Is trust hard for you? (Part 2)

It’s been a scary winter! Like no other. Every client I see has been struggling with trust. 

Affirmations alone haven’t cut it. Pie in the sky, Pollyanna positivity hasn’t stood a chance in the face of what this year has dished up. Hard stuff happens! And will. No amount of positive thinking will change the flow of events.

But how we receive the support that’s here can make a surprisingly monumental difference!

You see, I think very few of us really know how to receive support. Instead we get freaked out. Something happens, and then there’s the story we make up about what might happen. Covid has killed 500,000+ people so far, just in the US. Someone we love – or I – might be next! 

When it’s hard, when we project into the future to what might happen based on what has happened, fear will co-op our minds. This dangerous territory is what I wrote about last month.

So what can we trust? The story we fear isn’t likely to play out. We know that! But why doesn’t logic and probability help? How can we learn to relax out of the panic and settle into what’s also always true.

See if this makes sense to you… 

When you’re scared, you can’t think straight, right? I bet you know that by now! Our trusty pre-frontal cortex shuts right down. On guard instead is the more primitive part of our brains, telling us to fight, flee or freeze. The body wants to help.

Only we default to that trusty intellect of ours to try to figure stuff out. If we can only just get this right, right now, it’ll be ok. We’ll be safe again. We scramble to fix or blame or ??? you fill in the blank. What’s your go to? 

I’ve had a series of concussions over the last two and a half years. I’ve fallen off a bike, gotten whiplash, fell on the ice while skating, and even just did too many up dog/down dogs in a row when I wasn’t fully healed. Geesh!

All my life I’ve relied on this brain of mine to keep me safe. I was a smart cookie. But lately it’s not been doing its job so well. I’m forgetting stuff and losing track of things. Believe me, this is scary. When I let my worried, hobbled-enough-as-it-is brain have it’s way, I can get even more crazed, lost in a myriad of what-if scenarios. Not at all fun! 

In times like these my wise body can be my ally, if I will just let it. 

I’ve learned that when I tactilely feel the support that’s there beneath me, I can more easily trust that I’ll be ok, no matter what else is going on. 

When I feel my feet in contact with the earth or move my pelvis on the chair, my body convinces me that right now, in this moment, I am safe. 

When I can remember to take several slow breaths, counting to five as I inhale and five again as I exhale, my body will calm down, and so will my mind. 

When I practice receiving the sensation of my body in contact with the solid ground beneath me, I don’t doubt that I’m deeply held by the Goodness of this Earth and its sustaining nourishment.

The more I sense this connection, the safer and more sane I feel.

My body helps me trust what is true, amidst everything else that can upend me. Because in this moment I am far safer than my anxious mind fears. My challenge, and probably yours as well, is to receive what’s here already, instead of trying to run off and look for a solution elsewhere.

What do YOU do to remember that you really are safe, when your freaked-out mind tries to tell you otherwise? What helps you trust and receive the Goodness that holds you?

Dear Ones, let yourself receive all that’s here to help you through. Spring will come and this pandemic will end. You can trust these truths… and so many others that Nature gifts us.

With so much love,