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"Trusting life is a choice, and it’s a creative one at that. Your choice creates your reality. If you choose to trust life in the deepest possible way, you’ll eventually reframe every life experience to reinforce this trust. Your most painful setbacks will become growth lessons. Finding your path with a heart will become mandatory, not optional. Your decision to trust life will create the corresponding reality." - Steve Pavlina

When I trust another person, I don’t trust them to be perfect. I trust them to be human and to behave as humans do, and so my trust is well placed and aligns well with how humans actually behave.

When I trust reality, I don’t trust it to be perfect or wise all the time. I trust it to behave as reality actually does, so my trust is well placed and aligns with how reality actually behaves.

If you trust reality to be wiser and more intelligent than human beings, does it always meet that standard? Is that a standard aligned with its actual behavior? Or are you sometimes disappointed when applying that standard?

Reality can be incredibly brilliant at times and deeply compassionate at other times, but is it always so? You can try to stretch that frame to fit every situation, but doesn’t it feel like it’s a bit too much of a stretch sometimes? Isn’t it more sensible to sometimes call reality out for acts that seem stupid, clowny, or unwise?

Trusting that reality isn’t godlike actually improves our relationship. It’s like saying to reality, “I see and appreciate you as you are, warts and all.”

To do otherwise would invite a very fragile and inflexible relationship with reality, one that’s likely to break eventually. From what I’ve seen, reality itself will break or destroy that kind of relationship over time.

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2019/08/trusting-reality/

Overcoming Trust Issues

How easy is it for you to trust other people? Do you trust people easily? Or are you often suspicious of others’ motives?

Do you trust life enough that you can quit your uninspired job as soon as you recognize it as such, and know that life will bring you something even better? Or do you need to slow things down and control the process, such as by trying to save up money doing even more work you dislike? Are you paying the price in frustration for your distrust in life?

Do you trust that if you leave your uninspired relationship that life will bring you an even better, more fulfilling relationship experience?

If you leap into your path with a heart, do you trust that life will have your back?

Do You Trust Life?

These days I’ve been able to reestablish the trust I feel towards others and attract very trustworthy people into my life (which is wonderful). I no longer feel so jaded as I once did.

What helped most was to think about trust differently. I began asking whether or not I could trust life itself. Did I trust the universe? Did I feel this was a safe reality I was living in? Or was this a place where I had to protect myself?

In the end I realized that my relationship with life exists in my mind. So I can change it.

Same goes for my relationships with other people. They exist in my thoughts and feelings. They’re mental and emotional constructs.

Then I realized I have two options. I could trust life. Or I could distrust it. I mentally explored both possibilities and pondered what kind of life each possibility would yield. How would I live if I trusted life? How would I live if I didn’t trust it? I encourage you to ponder both options thoughtfully, such as by journaling about this, and see where it leads you. I think you’ll find this to be a very eye-opening exercise.

In the end I concluded that trusting life was the better option. I might get screwed over in the short term on occasion, but if I really trusted life, then I’d always give it the benefit of the doubt. This would cause me to reframe any seemingly negative experiences as life lessons. I’d forgive, extract the lessons, and move on.

I could also predict that this mindset would eventually attract some great relationships with genuinely trustworthy people. If I’m the trusting sort and I meet another trusting sort, we’re going to connect with a truly delightful depth since our relationship will be largely free of suspicion and shielding. The opportunity to enjoy deeply intimate, unshielded relationships seemed a bit intense but also very appealing.

On the other hand, if I chose to distrust life, I’d always be filled with suspicion. I’d go through life being shielded and feeling that I had to constantly protect myself. I’d probably be alone quite a lot, even in the company of others. I’d have to deny myself the deepest forms of intimacy since that would make me too vulnerable. Who’d want to be in a relationship with a guy who was always suspicious and shielded?

Trying to connect becomes a chore as long as they remain committed to a deep-seated distrust of life. About all they can experience relationship-wise with that mindset is either more betrayal or more confusion and embarrassment when they push away someone who genuinely wants to connect.

Was that the kind of life I wanted to experience? How am I supposed to enjoy real intimacy if I’m always pushing people away due to suspicions and assumptions that may or may not be accurate? Is being hurt now and then really so bad?

On balance I felt that trusting was the better option because it would almost certainly lead to a more interesting, engaged, and fulfilling life. I might have to deal with some rejection and betrayal now and then, but if I maintained a trusting attitude, eventually I’d connect with some wonderful, like-minded people with whom I could share some deep and fulfilling bonds. The other path looked dark, dreary, and disconnected. I made my choice.

Reframing Pain

Once I decided it was better to trust life, I surrendered in advance to whatever life sent my way.

I held this trust mainly on a spiritual level. All of our physical experiences here are temporary. Eventually I’m going to lose everything in the physical realm. So my purpose in trusting life cannot be to trust that I’ll be able to acquire material wealth or great friends or amazing business partners and keep all of them forever. In fact, I can trust that all of those things will eventually be lost. So I surrendered to the inevitability of loss.

To trust life at a spiritual level means trusting that there’s a greater purpose to my existence, even if I don’t understand what that is. I trust that life is helping me to learn, grow, and have meaningful experiences. I trust that life is absolutely, positively on my side. I believe that life will never, ever betray me.

This level of trust transforms everything else. I may get screwed over in business again. I may lose money. I may be physically hurt or get sick. I don’t feel I can control all of those factors. But with the level of trust I have now, I don’t need to control them.

I trust that even when seemingly difficult challenges come into my life, there’s a reason they’re showing up. Life is teaching me more lessons. It’s teaching me how to be in the flow, to learn, to grow, and to love. It’s teaching me to be less attached to outcomes and more present in the moment. It’s helping me to stay on the path with a heart. I love that it’s doing this for me. And I trust that it will continue.

I feel very aligned with the flow of life. I feel that the whole universe has my back. I feel that I live in a loving and supportive world.

But I also feel that life is going to keep challenging me. It will push my buttons. It will expose my deepest vulnerabilities. It won’t let me settle or coast for too long. It will keep jostling me to help me grow.

The more I surrender to this flow, the more life seems to reward me. It showers me with loving connections, beautiful experiences, and cherished memories. But it also brings me plenty of powerful lessons.

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2013/12/overcoming-trust-issues/

Steve Pavlina https://www.stevepavlina.com