Practicing Trust
July 14, 2024
Light raindrops deliver a blessedly cool start to a July day. The flood waters have dropped and everything looks green, not always the case in mid-July. Around the neighborhood, I find huge mushrooms left from the Fourth of July rains. Fungi are fascinating creatures, appearing seemingly from nowhere and disappearing just as fast.
We’ve been blessed with more cool mornings than I can rightfully expect this time of year, allowing me to take long walks behind the gated entrances of the park. Everywhere I go, I find fledglings exploring the world.
I watch baby birds learning how their wings work and missing a landing or two. I watch parents chasing the youngsters around, sometimes feeding them and sometimes encouraging them to catch bugs on their own. I watch youngsters chase the parents, only to discover that’s a losing strategy.
Some youngsters seem to have the bug-catching down pat already. The titmice and blue-gray gnatcatchers flit between the leaves like old pros while the eastern kingbirds pounce on bugs in the grass.
Meanwhile, our year-round residents are rebuilding their nests. Cardinals, robins, doves, goldfinches, and others will raise multiple broods each summer. Their youngsters seem to support each other, roaming the area like teenagers on a hot summer night. Mrs. goldfinch was collecting spider webs for her nest, even as young goldfinches were flitting about in the trees.
The wildflowers have been enjoying the rain and the cool mornings too. Coneflower and compass plants intertwine with chickory to form a tapestry of green, purple and gold.
Everything is shifting and changing, as it does. Spring has given way to summer, nests have given way to baby birds, flowers have gone to seed and bloomed again. My personal world is shifting even as the global world is changing quickly. My brain is very adept at spinning the worst possible outcomes in times of change so I am practicing imaging the best things that could happen.
I used to think that trust was something you had or didn’t have, but more and more I understand that trust is a practice. Can I trust in the unknown? Can I trust when I’m uncomfortable? Can I trust when things look hopeful? Can I trust when things look bleak? Can I trust when I don’t know the answer, don’t know how to fix it, can’t fix it, don’t know what to do?
The phrases I’m using right now are:
What’s the best thing that could happen?
What’s the gift in this situation?
“Even though I can’t see how, even this will work out for my highest good.” (Jerome Braggs)
Take one more breath. Then one more. I can be in the discomfort.
I practice saying these phrases in meditation. I practice them with self-hypnosis. I practice them with gentle qigong movements. I practice as I get ready for bed. Sometimes I remember to practice when I wake up. I put on bracelets with similar messages so I notice throughout the day. I forget all too often, but as soon as I remember, I practice again.
It may take a lot of practice to forge new neural pathways, but if there’s one quality I know I possess in spades it is persistence. My golf coaches used to say, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.” It doesn’t though, not really. Thankfully, nothing is permanent. I can practice a new way now.
Every day I wake up is another chance to trust fall into the arms of Life. It’s a work in progress.
Karen, I hope your practice of beautiful posts here on Substack reminds you of your wonderful strength to manifest a better world. IMHO your posts are among the best things on the web. They certainly lift my spirit and remind me to open my eyes and see our beautiful world.
Trust is a hard one. Particularly if at an early age you had yours shattered.