Trust and Lack of Trust

The other day, I wrote about infringing upon the free will of another person. I wrote about how we might think that we would never do such a thing, and yet, faced with a situation that requires the cooperation of others, that threatens our security and well-being, or so we think, we often do bend our will to their will. We try to make them do what we would like them to do for the betterment of our situation.

Thinking about this, and feeling my way into this, I realize that in every instance of it that I can imagine, there is a fear of some kind of lack in my life. One of the examples that I touched on the other day was wanting to be promoted to another person's position in the organization and wishing that the person would move on so that the promotion could go through. They might move on in a wonderful way, finding an even better position within the organization, or elsewhere, or winning the lottery and retiring from their working life with the organization. Or they might move on in a not-so-wonderful way, being caught with dirty hands where hands should not have been, or being forced to retire due to the poor health and dependency of a relative. Either way, our will for that person is not their will for themselves. And we dishonour them as sovereign beings when we indulge in such thoughts and feelings. Why do we do this? We think of ourselves as good people, filled with good intentions. We do it because we fear lack in our own lives. We do it because we do not trust that all is well in all of creation, that our needs will be met and our choices honoured.

I touched on this issue of trust the other day as well, but I want to say more about it because it's huge. The question of whether or not we trust is absolutely key to all that we are and all that we do.

A word about words here. The word trust and the word faith are very close in meaning. I have trust in myself. I have faith in myself. However, the word faith has also come to hold a great deal of religiosity. We speak of a person's faith as being their belief in a certain set of teachings about God, the divine, and their relationship to that divinity, to God. So the word trust is preferable to me in this instance because when I speak of trusting, even of trusting God, I do not include any intermediary of religion, of teachings, or of a set of beliefs between me and that which I trust. Imagine removing anything that stands between yourself and that which you trust or would like to trust. It's difficult to do that when we use the word faith. So, trust is the key here. And when I contemplate it, I find that I need to take a deep breath.

I've spent most of my life fearing one thing or another. And I think of myself as being quite brave. Not a fearful person. Not cringing. Not whining. Getting on with things. That's how I've always thought of myself. Making do. Yet, I have feared. I have feared unemployment most, I think. I have feared poverty - the sort of grinding, constant state of not having enough money to live well that deadens the spirit and steals away opportunities. I have feared humiliation, social embarassment. I have feared isolation and loneliness. Because I am so spiritually minded and open and imaginative, I have feared insanity. A sort of creeping up on the self of delusions and confusions until one is no longer able to cope - that kind of insanity. I have feared intimacy. Not with other women, but with men. I have feared illness and disability.

A life filled with fears. I could wish that it were not so. But I'm bound here and now to speak only truth to you. I've begun to spend time with my fears. I'm not afraid of them anymore. (Smile) Spending time with them lessens the sense in me that they could overwhelm me. When I spend time with a fear, not trying to make it go away, or make sense of it, or change it or 'heal' it - just spending time with it - to feel it, I come to know that it is one choice available to me as a response to the moment. It is one choice among others. I come to know its contours, the shape and size of it. I know then where it ends, and something else begins.

That something else is trust. 

And I'm brought to an understanding that just as fear is a choice among others, so is trust. It is a choice. That choice is always available to us. It is, for me, a turning to. From a moment where I lack trust, where trust is not present, I turn to trust. I feel it within me where it wasn't before.

And it isn't necessarily trust in ..... some specific thing or person. It is beyond words, beyond the mind's reasons and counter arguments. It is as vast and indefinable as God is.

I could say, "I trust myself," as easily as I could say, "I trust God." I could say, "I trust in the process through which I am proceeding." None of this is the whole truth of it, the entirety of it, at least not for me.

I trust. That is all. Anything else, any attempt to define it as trust in..... or trust of....   limits it. Breathing deeply, as usual, helps me to feel it. And we can invoke trust in ourselves by naming it, literally saying the word, choosing it and breathing it in. (More on conscious invocation in a later post.)

I trust that this posting finds you exactly where you have chosen to be in your deepest and largest and highest being. I trust that each moment is ALL that it can be for me, for you, for everyone. I trust that we are able, today, tomorrow and in all the days to come, to meet the huge, wheeling, towerful cascade of cloudly miraculous becoming that is our process through these unprecedented times.

Within our always choosing in the moment, I choose trust.