Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live my friend. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. Over the past several posts I have been talking about learning to trust the process, even when I am not able to see what lies around the bend. For many years of my life I had a hard time trusting the process because I feared the unknown. Through my process, I discovered why I had a hard time letting go of my need to want to be in control. I discovered that I had been buying into a belief systems that other people convinced me was true. This belief system stipulated that I needed to meet certain criteria — whether I me and maintained specific expectations — before I could trust the process. In my humanity I was unable to meet the expectations, so I believed that I could not have the assurance of faith and trust.
Consequently, I found myself questioning the whole idea of trust. As long as I continued to buy into the stipulation — to be able to trust — the harder it was for me to trust the process, to trust a loving God and to trust myself. In my experience, I needed to challenge the stipulation as faulty before I could begin to live life on life’s terms. I needed to re-define how I saw myself, God and my process. I needed to heal from the perception that I needed to perform in order to be before I before I could hope to trust the process, a loving God and myself. I needed to remove myself from situations and people that show cased a shame based spirituality in their delivery. I needed to begin to accept myself in my humanity, not in my doing but in my being. I needed to learn to accept myself just because I am. I needed to let go of control.
As I have learned to live life on life’s terms, I have established my own belief system. Some of these new beliefs are summed up in these short phrases…
I am an army of one. I am a bright and shinning star. My worth is not dependent. I am beautifully and wonderfully made and my soul knows it very well. I am a true believer. I am not alone. I am confident. I am a work in progress. I am kind and loving. I am direct. I am loved. I am safe and secure forever. I am free through the eyes of God’s love for me. I am accepted unconditionally by a loving God and I am secure in His love for me. I do not have to perform or meet specific criteria before I can trust the process, a loving God or myself. I can trust that I am being led in the direction of my destiny, one day at a time. I don’t have to have the big picture. I am able to let go and let God. I am able to trust the process. I am able to trust a loving God. I am able to trust in my ability to learn from all my circumstances, lessons, experiences and opportunities.
I now know that all of my circumstances are gifts and that I do not have to have the big picture. I know that I am resilient. I know that I am more than enough. I know that I have all that I need. I am centered. I am at peace. I am more than enough. I know why I am free to trust.
Trust
Trust or the lack of trust will ultimately impact every decision that I make in life, one way or another. Trust resides at the core of all healthy relationships, both with oneself and with other people. Apart from trust, there is no firm foundation to be built upon.
Over my lifetime, I have wrestled with trust. My circumstances taught me to rely on other people to define my existence. Consequently, I allowed them to define what and how to trust. In essence, I learned to trust what other people thought and believed as fact. Additionally, I learned that it was not safe to trust myself, as this often conflicted with other people’s opinions. I was also led to believe that what other people thought of me was more important than what I thought of me.
This belief left me emotionally dependent on them, as I continued to seek to please and gain their approval. This way of living often left me puzzled and drained, as I frequently tried to modify and change to qualify my worth. Consequently, I found myself discarding parts of me in order to comply with people’s opinions. I believed that it was not safe to trust what I thought. Therefore, I let other people establish the bench marks for living my life.
To add to this confusion, at the age of 10 I became a traumatic brain injury survivor. Because I was able to excel on many fronts — academically, physically and was highly motivated — the affects of my brain injury would remain a mystery for the next 30 years. Nevertheless, being a traumatic brain injury survivor significantly exacerbated my ability to read people and situations in real time thereby confusing who and what to trust.
Through my growing awareness, I have come to trust my judgment of people and situations. I no longer need to have the approval of others to define what I trust. I have also learned that it is in my best interest to spend more time observing what others do, not what they say. As a safeguard, I now trust slowly (only in proverbial pennies first, then in nickels, dimes, quarters, etc.)
I have also come to accept my limitations and learn to trust my opinions. These days what I think is what matters most. Consequently I am more patient with myself. Trusting myself is more important than trusting the opinions of others. Today, what I think about who I am is more important than what anyone may speculate about concerning my worth, value or existence.
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