Can you trust yourself ?

Somewhere along the way I learnt to trust myself. How to follow my gut, my heart, or my spirit. Whatever you want to call it I learnt that there is much beyond logic and I found a way to hear it, to listen, and to let it guide me. It gave me a compass, a road map directing me even when I had no idea where I would end up. I fostered that connection and it has never led me astray. While I will admit there have been many times where I was uncertain of where the steps were taking me, I trusted none the less and walked the path. Listening to what felt true to me even if no one else understood. As time does it has given me perspective. It has shown me that if there is anything I can trust in this life, myself is the safest bet I can make. This trusting in myself has given me so much, most notable a completeness in a relationship that ended dramatically when my beloved died so very young and so very sudden. Considering we were planning on a lifetime together our time together was oddly complete. Only a few years before that I demanded that we reconfigure our relationship. That we treat the time we had together like it were sacred. I could not shake the feeling that I needed to be present with the time I had. We did have his forever, but that was only  29 years for him. So, I am grateful I followed my heart that kept telling me we needed to be more clear with our time. In the moment I heard he died a part of me felt like I already knew this was coming. I had a sense of, here we are this is the moment. Oddly the person telling me there had been an accident didn't even know just how bad it was or that we would never see my beautiful man alive again. But I felt it, I knew. Not my mind, or logic, but I knew.   Through the chaos that ensued I could only rely on my intuition, logic doesn’t exist in a time like that. My connection to my intuition was in full force and I trusted it fully.  It's that sense of calling that brought me to Fort McMurray. My brain couldn't explain why here but I knew without a doubt it was time to move out of my home town and felt that this place had a clue to what was next for me. So while I had no idea what I would find here, I trusted myself enough to listen to the calling.   I came in January and it felt OK. I was afforded some anonymity, no one knew me or my story and I liked that. A little freedom from the sadness in other's eyes. Only in the spring I was struggling, lost and hitting maybe the worst of my fatigue around rebuilding my life after loss. I had changed so much, I had tried to find new passions and still was feeling like I was missing something. Ok, like I was missing everything. I had given up the stability of home and all my friends, been out here for months and still couldn't find a reason to be here.   I was close to leaving, I wondered if my gut had been wrong. I had been avoiding my personal yoga and meditation practice for a while at that point. Being still was beyond challenging, but out of desperation for the last 2 weeks of June I forced myself to classes at a studio where no one knew me. I Sat and silently begged for whatever it was that I was supposed to get from being in this town. I said I was ready, and if I didn't find ‘it’ I would have to leave. I couldn't flounder any longer. I was asking for the next step, I didn’t need to see the entire path but I needed a sign that I was still on course. I rid my life of any of the toxic coping habits I had gathered and got really clear about my desire for the next step. I prayed for it, begged for it, I needed something. On the first of July this man came into my life in a way that made me take notice. In a way I could not ignore. He disrupted my patterns and because he was awake and intentional with our interactions he showed me the way. I had taken myself as far as I could, I had been asked by the world to do some pretty serious work on myself over the years so I asked for the teachers and they came. But the homework they gave me was hard, the refining of myself through tragedy has been a grueling endeavor. One I only took on as I was called. I did not heal in a structured way, there is no formula, but there is a way. Your own way. You have it in you, all you have to do is trust and do your work as it is presented to you.

He arrived when I was ready for him and he offered me the next step. He has given me the chance to invest in something bigger than myself, something I was searching for. I had been preparing for him, but never thinking about him. I knew I would one day love, that one day I would have another big love. I just knew it, but never sought it. My path was not to find a great love, but to become a great lover. To take what life had given me and work it until it was of value. Until I found the lessons, until it shaped me as I needed to be shaped. I had to become the kind of woman that the kind of man that I would want would want. I had to learn to love myself again to be able to allow someone else to love me. It's not our work to look for someone or something to complete us. It is our work to become the person needed to fill that role. 

I can honestly say I did my work. I stuck it out when I wanted to quit. I followed my heart when it would have been simpler to stay in the known. I fucking moved to Fort McMurray…

Of course I have no idea where things will go for us. But I guarantee this; I came here for him. I said before I left home, that I would one day be able to say exactly why I came to Fort Mcmurray, and today I can tell you. I came to meet him. The world has asked a lot of me, and maybe you too. If you feel like you are lost try starting by connecting with yourself as you are right now. Take time to get quiet and still and ask for the next step. Don’t be greedy, you won’t get all the map at once. Take the little calls as they come, and then you must trust process.

Your mind might not be able to see a big picture at this moment. However if you are willing to follow you are being guided. The beautiful dance between your will and the bigger will. When it feels like you are stuck and your will is getting you nowhere, maybe it is time to give it up to the greater will.   Trust yourself, you are wise beyond belief.

~with only love