Trust

A friend recently asked me to help him through the issue of trust, and the challenges he was having trusting people. I blithely responded as someone “on the path” “Oh. I trust everyone”. However, in a later conversation with him I found myself musing and questioning the whole thing of TRUST as I started to think about and explore it.

What is TRUST? The dictionary tells us that it is confidence in and reliance on the integrity or actions of a person or thing. We know that it is an essential part of any relationship, no matter how fleeting, be it at work, in our family, with our intimate partner, with friends and passing acquaintances. We can go further to say it is an essential part of love – for we cannot truly love without trust. In our common usage, trust therefore speaks to how we relate to people. This leads to a challenge that most of us face – we believe that people have to earn our trust. We therefore withhold our trust until the other person earns it. And what do we mean by earning our trust? That the person will act in a way that is in alignment with our expectations and desires of how we believe they should act. Do you see that we are setting up a situation that is BOUND to fail? That is bound to result in so-called betrayal? For who in this world acts in the ways we want them to? Indeed, it is difficult even for us to act in ways that are consistent with own desires and expectations, much less the desires and expectations of others!

Could we have this thing of trust all wrong? Perhaps there is no need to trust anyone. Perhaps there is no need to invest trust in any single person. Maybe, the essence of trust is not person-centred, but is essence or Universe-centred. This occurred to me as I think of another friend who is an example of joy and ease in life. Her mantra, which is peppered throughout all her conversations, is “the Universe is unfolding as it should”. Is it then that we should just trust the enfoldment of our lives? That it is not “I trust you Marguerite”: it is simply “I trust”, meaning: “I trust that my life is enfolding as it should”? For your trust has NOTHING to do with me. I am simply there at that moment as a part of the unfolding of your life.

Let’s take an example – if we are in a physically threatening situation, our trust is not about “I trust so-and-so to save me” or “I trust that so-and-so will protect me” or “I trust that so-and-so will do what I think is right” – it is “I trust that the Universe is unfolding as it should”. So, many people report that a physically threatening situation has literally evaporated at the moment when they let go, let God and surrendered to a higher power. That is the same as trusting the universe to “unfold as it should”.

And what do I mean that the Universe is unfolding as it should? It is not the Universe itself that is unfolding – for the Universe just IS. What is unfolding is our greater and greater awareness of our oneness, our connection with it. It is as if the mango seed is realising that it is the mango tree. The mango seed trusts that it will become a tree, for it knows that it already has everything within it perfectly coded to BE a tree. Therefore, it knows that it already IS the mango tree. The mango seed simply allows its tree to unfold – as it should, as it certainly will and must.

For me therefore, trust is a deep knowing that all is well. It is a deep and abiding belief in the orderliness of the Universe – despite “evidence” to the contrary. It is a deep belief in the orderliness of our lives – no matter the “evidence” or the “reality” that we see. It is a deep and abiding belief that the unfolding of the universe is one of magnificence, power, love and beauty, and that my universe, my life is unfolding exactly as it should – the “should” of my life being magnificence, power, love and beauty. There is no need to trust anyone for this. There is only a need to trust that everything and everyone is unfolding as it should.