Can it be hard to let down your guard? Do you hate feeling out of control? Can it feel like life is an uphill battle?

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight.”—C. JoyBell C.

The ability to trust is critical to our capacity for manifesting ease and flow in our lives. During a difficult period in my life, each time I ask my higher knowing what I was meant to be learning, I heard: “to trust and surrender.” While it is a work in progress, being able to open to and accept myself, life, and others exactly as we are has loosened the vice-grip of doubt and judgment, and opened up space for curiosity and play.

Without trust it is difficult to take risks, to be resilient during challenging times, to face the unknown. Our natural state (free from trauma and other experiences that disconnect us from our essence) is trusting and open. And yet so many of us learn at some point that being too trusting is naïve and can lead to pain at best, and dire consequences at worst. We decide that to be safe we need to be hyper-vigilant and/or in control. These wounds and resulting coping strategies can impact our ability to trust ourselves, others, and/or the universe.

The following are possible indicators of the different types of trust wounds (the list is not comprehensive):

1. Difficulty trusting others

  • It is hard to put your guard down around others
  • There are few people you trust enough to be completely vulnerable with
  • You have self or other-identified “commitment issues”
  • You try to control others’ behavior in subtle or overt ways
  • You’d rather drive than have someone else drive
  • You are constantly scanning others to know if you are safe with them

2. Difficulty trusting yourself

  • You have low self-esteem
  • You have a hard time making decisions
  • You judge the “rightness” of your decisions based on the outcome rather than the process
  • You struggle with not feeling enough
  • You are envious of others and feel like it’s inherently easier for them than for you
  • You often ruminate over the past and regret past actions/decision

3. Difficulty trusting the universe

  • You have patterns of generalized anxiety and hyper-vigilance
  • You spend a lot of time trying to manage and predict the future
  • You have a belief that if you are too happy something bad is going to happen
  • You need to control your environment to feel safe

Often we have a combination of a few indicators from two or all of these categories. The following are six tips for beginning to make space for trust and surrender.

A) Identify your wound(s)

Look at the above list, and highlight the ones that you feel apply to you. If there are multiple ones, pick 3 that feel like the biggest obstacles to happiness and/or ease in your life.

B) List possible limiting beliefs

Write down what you think your limiting beliefs around trust might be (it might be more obvious for some of the indicators than others). These might include some version of: “I’m not enough,” “trusting others is gullible and naïve,” “I can never get it right,” “Those I trust always betray me,” “The only person I can trust is myself…”

C) Notice your body and emotions

As you look at your list of limiting beliefs, notice what it feels like in your body. Does any area of your body get tense or jittery? Or do you leave your body and/or does it go numb? What emotions come up for you? For example, do the beliefs bring up anger, fear, helplessness, grief…? You might want to write these down as well.

D) Trace the beliefs and emotions back in time

I invite you to close your eyes. If it is part of your practice, you might want to set up ceremonial and/or meditative space. This might involve lighting a candle, putting on relaxing music, going out in nature, or anything that helps you drop in more deeply into yourself.

From here, imagine you are following the physical sensation, belief, and emotions back in time, to a time when you first or most significantly experienced something similar. If the trust wound was in response to a specific event you might access a memory, or if it was linked to repetitive experiences you might find yourself at a certain time period in your life, or see a series of memories.

E) Bring healing to your young self

Whether you have a specific memory or not, imagine that your current self is entering the space with the young you who was learning that it wasn’t safe to trust him/herself, others, or the world. If there are others in this image, be sure to freeze them so your younger self feels safe. Let him/her know you are there as an ally. Say anything that might have been helpful to hear at the time. Doe example: “It’s not your fault.” “Even though it feels personal, this has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them and their wounds/coping strategies. They were like this long before you were born.” “I love you. You are not alone.” “You are perfect exactly as you are.”

Tell your younger self that it was very smart of them to develop the beliefs and coping strategies that they did so they could make sense of what was happening to them.

F)  Update the beliefs

Once it seems that your younger self is feeling seen, heard and safe, tell them that if/when they decide they want to let go of the belief, they can let you know and you can help them release them. It is critical that the decision to release the limiting belief come from the young self and not your current self, otherwise you are just one more adult who’s needing something for them rather than just being there for them. If it feels appropriate, you can perhaps show your young self that what they wanted more than anything else at the time was to trust and be open, but because that wasn’t possible they developed the belief they did. Back then, it served a purpose, but at this point, the only thing between you and freedom is the belief.

When/if they are ready (and if not, keep doing step E as long as is necessary), imagine you are releasing the belief together. You might write it down on a piece of paper, and then tear it up.

Next, write down what new belief (or intention) you want to replace the old one with. For example “Everything is always as it needs to be.” “I can trust that I have everything I need.” “I am learning to trust my inner knowing.” “I am healing my mistrust of others and the universe.” “I am enough exactly as I am.” You might see yourself dropping this new belief into the top of your head and feeling it spreading through the neural pathways that were impacted by the old belief.

Envision yourself stepping into your life with this new belief about yourself and the world. Imagine this in as much detail as possible, in different areas of your life such as work, relationships, creative endeavors, health and so on. Keep doing step F (especially dropping the new belief into your mind and body) every day until it feels more and more true.

Trust
Is allowing
Our heart to rule
Our actions.

Trust is letting go
Of the fantasy
Of how things
Should be;
It’s the deep knowing
That things are exactly
As they’re meant to be.

There is no other way.

Trust
Is the jellyfish dance
Of opening and contracting,
Of testing the boundaries
Being self and other,
Of honoring
Our true yes and no.

 

© 2019 Jenny Brav