Trusting the Process...

You hear this a lot in the recovery world.  A lot. Sometimes so much that it just kind of loses its meaning along the way.  However, in everything we do in this life, there is a certain amount of trust that goes into every process we are part of.

It is easy to trust the process when the way forward feels good or tends to lead to great results.  It is easier to trust the process when you feel you are being led to a place that you want to go.  Sometimes trusting the process aligns perfectly with just living your life.

Then there are those other times, those really hard times when the way forward is unclear, the feelings and trajectory feel unsure and scary.  That is when your faith is tried and exploited. It is when you cannot see the other side and are still being asked to dive on in, where “trusting the process”operates at its finest.

I have been at the place where I cannot see what is coming next.  I have mustered all my powers of manifestation but no matter what I do, I am not able to see, feel or intuit what will happen next.  I have made GREAT leaps of faith.  I have had some near misses and narrow escapes.  I have felt despondent and alone and quite adrift in this life, a lot.  But I have learned to absolutely trust the process.

And as much as I would like that to mean that I trust the process and then everything works out the way I want...and that would be lovely, but totally untrue...I think the process of living requires a couple of things:  faith in something greater than yourself, faith in yourself and a belief that right action always follows right action, just not immediately and rarely when you want it to.

I have stayed when everything in me wanted to run, I have run when everything in me wanted to stay.  There were times when both of the above actions were evidence of me trusting the process and then there were also times where I was absolutely engaged in self will run riot.  Sometimes it is really hard to know exactly which action you are putting forward:  trust or will.  It is rather easy to get the two confused.

The best evidence I have that more often than not that I do trust the process, is that I am still here, sober, living and doing my best to work on my shit.  I do not run from the complexities and compulsions and consternations in my life.  I push up my sleeves and get busy with the work at hand even though I would totally rather go shopping, or to the beach or anything other than doing the spiritual work being asked of me in that moment.

I have learned, the hard way because that appears to be the only way I learn anything, that sometimes trusting the process feels like second nature and sometimes it feels like having your soul ripped out.  It isn’t that you are doing it wrong, it is just that different times in life, different things are exacted from you.  And all of it, every single thing is to evolve you into the highest form of yourself.  And the real ass kicker is not so that you get everything you want or an amazing life or anything like that.  You walk through the horrors and the blessings so that you can share what you have learned and help another who struggles similarly.  And that is the whole point in trusting the process.  Struggling, learning, assimilating and then using all that has happened to assist someone else along the way...

Again...still.