Trusting the Process (25.7.26)

Learning to trust

Many years ago, during one of my first shamanic journeys, I found myself standing before a simple white door. Across it was written a single word: Trust.

At the time, I had no idea why that image affected me so deeply. Looking back now, I realise it represented both a homecoming and the beginning of a lifelong practice. Trust isn't something we achieve once and for all. Life keeps inviting us to deepen it.

When I walk through nature, I'm often reminded that so much unfolds without second thought. I don't know if we can call this 'trust', but so many processes just happen without worries. You won't find a tree that worries if it will be spring next year; or a river that doesn't know if it will reach the sea. My work is focusing more and more on perception and participation, a being with, in relationship.

As you wander this week, notice where you observe trust, or surrender, or a lack of questioning. What catches your attention? Perhaps you'll see a spider rebuilding its web after the rains. What does nature seem to trust that we humans so often forget?

Movement invitation

Find a place where you can pause and rest for a while. Perhaps in our coming meeting we can talk about the concept of a Power Place. A place where you feel you can be, be yourself, without pressure or roles to play, where you feel filled up and nourished.

Simply notice what is already supporting you. Can you trust the earth beneath your feet and the way gravity provides an enduring relationship with the ground? Can you trust your breath arriving without having to think about it?

Allow your movement to emerge from that sense of support. Rather than deciding what to do next, see if you can wait for the next movement to reveal itself. Follow one impulse, then another, allowing each movement to become the beginning of the next, in a natural revolving of movement.

You might notice moments of hesitation. The desire to plan ahead, to get it right, to know where you're going. Simply include that too. Trust doesn't have to be a dramatic leap. It might be the willingness to take a small step without knowing exactly what comes after.

Deepening the weave

Funny, it's the third time in this invitation that my shamanic practice knocks on the door, or in this case my main shamanic teacher Jonathan Horwitz. He always corrected our choice of words from to shift from the fairly powerless everything will be well, to the much more empowered all is well, with whatever is unfolding.

From buying tickets for a future event, to participation in the present. How much of our energy is spent worrying about futures that haven't happened yet, postponing our happiness until something is resolved, fixed or decided? What if, instead, we allowed ourselves to arrive more fully in the experience we are already living?

This doesn't mean accepting unhealthy situations or pretending that suffering doesn't exist. It means trusting that every experience, whether joyful or difficult, has something to teach us if we are willing to stay in relationship with it.

I invite you to reflect on your own relationship with trust this week. Where in your life do you find it easy to soften into the unfolding of things? Where do you find yourself bracing, controlling or trying to rush the process?

Perhaps trust is less about certainty than about learning to include yourself in the experience you are having. Not asking, How do I get out of this? but How can I participate more fully with life?

I'd love to hear what the word trust evokes in you!

[I adapted this invitation from the Magical Seeds Archive: What's your relationship with Trust? 🐺 (02.07.23)]