Trust Note: On courage and trust
Published: Wed, 09/03/14
Hi , One of my purposes of these notes is to share my experiences of tending trust. As I tell my stories, I hope you catch glimpses of what it might mean in your world and your context to recognize places where fear is the (subtle or not-so-subtle) steam behind your living and to do the conscious work of cultivating trust in its place.
So today I want to share such a story.
I returned last week from ten days away - an exploratory trip to Boulder, Colorado with my family, followed by a day with a dear college friend, and then five days in the Rockies, attending The Wake Up Festival.
There is something so magical about time spent with people and in environments totally outside my family, city, and culture. In these contexts I see my life with fresh eyes and, often, have space enough to listen to and truly hear the quieter voices within. These are the voices that often get drowned out by the urgencies and inertia of my day-to-day life.
While away, one of the voices I've been hearing quietly for some time had space to fill its lungs and fully...speak.
"You have to make some changes," it said authoritatively. "You can't continue living the way you've been living. You need more sleep. More time in meditation and stillness. More time making conscious choices about how many activities your kids participate in; how much socializing you do; how much time you create for work and play and homemaking. To be who you want to be and contribute what you're here to contribute, stress needs to shrink." While this voice had its say, I was simultaneously reading a book as I traveled - Essentialism, by Greg McKeown. McKeown talks at length about what a myth it is that we can have or do it all...what a hopeless quest it is to try to find a way to do every good thing we want to do, have every relationship be just what we want it to be, throw ourselves into work life AND family life AND romance whole hog, etc.
And while there's a wisp of nostalgia about that fact for me (really? I'll never EVER have it all?), my primary feeling as I read that was THANK YOU. How helpful it is to name things as they are, to give up the dogged (and, truly, hopeless) quest to have and do it all, and to have honest, even gritty conversations about what costs and benefits are involved in the different options actually available.
I've lived just long enough to see my own patterns in relationships and work life repeat themselves, to recognize the costs I've incurred psychologically and physically and emotionally from the too-full lifestyle I've been living, and to see how fast life zooms by - how much I don't want to hurtle to the end of it and look back with regret at the fact that I let my subconscious, or the habits I established in early adulthood when I didn't also have kids or an aging body or awareness of what I truly need for mental health, run my whole show.
There's a certain courage, a certain humility, required to look at one's life honestly and say, "This? It isn't working well for me," and then to make necessary changes. It's the courage of admitting what others might have already seen for some time; of putting dear, coddled projects or commitments to rest; of standing on the threshold of something new and unknown and therefore exciting and fearsome: a season of life that hasn't yet been charted, let alone experienced.
Trust, for me right now, is the practice of letting this kind of courage and the inner voice that made me conscious I could choose it, be my guides. It's the practice of watching for where fear would want me to take the tried and true route of how I've always (for the last many years) filled my days, and saying, "Thanks, but no thanks," to fear's lead.
In coming weeks these moves will trickle into how I relate to Trust Tending as a business, so stay tuned. But for the time being, I want to honestly ask:
Are you feeling a nudge inside to make a change? To listen to that inner voice that's beckoning you to something new - some different way of orienting your relationships or your work life or your spirituality or your days?
I hope, with my whole heart, you'll listen to that voice and choose courage and trust - again and again and again. And if you'd like some support for that work, and my down-to-earth camaraderie as I navigate this very practice myself, I hope you'll join me for the next (and possibly last) Healing Wave: Safe Passage. 10 days of images and meditations to help navigate life transitions with trust as your guide.
 P.S. This Trust Note lives here. You're more than welcome to share it!
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| © Kristin Noelle |