So I have lived a life based upon reliance on self. Which has worked...sort of. I mean I am still here. But I can also see where I have been so very misguided. Placing trust in things that could have cared less about me: alcohol, men, friends, jobs, ideas. I have been very off in my application of trust.

And, in truth, I still am. Oh, I want to trust but I have such a hard time with it...I want to believe that you will do what you say, show up when you commit to, be there for me when I need you, but my experience has taught me that that doesn’t usually happen. Not the way that I need, or the way that I want.

So what is one to do when one has a life long history of being let down; of trusting with poor results? Well, I have lived a life that sets up conditions to prove me right. I trust the wrong people with the wrong stuff and then I am proven right about what I thought would happen. It is miserable but I gain some untold amount of satisfaction by being right...even if that means I get a very wrong result.

Right now I am being asked to do some sitting and not acting. I do not want to do it. It is incredibly painful. I have lots of people who support my “fuck this, time to move on” attitude. Yet I am sitting as directed with a lot of feelings to the contrary...

Yesterday on my seven mile hike, I did not sit mentally. I took all sorts of actions...here are a few of the highlights:

I would go to Ireland for Xmas suddenly.

I would take a trip in the RV alone.

I would never date again.

I would find someone new immediately.

I would go on a month long retreat.

My mind was ridiculously active. I was taking all sorts of action, all to no avail. Again, I was the fly trapped under glass, refusing to accept my current circumstances...exhausting myself trying to get free. The irony is that if I would have just sat still, as directed, I would have had a lot more energy once I was released.

But I did trust yesterday because I did none of those things. I didn’t call when I was told not to. I didn’t text either. I didn’t start something new and I didn’t end anything ongoing. Why?

Because I trust this person’s judgment and even though my current interior life is incredibly painful, that true north in my gut, knows that I am sitting with a purpose with something ancient that I need to deal with...

So many crossroads I have traveled. So many, many times I have been at the place of needing, wanting and almost having to do the compulsive thing. To take the action I have taken a million times that has never, ever gotten me anywhere I want to go, but always believing that this time it will be different.

I am just being asked to sit still. To not do anything except be right here. And I hate it. I do not sit. I am not still. Yet, for some unknown reason, I am doing it.

I have to believe that at least a small part of me trusts that I am being guided to information I need to lead a happier and more useful life. I trust that I have to allow me to do something different, in order to be someone different. And I really, really want to be different.

Not a different me, but a better me. One that is living a principled life. One that is based upon trust.

Trust is the spiritual principle that kicks my ass the most...because it requires that I substitute other judgment for my own. And I have lived my life on self will, self propulsion and have had my share of success.

So I have to ask myself the following questions...

Do I trust me more than I trust you?

Yes, for the most part.

Do I trust me more than God?

Sometimes...

Do I trust myself?

Sometimes...

So there is the work...if I am the most supreme force in my life, aren’t I just a little screwed?

Perhaps I gain understanding about trust by substituting other for self. Allowing you and your ideas and suggestions to be the method I deploy instead of my finite and limited circuitous ideas of how to live this life.

As is so often the case in my life, whatever I have done, now requires an equal and opposite reaction...so my life based on trusting only myself has now come to the crossroads, I have to trust others more than I trust me. I am being asked to do something different and that is hard, painful and full of doubt.

But isn’t that what trust is all about anyway? A faith in something (or someone) greater knowing more than I do...being able to be ok with just allowing something else or someone else to guide me onward?

I can see now that I got it so very wrong. I trusted incorrectly. I placed my trust in those who did not practice spiritual principles then held every one accountable for their errors. I can see now it was my own misapplication of trust in those who are not living according to the spiritual laws that I know must guide my life that have led me so astray. Not them, but me.

Today I can ask myself if the person I am listening to, allowing to provide me guidance, is practicing what they preach? Are they living a life based on spirit? Are they even trying? If the answer is no, why the hell am I even considering following their direction? Am I just again falling into the age old trap of placing trust in those who I know will let me down so that I have yet another example to prove myself correct? Aren’t I tired of this story? Don’t I want something better than that for myself?

Living these spiritual principles kinda sucks. I so prefer the situational ethics I have practiced. Living and loving according to spirit is hard. And I am not a big supporter of hard.

But I think that I am at a place, today anyway, that I am willing to do the hard because I know it to be the less hard than the way I was living before I tried to do it differently. And that is the application of trust in my life today. I am listening to those that I believe walk the walk. I want what they have. I seek what they know. So I have to be willing to do what they do. And follow their hard, stupid and asking too much from me requests. Even when everything in me tells me to say fuck it and do what I want to do.

Trust requires that I substitute in judgment of other for judgment of self with no promise of it working out the way I want. Trust is really the application of faith in action for me. And it demands that I allow myself to be led into the unknown, the unsafe and the pain all the while trusting that this guidance comes to me, for my best interest, for my best life. Trusting that love is the guiding force and the principle that leads me to a new understanding of you, of me and of why we are here right now living the way we are.

I can’t do this on my own. I need you. I need teachers and friends and love and support. I have to trust you. We are all interdependent and I need people as much as I like to think that I don’t. I also can see that needing people and using people are two very different things. And I think that I need to look at that...again.

For today, I will trust that I am right where I am supposed to be. Accept. Trust. Abandon. Repeat.

Dammit.