Sometimes we need to let go of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, and judgments that we’ve held for longer than we can remember. And we need to let go of them because they’re standing in our way to a greater understanding of who we are and why we’re here.
Sometimes it’s hard to let go of these things because we’ve grown fond of them. They feel like a second skin. They’re comfortable and familiar and they help us define our world – at least, they help us define what even counts as our world. So if we were to let go of them, we might feel lost. Or uncomfortable. Or a little fearful of the unknown.
Photo: L. Weikel
Sometimes, on the other hand, it’s hard to let go of these things because we aren’t even aware that we hold them, carry them around, or allow them to influence our lives every day. We honestly do not realize the fundamental beliefs, judgments, opinions, and attitudes that are the filter through which we experience our lives.
Taking the Time and Doing the Work to Discover What Needs to Go
How can we let something go that we’re not even aware we hold?
By doing the work.
By opening ourselves up to the possibility that we might not even be aware of our own self-sabotage – be it advertent or inadvertent. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter in the least whether we’re sabotaging ourselves purposefully or not. Or even knowingly or not. Blockage and self-sabotage impede. Period.
That’s why it’s a gift to have other people whom we trust implicitly walking beside us. We may all be on the similar paths, more or less, but that doesn’t mean our footsteps mirror each other’s.
Finding – and Being – Those We Trust Implicitly
Not in the least. But it does mean we something to have people whose perspective we trust close enough to call us out and say, “Hey! Do you see what you are affirming to the Universe every time you say such a thing?” or “You’ve been telling yourself that same story all the time ever since we met five years ago.”
Often this can lead to a gasp and an internal astonished realization of the belief albatross we’ve been slogging through the mud with, allowing it to weigh us down and slow our progress until we suddenly find ourselves stuck. “Oops. Wow. I did not see that.”
So to have people we trust nearby to call us on our stuff, lovingly but honestly, is a great gift.
True Friends Being There For Each Other
I witnessed some amazing stuff unfold today.
I watched dear friends shed old ways of thinking and being, beliefs and judgments that used to cause heartache and mean self-talk.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow I’m going to witness them looking up. Looking outward; looking at themselves with profound love and respect, and an eager anticipation of what is coming ‘next.’
Well, that’s a title that could lead us anywhere, is it not? Let’s see, there are so many paths I could take. I’ll just tell you where I was going with this:
Cell phones. Good grief, how they have changed our lives – particularly the ‘smart phone’ variety. It really is staggering to contemplate just how much power we hold in our hands every day.
It is weird to think back on the first big huge bulky clunky contraptions that almost needed to be carried with two hands, in big cases, that were incredibly heavy and unwieldy. And the reception? Awful. But if you could afford one of those bad boys, you were cutting edge.
Their First Appearance
Regular cell phones – i.e., ‘flip phones’ and the like, were certainly revolutionary. It was so great to be able to talk to Karl and Maximus when they went off to college and not have to call a pay phone in the hallway of their dorms, or even call a landline in their rooms, although those were still options.
Come to think of it, I may be thinking back to my first year or two in college when I reference pay phones in the hallway of the dorm. Yes…Bigler Hall at Penn State. I don’t know. My memory may be confused. If any of my peeps from back then (Bregettes?) are reading this, perhaps they can refresh my recollection.
Anyway. The actual point I wanted to make tonight had to do with how much our cell phones – and texting in particular – have changed the way we stay in touch with each other, particularly parents and children – and how that has an impact much deeper and wider than just the superficial contact.
My kids are all adults now. With few exceptions it is rare that if I send a text, I do not receive a response. Of course, that’s if it is a text that obviously is requesting or requiring an immediate response.
I rarely request or require an immediate response. But the mere fact that I have the knowledge in the back of my mind that if I really needed them, I could reach them changes my life.
The Blessing and Curse of Instant Access
Having been an exchange student in Sweden back in ’76-’77, I remember all too vividly how different telephonic communication was back then. Wow. It was incredibly special to be able to make a phone call overseas. They were expensive, so it was a very rare treat to be able to hear my mother’s voice.
And yet, that inability to just pick up the phone and communicate instantaneously played a huge role in promoting resilience – and not just on my part as a 17 year old, either. It had to have fostered an amazing amount of trust and fortitude on the part of my parents, too – particularly my mother, as we enjoyed each other’s company and were close. What can she (they, to be fair) possibly have been thinking, sending their 17 year old daughter off to Sweden for a year?
Probably at least part of my love for writing is rooted in the prolific letter-writing I engaged in to keep the thread of energetic connection to my mother intact. And she was great about corresponding with me, too. I was homesick – no doubt about it – but the letters kept me connected. Kept us connected. And I’m not even touching upon the grounding and catharsis that occurs when pen is put to paper…
Do They Promote Independence? Or Dependence?
The difference I see now is that cell phones almost keep us too connected. For instance, a couple weekends ago, Sage and Sarah took a road trip. I would not ordinarily think twice about it, but they called while on the road, and I knew they had a many hours ahead of them. I texted them (both, since I didn’t know who would be driving and who would be riding shotgun) later in the evening, figuring they were about mid-way through their trip.
No response.
OK, I thought. No big deal. Maybe they turned their phones off. (No, I didn’t really think they both did that, but I did entertain it as a possibility just to shut myself up.) Or maybe they were in the midst of an intense conversation, or listening to something really great on the radio. No big deal.
Then a few hours after that, I tried texting again, just to see how far away they were from their destination. Again – no response.
Lost Perspective
It was at this moment that I felt a squiggle of worry pass through me. Worry?! Because my kids in their mid-20s weren’t texting me back, even though we’d chatted earlier in the evening?
How odd. And how objectively ridiculous a feeling. I know that if we did not have the ability to communicate in this way, I would not have thought twice about them (in a worried sense).
I do not like having the question, “Should I be worried?” pass through my body and psyche simply because I cannot instantaneously reach them on their cell phones. And this is especially true given that I didn’t ‘have a bad feeling.’ No. But a ‘bad feeling’ did try mightily to sink its hooks into me when neither of them responded.
Honestly, I checked in with my intuition and got zero sense that I needed to worry, so I didn’t. But it made me think. And reflect.
Self-Reliance
If I’d had a cell phone when I was in Sweden, I wonder if I would have cultivated the self-reliance that I know was probably one of the single greatest benefits I received from living abroad for a year. And I imagine on some level it must have been huge for my mother, too. All she had to go on from one day to the next were my letters. Letters which I’d written probably 7-10 days earlier.
Wow.
There It Is Again
I just realized something. Here I am uncovering yet another way in which trust has played a huge role in my life. Or perhaps more accurately, I’ve isolated some of the greatest circumstances that demanded I hone my abilities of discernment and trust, which have carried forward (and served me well) throughout my entire life. I had to figure out which little worries flitting through my mind and body demanded attention and which ones were just fear of the boring, everyday, mostly-made-up-in-your head variety.
Discernment like that takes practice. And I wonder if the ubiquitous availability of cell phones is stunting the cultivation of this skill in all of us. If it is, how can we cultivate it in other ways?
A day doesn’t go by when I’m not asked to exercise it in some capacity or another. It used to be that I would only have to consciously choose to ‘trust’ some days. Not every day. But now that I’ve embarked upon my 1111 Devotionodyssey, I’m faced with the responsibility of choosing to trust every single day or else risk breaching my commitment, my act of devotion, to Karl.
I’m not talking about mundane acts of trust, either, like the ones we all engage in every day simply by choosing to live in society, such as trusting that people are going to obey traffic laws or trusting the food I buy at the grocery store isn’t going to kill me.
No, I’m talking about choices that can be significantly important not only to myself, but to others.
Different Types and Different Levels of Trust
For instance, when I have a session with a client, I never know what’s going to be asked of me. I never know what, exactly, I am going to be asked by that client’s soul to do for that person. So every time I have a session with someone, which is not every day of every week, obviously, I am asked to trust that I will knowwhat to do for my client’s highest and best outcome. And beyond that, I need to trust that the timing is correct.
Some days that means I need to journey to retrieve a lost soul part – an aspect of my client that has taken refuge in a safe place because it no longer felt safe here in this ‘Middle World,’ which in Quechua is known as the ‘Kaypacha.’ Sometimes it means journeying to find an ally, perhaps a power animal or a guide that takes the form of some other life form (not an animal), including perhaps a Being that appears in the form of a person. In all of these situations, I’m asked to trust. Trust what I’m told; trust what I’m shown; trust that even if it makes no sense to me, I am to relay it.
Every time I meet with a client I am asked to trust my role as messenger. And that is a role I consider essential and sacred. And sometimes requires the utmost delicacy.
I’m also asked to trust that what I ‘get’ is actually what my client truly needs. For instance, sometimes I’m told/shown or otherwise nudged into awareness that my client may have picked up a ‘hitchhiker.’ (I refer to these instances this way because otherwise, due to cultural prejudices, I might freak people out.) Nevertheless, if I’m shown that a hitchhiker might be present, I have to trust what I’m shown enough to bring the subject up, even if the idea of it might unsettle them at first.
That’s a Lot of Trust
It’s funny. When I did a search of my blog posts to see which ones contained references to ‘trust,’ 29 different entries came up. Wow! I knew I’d discussed trust before, but I honestly didn’t realize just how important this concept is to me – and as I perused them, how varied an array of instances exists in which trust plays a huge part in the way I live my life.
So, I will cut to the chase. Believe it or not, the silly post I wrote yesterday also has to do with trust. Yes, the missive from I.M. Carrot, Emissary of the Kingdom of Vegetable, was a direct result of me exercising trust: specifically, the trust I am now bound to exercise every single night: trusting that I will have something to write about.
I Never Know Where the Next Idea Will Sprout
When I found myself pulling the industrial-sized bag of organic carrots out of our refrigerator Sunday afternoon, I can assure you, I only had peeling a couple and dipping them in Buffalo-style spiced hummus on my mind. I was not thinking about what I would write that evening.
But there I was. Face to face with a carrot worthy of its own back story. Worthy of being christened with its own name, for heaven’s sake!
And I guarantee – as I stated at the end of my post last night – that carrot looks exactly as it did when I pulled it from the bag. I did not augment the appearance of its eyes with a little ‘Sharpie Shadow.’ I did not alter it in any way whatsoever. No. And while I did take a photo of it, I did not think it would end up starring in its own show.
But there you have it. I promise you, every single night is an Act of Trust that a seed of an idea will drop into my mind and sprout a thread for me to weave into something – even a silly fantasy about vegetables– that will entertain you for a few minutes each day.
It’s only because of my devotion to the memory of my eldest son that I’m trusting this process. Every. Single. Night. I love you, Karl.
Man, waiting has to be one of the hardest things to do. Because, obviously, it requires us to not do. And for people who have been taught that not doing is lazy, uninspired, weak, or somehow obviously lacking in the qualities that make one a ‘winner,’ waiting can feel like torture.
Waiting requires patience and, to a certain extent, faith. Faith that in making the conscious decision to step back from activity, from taking action or doing something to change a situation in some tangible, affirmative way (move it forward, take it in a different direction, bring in a new catalyst), you are in fact ‘doing’ the right thing.
And that’s the tricky part, isn’t it?
Doing by not doing?
And Yoda Says…
Sounds so zen and new age-y. Or for those of us who love Star Wars, Yoda-like.
But there’s a huge wisdom to the concept. (Which, duh, is why Yoda espoused it.) And because our society positively reveres action, striving, leaning into, hurdling over, and winning!, waiting can feel like losing. Or giving up.
It can feel like suicide.
So when we’re asked to wait – by other people, institutions, circumstances, or Spirit – we can actually feel more stressed over standing down than we would if we were given a task universally thought to be impossible to achieve. Because doing is better than not doing. Because when asked to do the impossible, we rise to the challenge like starving goldfish to the fish food dispenser. Because even if we fail to achieve that (impossible) goal, if we tried really hard, if we did our best, if we gave it our all, then at least we couldn’t be blamed for not succeeding. Right?
In an informal survey of people close to me, there are a startlingly large number of people being asked to wait as we begin living our version of 2019. I can think of at least a dozen people I know (myself being one of them) being asked – no, directed – to be patient. To wait.
Perhaps we are being asked to allow the rest of the world to catch up to us.
Perhaps the circumstances that we will need to make the most out of the idea we’re percolating, or the deal we know is perfect, haven’t fallen into place yet. Maybe we don’t even know yet what those missing pieces are. And maybe we will never know.
We Need to Trust
Yet they need to fall into place for the rest of our vision to come into being. If we don’t know what they are, but they’re essential to the ‘mission,’ then we need to trust. And wait.
Maybe we’re being asked to give ourselves the opportunity to muster our inner and/or outer resources so that when it comes time to deploy them, they are fully replenished and abundantly accessible and renewable. So we wait.
My point is that we simply Do. Not. Know. And it’s an illusion to always think we know best; that we know how things are supposed to unfold. We know what comes next in our Grand Plan.
If this dance with doing/not doing feels uncomfortably familiar, I feel you.
Last year, on New Year’s Day 2018, Karl and I chose our Medicine Cards like we do every other day. But of course, when we choose on New Year’s Day we accord it special meaning. We ascribe to that pick our theme for the year.
A Prairie Dog Year – Last Year
In 2018, I chose Prairie Dog/Raven.
Prairie Dog’s key word is Retreat. And Raven’s key word is Magic.
To be honest, I was psyched. Toward the end of 2017, I’d started getting the feeling that 2018 was going to be the year I finally, finally stopped talking about it and devoted my time to digging deep into writing the sequel to Owl Medicine.
Good Goddess. I’ve only known the essence of that sequel since I lived it a million years ago.
But it didn’t happen. Instead, it was a really rough year for us in a myriad of ways. It took a lot of my focus to just keep us on track and our eyes forward. There was not a lot of opportunity to give myself the inner seclusion I need to write. No opportunity to retreat – at least, in the way I had envisioned I would, or for the purpose I assumed.
Eventually I had to let go of my certainty that 2018 was the year of writing my next book. (Indeed, I’m so damn tired of even thinking there will be a sequel, I hesitate to even bring it up here.)
I was forced to wait. And wait some more. And pivot. Put out fires. Dance around and make things work, but wait on the urge to complete my manuscript. My work was to keep our collective act together and wait for the Universe to move things – people and opportunities – I had not notion of a year ago into place that would allow forward movement when the time was right.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I picked my cards for 2019.
I had quite an unexpected and emotionally fraught ‘moment’ in a grocery store parking lot today. Nothing like celebrating the Winter Solstice with intensity, I say.
I was checking my text messages and emails before running in for a few items, when all of a sudden a grocery cart rammed into my car door. The loud whomp, which physically jarred me and felt like it surely had dented the entire side of my car, scared the heck out of me. Then, in an eye-blink, that fear turned to rage.
I jumped out of my car (there were two empty handicapped spaces to my left, and beyond those, the driving lanes and then the market itself) furiously looking for the culprit who’d carelessly sent the cart careening into my vehicle. Let me note here: I’m expressing how I felt, which might generously be called…hyperbolic?
Anyway, as I say, I jumped out of my car looking for my transgressor. The only person I saw anywhere near me was an older man who had parked his car facing mine, but one space to my left. His car was pulled up to a handicapped-only parking sign which was affixed to a substantial metal pole about 4” in diameter and 4’ high. I glimpsed him as he was folding himself into his driver’s seat.
Assessment of the Situation Made
I immediately surmised that he’d shoved his cart into the space in front of his car (and beside mine), perhaps thinking it might get hung up or wedged in place by the parking sign pole, obviously not thinking twice about the consequences. I assumed the worst.
I knew he’d heard the cart smack into my door. It created a very loud bang. And the way he was getting into his car, he just looked guilty to me. Like he was avoiding making eye contact.
With barely a thought, other than a consuming wave of indignation and the sense that I was not going to just pretend it hadn’t happened, I grabbed the cart and looking directly at that man, who by this time was sitting in the driver’s seat and looking at me through his windshield, shouted how ignorant that was. “What the hell? What is wrong with you that you think it’s OK to do that?” I yelled, not really looking for an answer. I slammed the cart into the parking sign post in front of him. While I was tempted in my fury to smack it into his car, I didn’t. Obviously.
I could see him yelling – or at least mouthing – something back at me, but his angry face made me not want to get into this any further. So I sat back in my car and tried to decide whether I just wanted to leave or whether I would fulfill my marketing mission. I decided to go in.
Moving On
Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I deliberately took the cart from where it still stood ‘parked’ against the post and walked across the lanes of the parking lot and into the store. I noticed he was still sitting in his car, looking down, perhaps texting someone himself? I didn’t trust him…
Entering the store, I snagged my hot peppers (which in retrospect I probably didn’t need!) and onions and returned to my car. A quick trip.
Nevertheless, I thought it odd that he was still in the parking lot. Was he going to confront me? Ugh.
I left the offending cart up with the other carts beside the entrance to the market and returned to my car. Feeling a little stalked, I glanced toward the man with a dirty look, warding off any bullshit. No luck. He opened his door and started yelling at me.
Confrontation
I’d already started getting into my car when he started yelling, so I tossed my veggies into the passenger seat and stood up, turning toward him. All I heard was, “…your fucking car…”
“Excuse me?” I said, dripping snark and attitude, but trying to be the calm one (now).
“Did you think I pushed that cart into your car?” he demanded.
I turned to look at him square in the eyes and said quietly, “Well, yes, I did.”
He looked a little surprised, perhaps that I answered quietly? I don’t know. But he responded, still defensively and a bit aggressively himself, “Well, I didn’t. I heard it hit your door and – ”
“I am really sorry,” I said, interrupting him. There was something about the way he said what he said or the look on his face or something, but I immediately believed him. And I immediately and unequivocally felt ashamed. I felt awful.
A Total Shift in Energy and Attitude
Absolutely everything about this man’s energy shifted right before my eyes. I could tell he believed me, too, and trusted my sincerity.
“Yes,” I continued, “I assumed you’d done it because you were the only person anywhere around when I jumped out to grab the cart.”
By this time, I’d walked over to his car, where he had the door slightly open and his window down, his left hand resting on the bottom of the window frame.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I returned my little cart over there,” gesturing to the cart return coral in the row across from and behind his car, “and was just getting into my car when I heard that one slam into your door.”
“I am so terribly sorry,” I repeated, touching his hand. “I was a jerk. I really was. I think the bang of it startled me so much that I over-reacted, and then I just assumed you hadn’t cared because my car is old…”
“No, I didn’t do it,” he repeated, probably just confirming out loud one more time what he’d been saying to himself the whole time I was in the market. “But thank you for speaking to me.”
“Thank you, too,” I said. “Again, I’m really sorry.” I looked him in the eyes and smiled. “I hope you have a really nice holiday and I’m glad we cleared this up.”
“Me too,” he said, smiling back.
Reflection – and Gratitude
As I drove away from that incident I contemplated how the entire situation had completely transformed in a way I never would have expected.
I’m so grateful it did. I have no idea what that man was thinking or experiencing. Perhaps he is lonely, or grieving. Perhaps he is facing a dire diagnosis – or someone he loves was just taken from him.
I thought about the compassion of yesterday and how quick I was to anger today. (Which, I have to say, was really weird in and of itself. I am not one to usually react like that.) It made me realize just how little we know about how anyone, at any given moment, is perceiving something that we, too, are experiencing. And how easily it is to misunderstand – or be misunderstood.
I’m so grateful this gentleman and I were able to transmute that moment of darkness and turn it into light.
An intense solstice experience indeed – probably exacerbated by the full moon!
I find myself tested this evening. Tested to trust that it is time to share with all of you a topic that’s popped into my head at least a couple of times recently and asked to be shared.
Funny thing is, it begs to be shared, yet I worry that, by sharing it, I will dilute its power and effectiveness. Quite the conundrum, I suppose.
Starting With a Blank Slate
I’ve discussed in other posts how I’ve gradually embraced the practice of actively eschewing ‘knowing too much’ about my clients before having a session with them. Remarkably, to my mind, I’ve found that the less I know intellectually about a person before a session, the more ‘blank’ my slate is with respect to them – hence, I can sit in Sacred Space with a person and allow their story to unfold without any preconceptions.
My sense, as I’ve allowed this practice to deepen in the 15 or so years that I’ve been engaging in shamanic work on behalf of other people (i.e., not just for myself), is that this is a rare experience for a client indeed.
No preconceptions. No chart or notes to review. No test results. No referral slip.
Just us. Just us and the cocoon of energy and palpable comfort and support that comes with the arrival of invisible allies, ancestors, guardians, and guides.
Usually, upon listening to the interweaving of my client’s life experiences, I detect the thread that’s appeared in one way or another, in and out of their life at various times, and which now either needs to be removed altogether or at the very least transmuted.
I can attest to the joy and astonishment I feel each and every time I see the light dancing in my client’s eyes at the conclusion of a session. I never take for granted that the ‘magic’ will happen with this client. (Any client.) Because in truth, I have no control over what happens in a session. Oh yeah, I control the outward stuff: I’m the one who opens Sacred Space, who establishes a sense of safety and confidentiality with my client. I set the tone by explaining that they can ‘start anywhere’ in the process of telling me about themselves – and reassure (or is it terrify?) them that we will ‘go everywhere.’
And I can use the skills I’ve developed and cultivated – probably all my life (and in many others, I suspect) – to hone in on that thread that holds the recurring pattern that now yearns to be addressed and is the reason my client was urged to set up an appointment with me in the first place.
When the Magic Really Happens
But really and truly? The magic happens when they stop talking and I go into another mode altogether. I stop talking, too – at least, as Lisa.
It’s not that I can’t hear myself speaking (when and if I do, which is never the same from one session to the next) when I begin the actual shamanic aspect of the session. I can. But it feels like it is coming from somewhere else.
And I’ve learned that I need to write down as much as I can – whether it be what I am speaking out loud or, more often, what I am being shown or told just outside or on the edge of this reality – because very similar to having a powerful dream that you think you will never forget, the sights, the sounds, the stories that I’ve experienced rapidly disperse like a wisp of smoke at session’s end.
Tested to Trust – a Leap of Faith
Each and every time I ‘move my client to the floor’ (which means we conclude our conversation on the comfortable chairs and couches in my office and my client joins me on the floor, face-to-face, initially, to work with the stones in my mesa) it is a leap of faith. It is placing my trust in Spirit to guide me on how best to work together with my client’s soul to effect the shift or healing in their life that is for their highest good.
Wow, once again, I started out intending to write about one thing, and something else obviously wanted to be expressed. Indeed – that’s sort of what I intended to write about to begin with!
Once again, if you’d asked me this morning what tonight’s post would be about, ‘magic’ would not have occurred to me, just as ‘trust’ wasn’t on my radar yesterday.
In case you didn’t notice, I was feeling a bit…passionate when I wrote last night’s post. Hard as it may be to believe, I’d actually brought it down a couple notches by the time I wrote the post. (You can imagine what it was like earlier that evening; it wasn’t pretty.) Indeed, I actually think I’ve been suffering from an adrenaline hangover all day today. My body aches and I’ve felt exhausted. Like a wet dishrag, actually. Just wrung the heck out.
Anyway, although Raven (which is associated with ‘Magic’ in the Medicine Cards), was not what I picked on my day this morning, it did end up being chosen by me in another context. And as the day unfolded, I honestly could feel Raven exercising its influence, even after the primary purpose for choosing it had passed. Indeed, I felt it working with the situation about which I was so upset yesterday.
While there are a couple of particularly salient paragraphs I could quote, I’m going to settle for just a few portions:
“If you have chosen Raven, magic is in the air. Do not try to figure it out; you cannot. It is the power of the unknown at work, and something special is about to happen. (…)
It may be time to call Raven as a courier to carry an intention, some healing energy, a thought, or a message. Raven is the patron of smoke signals or spirit messages represented by smoke. (…)
Remember, this magic moment came from the void of darkness, and the challenge is to bring it to light. In doing so you will have honored the magician within.”
Hurt Feelings Abounded
As it turns out, hurt feelings abounded last night, and not just on my end. Out of the darkness of that sense that I had unwittingly uncovered a betrayal from a completely unexpected source, the two of us were able to bring light to the situation.
Reflecting on the heartfelt emails that went back and forth between us today, I can only say that I know for certain both of us encountered magic. The volcanic eruption that occurred yesterday took us both completely by surprise. And yet, because we do have the level of trust that I described as only one tier below that of my inner circle of closest family, we each cared enough to express ourselves with utter vulnerability and honesty.
Need I say how startlingly rare that is in the world?
In the end, I am called upon to trust. I do not need the documentary proof that may or may not exist. I choose to rely on my instincts, and trust. I choose to listen to Raven, and embrace the magic.
Oh – one last thing? Moose was underneath that Raven. Wow.
If you’d asked me this morning what I would be writing about this evening, trust – or more accurately, losing trust , would not have been top of my list. Not to say trust doesn’t figure prominently in my life; it does. I just wouldn’t have thought I’d be bringing the topic up again quite so quickly since my last post about it.
But here it is, the clock is ticking relentlessly toward the witching hour, and I have only just now managed to get to my MacBook Air (not my Dell, notably!) to write this post.
Trust me (no pun intended), this will not be a long one.
Losing Trust Makes Us Feel Vulnerable and Foolish
Part of my agitation in writing this particular entry is that I happened upon information this evening, out there on the “internets,” that caused me to feel as though the floor had dropped out from under me.
No, I didn’t catch my husband cheating or doing anything nefarious, nor did I discover anything horrible about any of my sons or loved ones that would wreck my world. Or at least my world view.
But I did discover something that made me question a very close business relationship. It made me feel vulnerable and foolish, for if the appearance of what I discovered turned out to be true in its most obvious sense, then I’d been betrayed.
Levels of Trust
Which makes me contemplate the different levels of trust we accord various factions of people who cross our path in life. There are, of course, those who occupy the ‘inner circle.’ Parents, siblings, spouses/partners, children. We usually demand the greatest loyalty from them because they are either blood – or so close to blood they might as well be. When trust is broken in those relationships, we react in a certain manner, depending upon the level of egregiousness.
The next level is comprised of close, deep friends, and perhaps business associates with whom we have a partnership, similar to a sibling or marital relationship, but not necessarily quite as profound. In some cases, I think we may be more profoundly devastated by a breach of trust in this situation than in the first level, because for the most part we’ve chosen these people to be part of our world.
Then there are people with whom we interact on a transactional, day-to-day level. This can be people with whom we work or friends who actually are more acquaintances than anything else, but are perhaps vying for entry into the next level of relationship. Trust in these situations can pervade the relationship, yet not necessarily be needed or warranted. It may be granted, but not be required in order for the relationship to succeed.
And then there are the people with whom we interact on a superficial basis. We basically do not even need to assess the level of trust they deserve, for trust is not an inherent aspect of why we are interfacing with them.
Tonight I experienced what I perceived as a breach of trust of a relationship in the second highest level. It’s interesting, because the person whom I perceived may have ‘sold me out,’ so to speak, I have never met in person, yet actually have cultivated an extremely deep level of trust with and in over the past ten years or so.
Ten years is a long time. And I trust (man, that word – and concept – keeps popping up) my instincts, not only in the short term, as in the sense I get when I first meet a person and make eye contact with them, but also in the long term. I truly believe that one of the gifts of my ‘Owl Medicine’ is to be able to discern the true nature of people accurately. Usually with pinpoint accuracy.
If There’s Trust in a Relationship, Then It Deserves a Chance
So when confronted with the possibility of betrayal, of discovering that someone in whom I had placed great trust on many levels, had possibly sold me out for what was undoubtedly a paltry sum (in consideration of the value of my trust, which is considerable, if I do say so myself), I spoke up. I asked. I confronted – in disbelief, and in the hope that I was somehow misperceiving what I’d discovered – but with conviction that I required clarity.
And I received a response. Quickly. With apparent sincerity, and with what I trust (*) will justify my deep caring for the person and relationship in question.
And with that, I must post this. I truly and sincerely hope my trust is warranted, for otherwise, I will be deeply saddened. And pissed.
I have to admit it; I’m a teensy bit stoked that I’ve made it a full lunar month of consistently writing Ruffled Feathers entries.
There has been some fallout in other areas, however, which I’m going to need to rectify, such as my regular journal-keeping. Yeah, my spiral notebook is feeling neglected. I noticed about a week ago that I’d permitted a terrible lapse in entries. A full fourteen days, if I’m not mistaken, which for me is nearly unforgivable.
Do I Have to Choose?
The only reason I didn’t lapse into a round of merciless self-flagellation was because I knew that, on some level, I’d made a choice. And for now at least, if I honestly felt I needed to make a choice, then opting for my 1111 Devotion was the way to go.
Yet as soon as I realized that I was sacrificing one form of writing for another, I knew that could not stand. Keeping a journal has been my way of snatching sanity from the undertow of overwhelm and sadness all my life. Keeping a journal has been integral to maintaining my marriage. Keeping a journal has led me to personal insights that I’m confident I never would have made otherwise, and therefore keeping a journal has been integral to creating the person I am today.
So no, sacrificing my journal writing to fulfill my commitment – my devotion – to honoring Karl’s life is not a practice I will permit. I’m not saying that I must write in my journal every day. But I am saying that a two week lapse is not part of the plan.
My reasoning is two-fold. First, I have kept some form of a journal in earnest since I was in 7thor 8thgrade. I cannot say that I’ve seen those earliest confessionals since becoming an adult, but I do recall writing out my feelings back when I was in 8thgrade, and perhaps even younger.
A Breach of Trust
And sadly, round about the age of 16 or so, I also recall discovering that my mother had done the unthinkable and read something I’d written without asking. (I’m thinking this may be why I haven’t discovered those early attempts at keeping a ‘diary.’ Although I do not remember reacting in an incendiary manner to her breach – by literally lighting them on fire or even being tempted to chuck them – I do find it odd that I can’t put my hands on them. And my visceral reaction to even the thought of burning or otherwise disposing of a journal leads me to believe I would never have taken such a drastic step.)
That’s not to say that I wasn’t incensed with my mother’s breach. Oh my. I was. But I also know we hashed it out. Honestly, tearfully, and not just a little angrily. Which is why I feel slightly bad about dredging this up now, because I know I forgave her. But forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting. And I’m not dredging this up to make her feel bad (since she’s been gone from this realm since 1991), but rather to explain that the deepest source of my outrage at her betrayal was because she’d had my trust. I told her almost everything (much to her chagrin many times). And I didn’t lie. But that’s not to say I told her every single lustful little thought that entered my mind as an adolescent (ew). And those thoughts were precisely the types of things she discovered when she read my ‘diary’ that I took absolute umbrage over her violating my privacy.
I’ve spent much longer on that fracas with my mother than I intended. And yet I’m not quite finished.
It feels important to express why I continued keeping journals even after my mother’s breach. Indeed, they became more and more of a lifeline for me when I turned 17 and became an exchange student in Sweden.
And that’s because I forgave her. And I forgave her because we listened to each other.
Forgiveness – Healing for Both the Forgiver and the Forgiven
I remember having it out together in my parents’ bedroom, when I confronted her after she asked me a question that I immediately saw she already knew the answer to. I was, as I’ve said, incensed. She’d been worried. Or something. I can’t even remember, other than to recall that she admitted that she was wrong to have read it. She admitted that she knew she was wrong because we did have such a close bond, and I did tell her so much about my life. I could see it written all over her face that she sincerely regretted it. And on some level, I understood that she’d almost been offered too tempting a target. “Did she really know me?” “Could she really trust me?” All she needed to do was read what I wrote…
Things were way different culturally when I was 16 than when my sisters and brother were 16, my closest sister in age being 9 years older and the eldest being 19 years older than me. So, yeah. I understood that she wasn’t sure if she knew me. And she understood my outrage.
After our (heated) discussion, I trusted she’d never do that to me again. And I know that trust was well-placed.
Last night I almost wrote about ‘timing’ and ‘trust.’ The context out of which that potential topic arose was a recent scenario involving my extended family.
Before I get into the details, it’s only fair to admit to the long-standing and sometimes seemingly never-ending effort it has taken me to trust myself.
Not Trusting Myself? Or Not Trusting Spirit?
Hmm. Even as I write those words, I realize that’s not entirely accurate. It’s not always a case of me not trusting myself, or struggling to trust myself. At least in the context that I’m writing tonight, it’s almost always more a case of not trusting my connection to Spirit. Or, perhaps blasphemously, just basically not trusting Spirit. Period.
Sometimes that lack of trust springs from approaching an issue or situation from an overly intellectual perspective. I think I’ve written about this elsewhere, perhaps on my website, and I know I’ve spoken about it in many retreats and mentorships. It comes up because, well – for a lot of reasons, I guess.
I’m loathe to consider myself a flighty or insubstantial person. I was raised – and Karl and I raised our sons – to value education and pursue life-long cultivation of our minds. My education and career as an attorney is a big part of who I am and how I approach the world. I love a well-researched, logical, and precise argument or exposition. I like things to make sense.
So, when I first started working with the spiritual aspect of life – when I started learning how to take shamanic journeys and allowing myself to see, hear, and otherwise experience other ‘realities’ (and simply giving myself permission to entertain the possibility that other ‘realities’ could actually exist ) – it was a risk. I was entering into territory where I risked ridicule. Disbelief. Doubt.
I’ll write about what it was like for me to first journey another time.
Cultivating Trust in Spirit
For purposes of this post, I want to talk about how I’ve had to cultivate my trust in Spirit/God/Goddess/All That Is/Creator. Whatever you want to call that Source energy from which everything we know comes. I use the word ‘had’ deliberately because without that trust, I am confident I would have mucked up a lot of amazing experiences.
For instance, my niece and nephew endured a terrible tragedy earlier this year. I am at once intimately familiar with their pain and at the same time completely unable to fathom it.
When this tragedy unfolded, I felt a responsibility to be there for them, to provide whatever support or compassion I might uniquely be able to afford them.
But following the initial days, when many gathered and comforted as family and friends do, I got that weird ‘sense’ I’ve come to know – and trust – that is Spirit’s way of telling me what to do. Or not do. As weeks stretched on and I could see and feel the rawness being experienced, I wanted to provide insight. I wanted to do even more than that. I wanted to offer my unique interface with Spirit to ease their sorrow.
But Spirit said, “No.”
This made me uncomfortable, because even though I did reach out sporadically, privately, there was a part of me that sensed that they felt neglected by me. Or abandoned.
And yet, I kept checking in. “Is it time? May I?” And Spirit kept saying gently, “No. Not yet.”
“Trust.”
Trusting Divine Timing
Then just this past weekend, something shifted. I sensed it more and more each day. Both of them, but especially my niece, who I knew was away at a retreat specifically dedicated to their situation, were on my mind and in my heart. Each day, a part of me was sitting with her, just holding her and asking Spirit to heal her great pain.
Quite to my surprise, on Sunday afternoon, I had gone out to pick up a few things at the store. I was literally urged (and there is that trust of which I speak coming through and demanding to be honored) to pull over and send a text to my niece. As it happened, she was a passenger in the car of a fellow retreater, so we were able to have a ‘conversation.’
And the miracle is that I could tell she was ready. The timing was perfect.
Our dialogue continued the next day, as well, and it is hard for me to describe the gratitude I feel at the sense that everything is unfolding more perfectly than I, in my intellectual arrogance or maybe just human, stubborn, desire to help on my terms, when I thought I should, could ever have envisioned.
It’s times like these that I know I am not doing this alone. And wow, am I glad I’m always striving to cultivate that trust.
