Last Sunday I had the pleasure of speaking at the Lake Harriet Spiritual Community about what it might be like if we truly trusted the intelligent, conscious life-force that moves within us and through us.
What if we trusted the process of healing? The growth process? The relational processes of life?
What if – at the heart of things – nothing is really wrong and everything is happening right on time?
Finally, do you know why you should never assist an Emu as it is hatching?
I covered it all on Sunday!
If you’d like to watch the recording you can find it here, but if you’d just like the cliff notes, here are a few take-aways from the talk.
Trusting the process invites us to practice a few key things:
1.Presence and attunement to whatever is arising in the present moment: Bring your attention to the information inherent in the here and now, the present moment. What is emerging? What are you noticing? What are you feeling? What needs are alive? What will help?
2. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable: Allow yourself to feel everything and embrace your aliveness. Get re-connected to your felt-sense, your aliveness. What is present right now? Disappointment? Grief? Sadness? Joy? Hope? Anger? Frustration? What does this tell you about your longings, your values, your needs?
3. Surrendering control: Let go of your attachment to a particular outcome or condition in the external world. Ground yourself in your inner experience, your inner sense of connectedness. Keep your attention on your ability to choose your response to any event, as opposed to trying to control the events themselves. Release your desire for the world to show up “just so” and see if you can enjoy it “as is” instead.
4. Embracing ambiguity: Sometimes we don’t know what will happen next, or how long something will take, or whether or not something will ever change. Embrace the not-knowing, reassuring yourself that even though you might not know how it all works out yet, that you are still OK, you are still here, you are still seeing and experiencing and witnessing, and maybe that can be enough, for now.
What would it be like to live as if nothing is wrong, and everything is happening right on time? What gets in the way for you? What helps?
I’d love to know: Leave a comment below.
“What would it be like to live as if nothing is wrong, and everything is happening right on time?”
This is the most perfect question for me right now, in this momoent. I’m going to spend some time with it. I think I will grow a lot when I find that answer within myself.
Thank you for asking it.
Dear Yvette,
I’ve never commentatied before, But this time I simply cant resist.
In my life as a midwife (attending mostly homebirths) these words: ‘trust the proces’ resonates starkly within me.
“ïf you rush it, you kill it”, I also heard you say. So true! Especially for placenta’s.You may not kill the woman, but you’ll kill her autonomy, her trust in the proces and her own body, her trust in that her baby is wise and knows how to emerge.
The poem you quoted sums it all up:
Trust the wait
Embrace the uncertainty
Enjoy the beauty of becomming
When nothing is certain, anything is possible.
What gets in the way for me is a buried thought or idea that what ever has happened I should have done something differently or done something I must or will be chastised for the outcome not what I or anyone wanted. I feel agony, fear, shame and disgust and need a ton of NVC to repair myself which thankfully I am learning from Yvette and everyone in her groups
Yvette, I so appreciate what y ou’ve written here! (I’m sorry for the all-caps. I don’t know how to change it).
I particularly love your four points for practicing “trusting the process”. I don’t think that I can embrace the idea that “nothing is wrong”Because I am so attuned to the terrible suffering in the world – at this moment the war in Ukraine, the catastrophic earthquake in turkey and syria – so much of this suffering could have been avoided. So the idea that “nothing is wrong” doesn’t right true and so distracts me. But again, trusting the process, practicing presence and attunement to what’s alive in us and to our calling in this particular moment, knowing that we cannot know and trusting that something larger than us is working – is a potent reminder to me and a way to support me not to shut down or resist what is true in myself and in the world. Thank you for your gifts of clarity and support, Yvette!