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. 

What If There's Beauty on the Other Side of Your Pain?

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” ~Albert Einstein

“I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t want to be here. I can’t do this. It hurts too much. It’s too hard.”

I’m curious how many times I’ve heard these words over my lifetime. From different people, ages, genders, ethnicities, and walks of life. The words the same, the heaviness no different from one to the next. Hopelessness has a specific tone attached to it. Flat, low, and empty.

Being the child of a parent who committed suicide, there is a familiar inner fear that washes over me when I hear these words. A hyper alertness and tuning in, knowing it’s time to roll up my sleeves.

As a psychotherapist, there is a checklist that goes through my head to make sure I ask all of the right questions as I assess the level of pain they are experiencing.

As a human, a warm wave of compassion takes over as I feel around for what this particular soul needs.

After asking the typical safety questions and determining this person is not at significant risk of ending their life, I ask, “So what is the end goal here? What do you think happens after you die? Where will you go? How will you feel? What will feel different when you’re dead versus how you feel right now?”

The answers vary from “It will be dark and nothingness, no feeling, no existence” to “I’ll be in heaven and done with this,” but more often than not they say, “I don’t know.”

I sometimes question, “Well, if you don’t know how can you guarantee it will be better than this? What if it’s worse? What if you have to relive it all again? What if you are stuck in a dark abyss and can’t get out?”

More times than not they have not thought this through. They are not thinking about what is next, mostly because what they are really saying is “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

I get that. We all have those moments.

Then I dig in further:

“How do you know your miracle is not around the corner? How do you know relief will not come tomorrow if you allow the opportunity for one more day? What would it be like to be curious about what’s next instead of assuming it will all be just as miserable?

Since you have not always felt like this, is it possible you may one day again feel joy and freedom?

If you look at your past, you’ll see you have had many fears and low moments. Did they stay the same or did they change? Most of your fears did not come to be, and if they did, you survived them—you made it through. You may have even learned something or strengthened your ability to be brave.

If you turn around, you can see there is a lifetime of proof that your world is always changing and shifting. You’ll see many moments when it may have felt like things were not going the direction you wanted, but you’ll likely see an equal number of moments that led you to exactly what you needed. Use those as evidence that your surprise joy may be just around the corner.”

During these conversations, my own curiosity resurfaces. I often ponder if my mother held out a little longer what her life would have looked like. I wonder if another medication would have helped her. Or if the words of an inspiring book may have offered her the hope to keep holding on. Or if the feeling of the sun on her face would have kissed her long enough for her to want a little bit more.

What if she held on to the curiosity of what was to come instead of deciding there were no surprises or joy left? Would she have felt the bittersweet moment of watching me graduate from high school? Would she have been there to cheer me on when I earned my master’s degree hoping to help people just like her? Would she have held my daughter, her first grandchild, and wept tears of joy knowing she made it?

Who knows what her life would have been like if she held on for one more day? I will never know, but I am curious.

I have sat with countless children and adults while they are deep in their pain. I ache for them, cry for them, and also feel hope for them. I wonder out loud what will happen next that we cannot see. 

I’ve seen pregnancies come when hope had left, new relationships be birthed when the people involved were sure they would never feel loved again, new jobs appear out of nowhere at just the “right” time. I’ve seen illnesses dissipate once people started paying attention to themselves, and moments of joy build in the hearts of those who were certain there was no light left.

The truth is, we don’t know what will happen next, but we know we have made it this far. How do we know tomorrow won’t be exactly what we’ve been waiting for?

I believe our baseline feeling as humans is peace. The loving calm that fills us when we are in the presence of those we adore. The kind of whole that we feel when we’ve done something we feel proud of and we reconnect to the love we are made of. The way we feel when we are giving love to others and the way we feel when that love is returned.

I also believe that the human experience is filled with struggle and hardship and challenge. I don’t think we are getting out of it. I believe we are equipped with the power to lean in to our pain to let it move through us. To use our experiences as our strength and our knowledge for the next wave of frustration.

I don’t believe we are supposed to suffer, but rather learn to thrive in the face of hardship and use hope as the steering wheel to guide us through… knowing even though the light may not be right in front of us, it’s just around the corner. 

And the more we employ this faith and our practices that support us, the quicker we are able to return to the peace that lies underneath.

In the moments of hardship, what would it be like to allow for curiosity? To not only acknowledge the feeling in front of us—and feel it—but to also allow for the possibility of what is to come.

All of our experiences come with the free will to choose how we will respond to them. With openness and wonder or dismissal and resistance. It’s also okay to feel it all at once. The feelings will pass. They always do.

The next time you feel stuck in a feeling, or what feels like a never-ending experience, consider thinking, I wonder what will come of this. I wonder what I will gain. I wonder what strengths I will develop and how I will support myself. I wonder what beauty lies on the other side of this pain. Don’t push through it but surrender into it.

Then allow for curiosity. Be open. You never know what surprises the day may bring. Maybe today is the day it all changes. Or maybe tomorrow. You may not know the day, but you can be ready and open for when it arrives.

Original post published on Tiny Buddha.

What Is Holding You Back From Trusting Yourself?

Several years back when I was newly divorced, had just left my job and was building a new life for myself and my kids, I met my friend Jayne. Our serendipitous meeting left us instant friends when we both discovered we were on nearly the same exact path.

We both had left our jobs, were divorced/single moms, broke, healing our past, and losing and shifting many friendships in the process. We began supporting each other every day with inspiring texts or examples of what we were learning through facing our fears. Our motto: Trust Yourself, Trust the Process. And like every other human, we wanted proof we could.

Jayne was the first person I text when I was inspired to write 30 Days to Me. She even wrote affirmations for each day I wanted to include. She cheerlead me through the process and I relied on her wisdom and love. I trusted her guidance and support completely. 

A year into knowing and growing with Jayne, she died in her sleep. The night she died we spent the evening together prepping for a group and sharing how magical life was. I wasn’t just crushed, I was terrified. 

My biggest fear was that all I believed I could trust was a lie.  I trusted Jayne was who I would work with for the long haul. I trusted she would continue to guide me when I was lost. I trusted I could fully rely on her support and wisdom and in one instant- she was gone. 

The pain of the loss scared the shit out of me and my old fears of attachment came rushing back in. I didn’t want to get to close to anyone ever again. 

Yet, what if I hadn’t trusted myself to befriend this earth angel? My intuition assured me she was meant to be my friend. What if I never let myself get close to her? 

I would not have had a bold cheerleader to inspire me to share my story. I would not have followed through writing a book that I knew would be helpful for others, as well as for me. I would not have connected with the strength inside me to keep trusting myself and my path- even when it hurt like hell. 

And the truth is, in many ways, Jayne never left me. Her angelic presence still works with me, as I believed she would. Her words, forever etched in mind, remind me to trust myself and the process. Her unexpected exit reminds me to live in the moment because you truly don’t know what is going to happen next.

These are the stories I remind myself when I’m in an uncomfortable place not fully trusting what direction to go. They allow me to pause and know that whatever happens, and whatever I choose, I’m going to be okay. We all have these stories- many of them.

Here’s a reminder- everything we experience is meant to teach us something. The joy, the pain, the hope, the disappointment- all of it. 

Some of it feels amazing and we want more. Some of it sucks and we want to forget it ever happened. Yet all of it is part of our experience of how to truly LIVE.

I often hear people say they can’t trust themselves because their choices bring them down a road that was painful. Yet what did that pain teach you? Where did it lead you? What door opened when another closed?

Pain is meant to help us open our eyes, not close them. 

What are the experiences you’ve had that stopped you in your tracks and fed your fear? Is that fear still leading the way?

What fear is currently holding you back from living? Why are you scared to trust yourself? What would your life look like if you let your deepest desires lead over your fear?

Spend a few minutes sitting with these questions to see what it is your heart wants you to know. 

Fuck You...and Thank You

While out having a beer with a friend earlier this week I was venting about my work and how tiring it can be. I explained how it feels like my clients hand me a plate of shit each week and my job is to take that shit and rearrange it, dress it up, make it look pretty and hand it back to them as a delicacy to appreciate instead of one they abhor. 

I know I’m doing my job well when I serve them a slice and it hits a chord of truth. “Fuck You, Lynn” are my very favorite words. Words of recognition they are on the path to healing. Words that confirm the resistance is ready to be seen. And once seen, we have the opportunity to move through it to return to a state of flow.

I feel fortunate to have the skills to be able to sift through the shit and find beauty. It seems to be one I was born with, but one that also requires maintenance, practice, and continuing education. To see serendipity, one must be open to flow. Let go of the grip of control and trust in the process of life. 

On my best days, I feel like a goddess. My vision is so clear and so full of beauty I could soar across the world sprinkling hope bombs with the power of my faith. On the tough days, I roll through my own pile of shit seeing nothing but shit and despising my chosen path.

This past week I rolled through the shit. One unexpected and highly uncomfortable event after another fell into my lap forcing me to pause and look at my reactions. I watched myself lose my ability to think clearly. I watched my fear swing into full gear and go into a protective mode that appears to be that of an 11 year old girl who lost faith in anyone’s ability to take care of her. I watched myself harden and crawl into myself so no one could get to me. 

I stopped meditating. I stopped journaling. I stopped sleeping. I started blaming. I started shaming. I did all the things I’ve done for years when I stop trusting. I attempt to take back control when I feel out of control. Survival mode at its best.

My tactics feel almost automatic. I don’t feel like I have control over them. This is when people say “I lost my mind.” “I’ve gone crazy.” “I don’t know who I am.” The voice of disconnection from oneself is well known.

It is the voice of the protective ego who swoops in under the guise as safety patrol. It promises to keep us safe while simultaneously fighting off the potential of trust by taking over and trying to do it all alone. 

I hear it loud and clear.

“I don’t trust anyone.” “Fuck all of this.” “I hate my life.” “Stay away from me.” “I am not safe.”

Ahhh yes. I know these voices well. And please get out of my way so I can navigate all of this with every fear I’ve ever known leading the way. It has notoriously worked exceptionally well. (insert sarcasm font)

The difference for me this go around is that I have been slowing down to watch my emotional reactions for many months now. Listening to the voices and narratives in my head and observing them before reacting to them. Sometimes. Other times I react and then go back and clean up the debris and shrapnel I’ve left in my path. 

It makes me feel volatile and unpredictable but I know this is the process to change. The process to real trust. Because trust, is a practice. Even for those of us who teach it. 

One thing I know for sure, when we are ready for growth, we are given many opportunities to elevate and move in a direction that is better than our current vision can see. Which means, our plate of shit can get an extra serving we weren’t quite expecting. Then we have a choice. Are you going to throw the shit against the wall and curse at it or are you going to look at the opportunity in front of you and be open to allowing the gift to reveal itself while not knowing what it is. 

I personally do both. 

I start by throwing the shit (aka feeling my feelings). Sometimes that looks like floods of tears. Sometimes its seething anger. Sometimes its recoiling from life. And sometimes that’s all in one hour. I grip for control. Its what I was trained to do. 

I give my fear a voice. 

And then I pause. I listen. I go for a walk. I vent to a friend. I write down my fears and then write down the truth. I look at my history and see how all the things I told myself would never get better, did. Always. In some way. 

I open myself back up to faith. But not without having a temper tantrum first. 

That is my current process. I hope at some point it will change. I’d like for it to move more smoothly and with less upheaval, but I won’t know that until it happens. 

The process of trust means allowing myself to feel. To surrender to myself. To experience all the yuck to let it move through me. To lean in to the resistance of feeling out of control. And once I do this, I begin to slooowly relax my grip. I begin to hear my intuitive voice remind me I am safe. I begin to feel the calm that comes after the storm. 

And then I begin my practices again. I step outside of myself and see my experience from a higher perspective. I look in from the outside and ask what is really going on. I see how once again, I am being asked to practice what I’ve been taught to strengthen my own muscle of trust and understanding so I can pass on to others. 

First take care of me, so I can support you. 

Well played Life, well played. Fuck You…and Thank You. 

As with all uncomfortable events, we are given small tastes of joy to make sure we see we are seen and supported. The universe slips in love notes so we know we are not alone. 

This morning mine came in the form of my daughter playing the son Walking on Sunshine saying we needed this, which lead to a spontaneous dance party in our living room with the three of us. It was the lightest I have felt all week. 

Followed by my son expressing how he loves to watch me sit on the couch and write because he can feel it is when I am the most happy. “Expressing your feelings in a way that works for you, but translates to rest of the world. Can you believe we were on food stamps five and a half years ago, Mom? I’m so proud of you. You are are my role model in life on how to take risks to follow your heart.”

With every dark day there is a beam of light somewhere shining through. And I will never stop being grateful for mine. 

What is your process to practice trust?

How to Slow Down to Hear Your Intuition

As I sat in meditation this morning attempting to wrangle in inner peace, my thoughts seemed to be in over drive.

Inner wisdom: Watch your thoughts and feel your breath. Build your attentional muscle.

Judgy: Yes. Stop paying attention to the others. Focus on your breath.

Control lover: Okay, but after that let’s discuss what we are going to do today. 

Inner child: Don’t forget play time. I don’t want to just work.

The Pessimist: Is this ever going to work? Really? We do this every day and I don’t see much progress.

The Optimist: I respectfully disagree. We haven’t had a migraine in months and our stress less has dropped a ton. Our coping skills are also strengthening.

Judgy: It is pretty slow though. And who really wants to listen to all this chatter?

The Random Interruptor: What should we have for breakfast? What are we in the mood for?

Inner child. I want scrambled eggs. 

Control lover: Ok, but let’s add vegetables. We need vegetables.

Inner wisdom: This is a chatty bunch today.

Pessimist: This is EVERY DAY.

Meditation. The Stillness Practice. Creating space to let our Inner Wisdom, our Intuition’s voice become louder. 

It is one of the very first practices I suggest to my clients. And one I encourage allll the time. It’s also the one I hear the most resistance to. 

Why? Because of the script above. Most of us have a script that plays out during meditation. It’s a thing. And then people think they suck at it. 

The good news is, you can’t suck at it. If you are creating space to give yourself the opportunity to be still, you’re halfway there. If you give it 3-5 minutes daily commitment, you are on you’re way. 

We all have the chatty voices in our head. This is normal. Our brain is an organ, just like our heart. Our heart continues beating without our control, just as our brain continues thinking even when we ask it not to. 

Our heart pumps blood. Our brain fires off neurons. All important. 

Since we are not ready for our hearts to stop beating, it may also be unfair to ask our brain to stop firing neurons. Until we are done with this life, both are needed for us to thrive.

With this in mind, what we can do is start to pay attention to the patterns those thoughts throw off or even just acknowledge they are just thoughts. And most of our thoughts are just conditioned habits trained to fire off a certain way. They are the voices we learned from our caregivers, our teachers, our peers: basically all the people we’ve been exposed to and all their neurons firing too.

When we practice stillness and intentionally practice slowing down, those habits begin to naturally reveal themselves and have an interesting way of slowing down too. Just enough that we can let our inner widom/intution, our true selves, have a few words to add to the mix. You’ll begin to recognize this voice as the calm one. The one who doesn’t judge or critique. The one who really just says it the way it is without drama or concern.

The one which feels like peace. The wise voice in the crowd. 

It’s the same voice you use when you are talking to children who are upset. Or the one who is supporting a hurting friend. The same one who forgives and re-invites those who were once cast out, back in to your heart. It’s the one who sees through eyes of compassion and who knows that love is all you really are craving at the end of the day.

Which is why giving yourself small clips of time to calm the inner party of voices and let your intuition strengthen it’s social positioning is a really helpful practice. 

Bonus- the more prominent that inner wisdom voice becomes, the more likely you are able to hear and trust it. And the more you trust it, the more you trust you. And since that inner wisdom is your direct connection to Life (God, the Universe, Spirit, the Divine), it helps you trust the Serendipities that Life is setting up for you all the time. And know you really can let go and trust the flow of your path. 

Win win!

For today, consider giving yourself a little space to let that inner wisdom be heard. Create room for it. Let it know you are paying attention. If you hear nothing, no worries. I often don’t during meditation. But by creating the space for it, it gives it room to come through when it’s not on demand or when you really could use an extra boost.

What have your experiences of mediation been like? Have you found it helpful? Do you find it hard to commit? 

A Simple Way to Practice Trusting the Process of Life

As the new year began I committed to myself that I would practice what I preach and really learn to Live Serendipitously- in the flow of life. This meant I would practice to letting go and see how life is truly happening for me and build evidence to prove this.

I believe this concept wholeheartedly, but I also am human and don’t like getting slammed with unexpected life stressors as much as the next person. I welcome growth and change, but experiencing pain and disappointment is not favorite way to get there.

So you know what January offered me? Pain. And frustration. And impatience. And heartache. 

Not the devastating kind, but just enough confusion, hurt and stress to take me out of my flow and have me question what I was doing- a lot. I was cranky and irritable. I felt lost and confused. I cried nearly every day to relieve the stress build up and gave myself the space to feel my feelings. 

I experienced strong waves of anger and resentment and let myself feel every ugly part of it. I did not appreciate it at all, but it helped. I chose to not repress and found myself venting angrily to get it out. It was incredibly unpleasant as anger is my least favorite emotion. It generally makes me feel powerless and stuck. I let myself experience it, but I refuse to live there.

Despite my uneasiness with the process, I let myself be in the flow of what was happening and ride the waves of discomfort knowing they would eventually end.  

Thankfully, on New Year’s Day I also began tracking the good things which occurred each day. I purposefully noticed the unexpected joys and opportunities I didn’t see coming which found their way into my life. I use a Gratitude App on my phone that allows me to add pictures and list the things that made me feel good each day.

I began the practice of recording that which lifted me up, made me smile or brought me hope. Whether they were compliments or experiences or simple surprises like small gifts through words or actions from others, I wrote them down. I noted what I saw or created or even committed to doing or giving to myself. 

Every single day had a gift. And I tracked it. 

This practice allows me see that even in my dark moments, there is a glimpse of light, of hope, of joy, no matter how small. I did not know the month would bring so much challenge. I had no way to predict it. But I also did not know that so many wonderful things would happen or what they would be. 

Tracking my daily joys allows me to increase my faith that no matter what happens next, something will help balance it out. It may be a moment that feels good and lets me know it’s not always going to be hard and challenging. It may be a promise of hope or a reminder of being loved and seen. These moments give me proof that in some way I am supported, even in the smallest of ways. And the small moments and surprises adds up.

Some days I tracked unexpected joys right after they happened and others I would add in at the end of the day or early the next morning. Each time I wrote them I re-lived the joy and the feeling of gratitude and awe that came with them. This is a gift in itself! 

As I reflect on the past month, I’m intrigued with how much my challenge changed and then dissipated, as well as the amount I learned about myself and my reactions to life. What I have deemed a very hard month was also one filled with wonderful events, opportunities, interactions and enormous gifts of joy. Had I not tracked them or taken the time to reflect, I would have said the month was a disappointment and stressful all throughout. 

Tracking my joys shifts my perspective and also firms up my faith and proof that life is truly happening for me even when I can’t see it in the moment, but I know the gifts will find their way. It allows me to truly Live Serendipitously with more trust and evidence that life is happening for me. 

My cousin Andrew says that life seems to be something of a project. The unpredictable ups and downs give us something to discover and learn as we go. I couldn’t agree more. And I for one, plan to make the most of this project and take in all the joy I can along the way. Ready to join me?

Article also posted and shared on Biz Catalyst 360.