Choosing To Trust

What does it mean to you when someone says “trust”? I know that the dictionary says trust is the, “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.” But to me, it doesn’t seem to really say what trust is. Trust is much more than some sterile sounding words. When I look at myself and see the fertile soil of life under my nail beds and see the dried blood Life’s thorns drew, sterility has no meaning to me.

When I think of the word trust, or more importantly, when I choose to trust in something, it means I have let go. I have let go of fear. I have allowed myself to step beyond the past and embrace the “Now.” All of our fears, our doubts, and our rationalizations as to why we, or someone else, can or cannot do something are based in our past experiences. As children, we don’t doubt our abilities, until something challenges those beliefs in ourselves. Perhaps it was a personal “fall” of some kind, or a “pulling down” placed upon us by another.

To me, trusting in something, or someone, even myself, does not mean that they won’t mess up, or let me down, or not do what I am hoping that they will do. It means knowing that regardless of what happens, or how my preconceived notions of how something is supposed to turn out differ from the end result, that I will be okay anyway.

It seems impossible to me to trust in something or someone unless you follow Heart. I say this because that is where I experience Truth. When I am in a situation and need to decide what to do, it does not matter how much my useful and very complicated brain tries to help me. If Heart speaks of a different path, a different decision, and I choose intellects well thought out plans…. Well, that’s when regret’s shadow covers my path. And regret is a very dark and thick presence that can obscure all Light if you let it.

Yet, this is when it can get tricky.

You see, intellect is a very clever little monkey, capable of creating all kinds of fancy charts and diagrams, that are all color coded with pages and pages of annotated references to past experiences, none of which are ever very pretty. (I wonder why intellects secretary always shreds the triumphant files….?) And it is especially skilled at pointing out to Heart all the times when it experienced pain.

But Fearless Heart knows Truth. And that is a very, very powerful combination. Heart knows pain intimately. And those of us, who still place trust in Heart, know that the deeper we feel that pain, the higher our joys can fly. There is no difference in the two.

Recently, I found myself in a situation where I was blessed with the opportunity to choose to trust. Doing so meant I would have to step beyond years and years of painful heartache and self-doubt. And in that moment when I chose to trust, I felt myself setting fire to all of intellects careful research and documentation it has been collecting for ages. And as intellect’s screams of doom chased me down I joyously leapt from the treacherous precipice of fear, and smiled as I finally saw the view beyond those cliffs (but that is another painting). In Choosing to Trust, I chose to be free.