The Challenge of Trusting the Process

I am in this weird, uncomfortable stage of life right now called transition, where everything is changing and I’m not actually sure where I’m going or how I’m going to get there, but I KNOW I am going in the right direction…to somewhere. 

A few weeks ago I was heading down the rabbit hole of frustration and not knowing where to put my energy and I wrote down- “Live one day at a time for now. Practice not knowing and trusting the process.”

Sounds kind of romantic unless you are one who actually likes to grip on to what you know. 

I teach the value of trust and even techniques how to trust, but what I know for sure is, trust is not easy when you have been trained to not trust. It takes daily practice when your default is to control the world around you. Or at least think you are controlling the world around you. 

I woke up last week and had the urge to go check out a new library. The library has been my destination of choice as of late to get out of the house and write or do work…or just sit in the energy of all those words and dreams that came to life on paper. 

I had a strong pull to go to this one library and feel it out. I wasn’t sure why and when I questioned if that was REALLY where I wanted to go, the answer was yes. 

Okay, I’m in. Although I will readily question my intuition, I also know it rarely steers me wrong when I follow through to the end of whatever adventure it takes me on.

This time was no different. 

My drive to the town library 30 minutes from my house was not what I expected. Beautiful, yes. It usually is. But quiet? No.

As I drove by a few familiar houses and vista points my emotions began to bubble up and my mind began to race. The ache I thought I had moved through began to resurface.

Ugh. What do you want now??

“You’re not done feeling this one yet.”

The tears began to silently drop one by one. “What happened? How did I get here?”

The confusion began to flood my thoughts as well. The multitude of question marks and lack of periods.

Can’t I just accept it for what it is? A part of the journey. An experience I was meant to have. Maybe I don’t need to know why. Maybe I just need to appreciate what is. 

The sadness filled my chest. 

“I just wish I knew…” I heard her say.

She speaks often- the part of me that wants to understand life and it’s meaning. The part that likes to make sense of it all. But I can’t yet. I’m still in the middle and I can’t see what is meant to be next. I’m simply supposed to TRUST it’s all happening for me. 

My conversation with my client earlier in the morning popped up in my mind.

While she spun in circles with the fear of not getting the home she wanted, I recounted the story of buying my current home. I thought I was buying a different house, one I thought was perfect for me. 

Everything lined up as though it was meant to be mine. I did the daily drive by stalk. I felt myself living there. I envisioned it as though it was mine. And then, when I least expected it, it dropped out. It was no longer an option. 

Within a week, my current home popped up on the market and took the offer I never dreamed would work. It took another year of more question marks than periods for the house to officially be mine and mine alone, but the windy road brought me to a place that at once seemed impossible.

One door closed for another to open. 

I know how it works….but it doesn’t turn off the grief.

Even knowing its “happening for a reason” doesn’t eliminate the discomfort or frustration or old feelings that wanted to remind me they still needed to be felt. 

Including the aftershocks after the quake…

I arrived at the library and it was not what I thought. It seemed as though it was a temporary location while whatever new library was being worked on. The library I was drawn to visit was also in transition. 

When I went inside it was busy and uninviting and it didn’t really have the vibe that anyone wanted to be there. I took a quick tour of a few different rooms and quickly determined, I too, did not want to be there. I walked out.

“Why am I here? What brought me here?” 

I got in my car and decided I would try another library closer to home I hadn’t been to but always wanted to go. Accepting the reroute, I turned the music up in my car as I headed towards my next destination.

And then it came…the answer. I was brought this way to feel my feelings. To go back over the ground of the familiar to bring up what felt unexpressed. I didn’t WANT to feel the sad but the sad still needed some space to breathe and the stomping grounds I drove through brought out the memories I needed to feel it through.

Fiiiine. 

The current journey was my destination. The unexpressed feelings were the experience I was avoiding. I drove there not to experience the new but to feel the old, so I could open myself up to the new. 

As I walked into the next library, tiny and full of good vibes, I was directed to the children’s room. My eyes welled up when I walked down the stairs and saw the long table covered with books inviting me in. 

Welcome to the day’s serendipity. 

Surrounded by joy and colorful captures of life in the most whimsical forms. I had almost forgotten, I too, had created one of these live treasures. My own published children’s book brought to life by the visions inside me coming out to be seen. I was surrounded by dreams that looked like mine reminding me to stay the course and see how it plays out. 

It is indeed scary to not know where you will go and be at end of the day. Yet the journey is also one full of possibility, hope, dreams and unknowns which could turn in to the dreams you didn’t know you had. 

So much passion waiting to come alive and birth into the fullness of life. 

Maybe I don’t know where I need to be. Maybe there is no need at all. Maybe each day has its own set of serendipity waiting to be experienced when you open the door to live it. 

I don’t know what I’m doing next, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe I never really did.

Where I am is exactly where I’m supposed to be. And maybe trusting the process is learning to be okay with that. 

When Heart and Head Team Together...a Story of Serendipity

Facebook memories have a nice way of keeping track of things I’ve forgotten, as well as helping me remember how time sure does fly. I was reminded recently I’ve been in my current home for 8 years. I thought it had been 5! I then found this piece I wrote about buying my house on faith when all of my “reality checks” said not to. A true story of serendipity and what happens when you listen to your heart, your intuition, when you need guidance the most. 

I stared at the lined paper with numbers scratch written all over it. The numbers at the bottom stuck out like they were written in fluorescent permanent marker. Negative. One big negative. My hope sunk.

On paper my income would not cover my monthly expenses. I could not afford to buy the house I was living in and yet I promised my children I would. And more importantly, they believed me.  I had moved into the house with my children and my husband only four months prior and it had been nonstop chaos since.  Due to an error on the house owner’s paperwork, the house we were scheduled to buy was no longer available to us unless we bought it through a short sale. If you know anything about a short sale, they are anything but short.

Fortunately we were able to move into the house and wait out the process while living there. Unfortunately, three months into living in the home, my husband and I decided to separate. This was not part of the plan.

In an emotional moment of our new reality, one of my children cried “I don’t want to move again.” It was as if their words were aimed directly at my heart. I responded without hesitation, “You won’t move. I will buy you this house.” And I meant it. 

The moving process had been stressful. The arguing between my husband and I continuous. I moved them into the house the very first week of school. I knew more change would be too much. I was determined that it would happen and I would make it work.

I was full of faith. Until I looked at the numbers on the piece of paper which implied- I was seriously mistaken. 

I melted into a mild depression. I could not understand why my heart felt so strongly I could buy the house, but my head looked at my heart like it lived in a universe far away from reality. What was I thinking? At the end of the day the answers were in black and white. I was not going to be able to make it work.

Not only did I not have the down payment required to keep my monthly cost lower, I did not have the income to manage the monthly expenses of life itself. The disappointment I felt in myself and my situation was heart wrenching. The stress of my impending legal separation, finagling how I would survive financially and the massive amount of grief I felt as it seemed my entire life was falling apart was a lot to endure.

And yet, the answer to stay couldn’t have felt more right. I distinctly remember looking out my bedroom window one evening at the beautiful view from my house on the hill and thinking…”I’ve come here to heal.” I didn’t even know what that meant.

It turns out, it meant I would spend many months ahead ruminating over my choices. Wondering if I was truly making the best decisions for my family. Letting my heart speak to my head and compassionately tell it we would be okay. And then dissolving into myself in fear wondering if I was in fact, losing my mind.

I spent the next 9 months not knowing what was going to happen next. My husband moved out and bought a home. I paid my rent each month and prayed the following month would be the same. I had no real idea if the short sale would even go through and if I would even be able to afford it. The numbers on the paper were not budging.

I inherited some stock from my grandmother when she passed. I planned on cashing it in for the down payment, but it would still be nowhere enough. I cashed in savings bonds from the year of my birth. I scraped any savings I had. It looked like I may have just had enough. Maybe I could really do this.

And then it was official. The short sale was approved. I would be able to buy the house if I could come up with the money. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle. The day I went to cash out my stock the numbers had jumped up and I suddenly had more than enough for the down payment. The numbers on the paper changed overnight. I would not only have enough to buy the house and keep my mortgage somewhat manageable, I would have enough to help with some the starter bills that came with it. 

Because my husband and I were legally separated and he had bought his own home, the financial split was clean and had no legal issues to contend with. It’s almost like my buying the house was meant to be…

My leap of faith had paid off in ways I could not have predicted.

For the next year I buckled down and found ways to afford the house on my own that I wasn’t sure my husband and I could afford together. I felt strong, empowered, and continued to practice trusting myself and what felt right. 

The following year I resigned from my secure and stable paying school counseling job to work for myself. I still wanted to help people but I also wanted to write. I started a private practice for counseling and also officially ended my marriage. Two years later I had two books published in the same year, a self help book and a children’s book. I have a successful private practice working the hours I want to work and my bills continue to be paid. I am in awe nearly every month when I sit down to pay them and I realize what I felt was true, is. 

There is something to be said about using your head. To map out the possibilities, to make a plan, to see what could happen in black and white. But the truth is, we just don’t know. Our mind is unable to see the future and the outcome of our decisions. Yet our heart seems to have eyes that pierce through the unknowns, the darkness and focus on the dim light of clarity that is just out of reach.

Trust based living is not always easy. It requires practice of sitting with the fear and listening to it instead of pushing it away. It asks for check ins and disaster planning and poses fearful questions that are unable to be answered right away. It involves understanding yourself just enough to know that you are reliable and can be counted on even when things look bleak. 

But the alternative, to walk through life staying in one place that feels unsatisfying, unfulfilling and downright disempowering just because it’s “easy”, is not living. It’s existing. And at least for me, existing sounds terrifying. 

The numbers may not add up. The black and white may look bleak. Your head may be questioning your heart’s credibility, but that does not mean its time to end the dream. You have no concrete proof that either your head or your heart is right. But you do have proof that standing still gets you more of exactly where you are. 

You don’t really know what is going to happen if you take the next step. But you do know what will happen if you don’t.

The choice is yours. It always has been.