Learning & relearning to trust

Sometimes there are things we know.  What our next steps are.  Decisions that need to be made.  Changes that need to happen.  We know, deep down in our bones and being.  

And yet.  We don’t listen.  Or we don’t want to listen.  

Because the change feels too big.  Because the process feels too painful.  Because there is a part of us that doesn’t want the change, wants things to go back to the way they were.  

Because we were taught, from a very young age, not to trust ourselves.  Not to trust our own inner knowing.  

So we look for ways out.

We look to signs from the Universe, the cards, the songs on the radio, the grocery store clerk.  We ask everyone under the sun what they would do.

We talk ourselves in circles trying to find any way we can to not do the thing we know we need to do.  

We do all this in an effort to avoid doing what we know we need to do. 
We don’t listen to our own inner truth.
We seek answers outside of us when they are screaming at us from within.

We do this to avoid pain, discomfort, the unknown.
We do this out of fear.

We do this to try and escape the grief that is welling up inside of us.
Or the hurt.
Or the anger.
Or the frustration.
Or all of the above.

Regardless of the whats or whys, we don’t listen to our Self.  We don’t listen to our Truth.  Our own inner knowing.

We stop our own metamorphosis.
We keep ourselves stuck.
We hide.
We put on fronts and masks.
We try to pretend everything is fine as it is.

But everything is not fine.

And if there is one thing that is constant and inevitable in our lives, it is change.
Sometimes that means trying harder, trying different.
Sometimes that means letting go, surrendering, allowing.
It always means going outside our own comfort zones.
It means doing what we know we need to do.
Even if we don’t know what is on the other side.
Even if we are terrified of the process.
Even if it breaks our hearts that things need to be the way they need to be.

Trusting ourselves, trusting our own knowing, is no easy task.  It is not something we learn to do, in fact it is something we were born with knowing and then it was taught out of us.  We were conditioned to trust others over our own Self.  We were told we don’t know what is best for us or our own lives.  We were trained to seek answers outside of us and to never look within.

But here’s a thing: we were born knowing how to trust our Self.  We were born with the knowledge of how to connect with our own innate wisdom.  We were born listening to our own needs, wants and truths, and never, ever questioning them.

We were born with a blind faith in ourselves.

I don’t know that we can, or should, get back to that blind faith.  I am a deep believer in curiosity, questioning, analyzing, and understanding.  I believe we should always check in with ourselves and see if there are shadow pieces, hidden motivations, unconscious agitators, to what we see as our truth, as our knowing.

And all of that requires deeper looking within.  Not outside.  Within.

And a willingness to actually trust ourselves.  And then to honor that trust and do what we know we need to do.

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This was originally written for my weekly newsletter in September 2018, republished on my blog in May 2019.

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Last week I began offering material from my Embodied Writing and Embodied Relating courses to my paid subscribers. The first course I am publishing for paid subscribers is Embodied Writing :: Too Much, Not Enough, & Shame. The first post was published Monday, June 13 and there are 1-3 posts a week exploring this topic through an essay, embodiment exercises, and stream of conscious writing prompts. To have access to this material, become a paid subscriber for as little as $7/month. This material will be available to to paid subscribers for the lifetime of your subscription.

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