Sometimes, I look back, and think, Hmm, that turned out well. And it shocks the socks off of me.
Every quarter my business mastermind buddy and I go on a retreat to review, plan, play, and celebrate. I honestly didn’t think I was going to have a ton to celebrate this quarter – at least that’s what it felt like as I waded through the months. Slogging through slow growth and clinging to my life visions like a crab on a rock in a storm – you will not unseat me, you relentless balls of froth, you!
The first months of this year tested and stretched me in a competitive yoga sort of way – uncomfortable, puzzling, and potentially damaging.
Strangely though, although waves of stress shook my structure from time to time, my foundation held strong. I wasn’t truly worried; I wasn’t truly afraid. Instead, I felt committed to surrender and certain the circumstances would metamorphosize into something better and beyond.
Looking back, the separation of me from worry meant the difference between good coming of the disquietude and everything falling to pieces.
Possessing a no-matter-what trust meant magic happens without me trying to make it so.
Worry acts like water over rock, sluicing through cracks, slowly breaking it apart until the monolith falls. It crumbles our foundations and steals our dreams. It blurs our vision and knocks the wind from our lungs.
Worry serves no purpose. Fear does not belong in the driver’s seat.
Trust, I have found, with a side of inspired action and a hearty pause on taking stock too soon, is the only surety to something good coming from stressful circumstances.
Trust magnifies the good, almost to the point of suspended reality.
There were times in that first quarter where I thought, Damn Ash, shouldn’t you be worried? Shouldn’t you be realistic? Shouldn’t you be, oh I dunno, preparing for the apocalypse?
A younger self certainly would have been. A former self who had small belief in herself and wobbly confidence in the perfect order of things would have come undone, frozen, and fallen to the ground begging for a painless end to her inevitable death.
She would have made it up, and it probably would have come true, in a way. You can’t worry that much and not have some manifestation back up the belief.
But, instead of setting up the hurricane shutters and hiding in a doorway, I choose to trust. To magnify what’s working. To believe in my visions and stand by them, no matter what.
No matter if it’s hard, it is. No matter if it means swan diving into the unknown, it does. No matter if it sends me in a spiral of who am I to want so much, yes, every time.
Because, when you’re not looking for evidence that everything will be immediately solved in perfect conclusion, the small wins have a chance to accumulate, and one day you watch the sunrise at a black pebbled oasis at the edge of a lava field and marvel at how well things have worked out.
