Self-trust

Those who have been reading this blog for a while will recall that I've felt like I was in a transition for at least a year, maybe 18 months.  I have talked about "feeling pregnant," sure that I was going to "deliver" a new and fuller me without really knowing what that meant.

All of a sudden, it feels like I am in the final moments of giving birth.  I still don't really know where it is going, but I do know that I've learned a huge amount about myself and life over the last few months.  Whatever is coming feels like I've taken a quantum leap in the cycle of spirit growth.

In the process of doing some "cleaning up of the past" so that I can really move forward, I stumbled onto "self-trust" as an issue. It ends up that the whole self-trust thing has come up before.  20-plus years ago, I had a cranial-sacral session in which the practitioner said, "You have self-trust issues."  I was indignant.

My integrity is critical to me.  I wouldn't/couldn't lie, cheat or steal.  I am the girl who argued about the integrity of exceeding the speed limit by 5 miles an hour even if everyone else was doing it. How could I have self-trust issues?  But self-trust...even trust...is more than that. In fact, integrity is much more than not lying, cheating, or stealing. As soon as I was able to break through my self-righteousness after each of these messages about self-trust, everywhere I turned I was able to see lack of self-trust.

Integrity derives from the same Greek root as "integer"--a whole number.  Being in integrity is being true to who you know you are in your heart.  Self-trust is acting in accord with that "soul's intention" for your life.  Sometimes I've been very good at acting in alignment with my truth, but I admit that in recent years more often than not I've more reliably acting in accord with what the world around me has expected of me.

The world around me tells me that financial success, a well-founded retirement, and increasingly higher status jobs is "success," but I've really know that wasn't my definition of success. Why have I tolerated a job and superiors who treat me so disrespectfully for years? Do I not trust myself to do the things that I know are right for me? For that matter, why is it that I can't keep my intentions to avoid sugar, or to write this blog, or to meditate everyday? Those are the intentions that I know to be true to my heart.

Several months ago I mustered the courage to tell my boss I was quitting at the end of the summer...without another job in hand. That was integrity and self-trust. I gave a long notice because I needed that time to make sure current projects were either complete or at the stage of development at which they could be handed off to someone else. Taking good care of clients I love was integrity.  I couldn't have trusted myself if I'd done less.

As the weeks passed I found myself dragging my feet.  I kept saying the words but inside me I was afraid I couldn't do it.

In June I began to feel a real physical exhaustion.  Why, I asked myself, had I not planned to leave sooner?  Two things occurred about the same time that reinforced my decision to leave, and they were the final straws.  Suddenly I was like the proverbial horse headed for the barn.  I may not know what was at the end of the tunnel, but I was sure it would be better.  Almost overnight, I felt a super-charged sense of self-efficacy.  In retrospect, I had recognized my ability to come out on top... whatever life presented me.  I finally trusted myself.  Whoo-hoo!

The Universe was very affirming.  Almost as soon as I got really clear that I was going to come out better however I came out, things started popping.  I had two interviews in a week for a job I'd applied for in February.  The founder of a new consulting firm called and began salary negotiation for an executive position.  I attended a conference and a professional meeting and walked away from both with several leads on contract work if I decided to go independent.  All of this is 10 days time. Within another week, I had an offer for a job I've agreed to take that will allow me to do work that is better aligned with my strengths and is significantly more money and benefits.

I have wondered to myself a number of times  what would have happened if I'd quit this job years ago.  Did I just need to trust myself enough to know I would land on my feet for the Universe to support me?  Although we will never know, I am guessing that is true.

After a dry spell, my date life is picking up again, too.  No great loves on the horizon. What I've started noticing that if a man doesn't treat me the way I expect to be treated, I trust myself enough to just walk away (once in the middle of dinner) rather than politely tolerating unacceptable behavior.

One of my favorite rom-com movies is "The Holiday."  In it, Iris, played by Kate Winslet, has been a doormat for her "former" boyfriend.  Although he is in a relationship with another woman, he uses Iris when it is convenient for him. Iris encounters an octogenarian screenwriter, who "assigns" her movie watching of classic films with strong female leads.

Soon her boyfriend is once again asking her to do something for him again.  This time she indignantly refuses.  "What's gotten into you, Iris?" he asks.  Stopped in her tracks for a split second, Iris hesitates before saying, "I think it is something resembling gumption."

"Gumption" isn't a word I hear often these days.  Yet that is what I am finding seems to come in the wake of self-trust.  When I know what is right for me in my heart, and when I act on what I know is true, the gumption part seems to come easily.  Gumption isn't arrogant: it feels to me like a deep, peaceful truth that wells up inside of me, offering a sense of strength and focus that I haven't been conscious of for a while.

Trust, you see, is a lot like a hug: you have to give it to get it.  Once I started trusting myself with the truth of my heart, the Universe has trusted me enough to support me in my truth.  Can there be much more?