Life is Trustable
Imagine, for a moment, how your life would change if you trusted that all the chaos happening in our world has a purpose.
Imagine what it would be like if you trusted that the challenges and heartbreaks in your own life are for you in some way that you can’t yet see.
What if life is eminently and deeply trustable, even though at times it can be truly unlikable and scary? Because maybe, just maybe, life knows what it’s doing.
To reconnect with deep, cellular trust – to open again to the awesomely creative flow of life – you need to acknowledge something that is difficult for most people. The truth is that life is constantly changing. It is unpredictable, instantly changeable, and at times seemingly arbitrary and capricious. And what do you do with this? If you are honest with yourself, you realize that you try to control it, but this is like trying to herd cats. You almost get your life all together and then everything changes. All this struggling with life keeps you caught in your mind, trying to make life different than it is. This causes you to experience life through your thoughts rather than being intimately connected with life the moment it appears out of mystery.
Lift your eyes from this page and, for a moment, let go of the urge to make life better or different than what it is. Instead, open to it. Hear it. The sounds that are arising and passing away are totally brand-new, never heard this exact way before and never to be heard this way again. See it. See the vast array of colors, really see them. See the contrast of shadow and light. Most importantly, see that everything is an expression of creativity at the heart of life.
Now bring your finger to side of your neck, slightly pressing under your chin and feel the beat of your heart. Life is beating your heart. Life is giving you the gift of life in a body. Now bring your attention into your body and notice the rising and falling of your breath. It seems like you are doing the breathing. But the greater truth is you are being breathed by life.
To open again to life – to know that the safest thing you’ll ever do is let go of your addiction to control and actually be here for life – you need to allow the possibility that life is smarter than you. Do you bring forth spring out of winter? Do you organize and orchestrate the 70 trillion cells that make up your body? Do you beat your heart or breathe your breath?
To get a sense of what it is like to open to life rather than always trying to control it, imagine you are on a dance floor and your partner is life. See how you are either pushing life around the dance floor or life is doing the same to you. Can you feel how much struggle is happening in that dance? You are either trying to control life, or you feel you are being controlled by it. You have gotten used to struggling with life rather than allowing yourself to be held and supported by life.
Now imagine that you have discovered how to partner with life, and rather than struggle, there is an exquisite flow to the dance, twirling, spinning and dipping in harmony. This is what it feels like when you relax again into the flow of life and open to what life is offering rather than trying to control it.
It may feel like insanity to your mind, but I invite you, just for the next hour or so, to relax into life. Dance with whatever is showing up rather than resisting it. And enjoy it!
To get a sense of this, I offer you a favorite line from an Ojibwa song, “Sometimes I go about pitying myself when all the time I am carried on great wings across the sky.”
We could also say, “Sometimes I go about in great fear, when all the time I am carried on great wings across the sky.”
We could also say that sometimes we are caught in loneliness, or self-hate, or doubt, or confusion, or struggle, or even seemingly unending grief. And yet, at the same time, we are carried by great wings across the sky.
The invitation is to cultivate moments when, rather than doing life, you bring your attention out of your stories and instead connect with it. You can’t control your way back to an intimate and alive connection with life. But you can let this invitation in, this invitation to begin to contemplate that life is trustable – even when it is messy and painful – and allow it to work its magic underneath your everyday awareness. You can begin to have moments where you simply rest in the great flow of life and truly discover that everything in your life is unfolding exactly the way it needs to.
I end with one of my favorite quotes from Pema Chödrön:
“When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment.”
If this resonated with you, and you’d like to explore more of my work, then I invite you to listen to my podcast on Dreamvisions 7 Radio: Deep Peace. It will air on Thursday, March 19th and 26th at 5am and 5pm HERE. After the 26th, it will be available on demand, along with every other podcast I’ve ever done HERE. Please feel free to explore my catalog and listen to topics that call to you.
Offerings:
Free Live Call with Mary: My Good Friend Cancer, Really???
Thank you again for a wonderful free night! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. We will be meeting on March 3rd, now March 17th, at 5:30pm PT as usual. Here’s the topic:
Mary has been working for 6 years with a rare form of blood cancer. While it has had its challenges, it has also healed her in ways she couldn’t imagine before her diagnosis. Join her in exploring all of the gifts this cancer has brought into her life and how you can access all the gifts that come with the challenges of life.
As always, even if you can’t make it at that time, if you are registered, you will receive a recording of the event for you to listen to at your leisure. Registration is now open! Click HERE to learn more and register.