The Paradox of Trust – Awakening

A recipe for transformation without trust as one of the ingredients is doomed in much the same way a recipe for fluffy pancakes without baking powder as an ingredient is bound for failure.  Baking powder is necessary for the chemical reaction that infuses the batter with fluffifying air bubbles.  In a similar manner, trust must be present for the alchemy of transformation to ignite.

If only trust were as easy to procure as a box of baking soda, right?  If only we understood the components of trust well enough to produce it at whim and infuse our experience with trust as easily as we mix baking powder into a batter – trust in the Will to Good, trust in our innate ability to listen inwardly and make effective decisions, trust in the desired outcomes we are not yet able to see in the world around us.

I wrote this poem during one of the transformations I experienced in my early adulthood:

When the bottom dropped out, I was scared.

Silly me…

for did these feet grow wings.

I wrote these words while I was still scared.  I wrote them “in the faith” of trust rather than “the knowing” of it.  In truth, trusting the process of transformation while in the midst of its uncertainty is often more about the faith in trust than the experience of trusting.  In hindsight, of course, trust is always easier to know.  Paradoxically, it is the willingness to trust that having faith in trust is enough to fill the recipe requirements for transformation.

It’s a paradox – trust.

“On the brink.”  I’ve used that phrase before to describe the experience of being so close to realizing an intention or a goal I can smell and taste it. It’s a feeling of eagerness and anticipation that excites me to the core of my being – so much so that I continually find new desires to flow my focus toward so that I can feel it again and again. It’s like the feeling of planning an adventure, and beginning the plans for a new adventure on the plane ride home from the last one.

Sometimes, I realize I’m juggling so many eager anticipations that I start to feel a little overwhelmed or anxious that one may fall short. Sometimes, then, I can feel the eagerness waft across the line to impatience. Sometimes, I want to pull the fruit from the tree rather than let it fall into my hand to make sure I don’t miss it. I’ve watched myself on occasion get so focused on the result that I lost the delicious feeling of ‘trust’ that abides in ‘knowing’ anticipation.

It’s a teensy space – the point between where I am thrilled in a pervasive sense of well-being and where I am impatient, even anxious, in the waiting. And it’s a Magical Place. It’s the space where I remember I have a choice in where to focus, and – remembering – All I Am broadens and illuminates clarity: It’s the eager anticipation of trust that calls me… not the result.  It’s the knowing that all I desire is mine. It’s the understanding that feeling the “knowing” of fulfillment happens before the manifestation occurs.

And I laugh. I laugh for the joy in realizing there is no waiting for a feeling. The feeling comes as soon as I let it in. I feel eager. I rejoice in the well-being that permeates the feeling of eagerness. I delight in the realization that all is well right here right now. I am fulfilled in the creative process of living, and I am satisfied with how all my results bounce me into more eager anticipation.

Trust then, ultimately, is a feeling that combines the eagerness of anticipation for the taste of the fruit with the relaxed attitude of knowing that fruit ripens in its own time.

As we evolve, as we transform, as we awaken, the capacity to trust evolves and transforms and awakens with us.  What was scary at one time becomes an innate understanding of process.  What is scary now reminds us to breathe – we’ve lived through scary times before and come through it transformed into more than we were before the anxious episode occurred.  Faith in the transformation to come is the seed that blossoms into fruit.  Such is the paradox of trust.

Thank you.  I love you.