A Public Declaration of Trust

When I was in college I took a music appreciation class, which was held in a large auditorium, affording me the ability to easily overhear other people's conversations. One of the women, Caroline, caught my attention because her life sounded so magical. She relayed a story to a friend of hers that while traveling in a foreign country she had a music lesson. She lost the slip of paper with her teacher's address, had no way of contacting him, but took it on faith she would get to her music lesson without any trouble.

On her train ride over, the train lurched and Caroline stumbled into a seat where, guess who, her music teacher was sitting. The friend listening to this story shook her head and said, "Only you, Caroline."

Cool stuff seems to happen on trains.

When I heard this story I bristled with unknown-to-me envy. My first reaction was, "Pbbbt. I can't believe how flakey she sounds. She lost the piece of paper with her teacher's address and didn't have his telephone number?" But underneath that I was insanely envious because I wanted that. I wanted to be able to live a life of total and complete faith that I would be taken care of. That I didn't have to be in control all the time. That I could let go and not worry.

On Friday I spoke to my lifecoach about all this and he said, "Will you make the commitment to trust your higher power?" I hemmed and hawed, and said, "Can I commit to working on trusting my higher power?" He wasn't having it. "You can commit to whatever you want but you know and I both know what you really want is to be able to trust like that. And the only way to do so is to just trust." That is so not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to play it safe, to commit to wading in the pond instead of diving into it. But you know what? I'm tired.

I'm tired of fretting about my life and where I'll live. I'm tired of trying to always control all the outcomes of my life. I'm tired of constantly being "in charge." I'm tired of trying all the time. And I'm tired of living in fear of what's next. I want what I perceive Caroline has — faith and trust in the universe that everything will be OK without the need to worry all the time. I want to feel at ease in my life because I trust in a power greater than myself. I want to let go of my rigid control.

I don't really know how to do that but I'm pretty sure it starts with saying, "I commit to trusting my higher power." I'm pretty sure it starts with at least having the willingness to let some other force take care of it. I'm also sure it's important for me to write about this publicly so I can't take it back. So I can be held accountable. So when I'm flipping out I can remind myself or you can remind me that I committed to trusting the force that guides the stars.

I dream of a world where we all let go of our reins. A world where we take inspired action but we understand we don't need to micromanage our lives. A world where we trust everything will be OK in the end; and if it's not OK, it's not the end. A world where we say, "I can't handle this anymore. You take over."

Another world is not only possible, it's probable.