Leaning Into Trust

When I receive the same message from multiple sources in a short period of time, I pay attention. 

Last week, one of the inspirational sites I follow featured “trust” as its weekly topic: trusting the process, trusting one’s intuition, and trusting that things might be happening for a reason. 

A day later, my grief counselor introduced the idea of “leaning into trust.” She explained to the six of us gathered on a Zoom screen, that leaning into trust doesn’t mean we should stop taking action. Instead, we might try letting go of the need for certainty. By releasing control over the events in our lives, we create space for what we want to come to us. Allowing instead of forcing. And then she floated an idea that gave me pause because it’s a bit woo-woo: put your trust into the universe.

I liked the idea of advancing lofty goals and heart’s-desire-kind-of-wishes into the universe to see what might happen. Things like having my book Twice a Daughter picked up by a producer and made into a movie or series. That sort of thing. But there are other activities that I would never trust to the universe. 

For example, my internet has been out for the last two days. Hoping that the universe will assist in fixing the outage is well, idiotic. I took action and hammered my internet provider with phone calls. I navigated tedious, electronic phone trees, enduring ridiculous hold times to reach a live person and schedule a service call. I need certainty when it comes to internet connectivity, so this is the process I have come to trust to get results. 

When it comes to relationships, I wouldn’t say I have trust issues, but I’m cautious. I believe that trust isn’t a given; it is earned. And when trust is breached, the passage of time doesn’t always fix the underlying issues (see a previous post on trust here). Rebuilding trust is a function of one’s willingness to forgive, to show remorse, and to enact meaningful change.

A curious thing happened last week as I focused on the “trust” communications in my inbox. 

Early one morning, I initiated a group chat with my tennis foursome. The day was windy and chilly, so I wanted to assess my teammates’ desire to practice. But when I set up the text thread, I inadvertently included an old cell phone number for one of the women. It became obvious very quickly that the person who had assumed my friend’s old cell phone number had no idea who the four of us were or what we were up to. When the conversation got weird, one of my teammates blocked the number from our chat. We chuckled about the snafu during our tennis game.

Hours later, I picked up a call from a number I didn’t recognize. Normally, when this happens, I let the call go to voicemail, but I thought it might be the repairman I’d been eager to hear back from. A female voice explained that it was her husband’s cell phone number that had gotten tangled up in the morning’s text thread. 

“Who are all of you?” she asked, her manner more curious than challenging. 

Yet, I sensed an urgency in her tone, like something critical depended on how I handled her call. 

Instead of turning the question back on her with a smart aleck retort like, “And who would you be, and why do you need to know?” I decided to trust my intuition. 

My gut informed me that there was something important at play. If it was the husband’s cell phone on the morning tennis thread and the wife was calling, then… the husband was either in deep doo-doo, and/or I had a suspicious, jealous wife on the line. Because I had initiated the misunderstanding, I felt some responsibility for clearing up the confusion.

“We are a bunch of middle-aged tennis bums who were trying to put a game together. I think your husband was given an old cell number for one of the ladies in our group. It got on our text thread by accident.”

Well, we’ve had some relationship problems. That’s why I’m calling to check this out,” she whispered.

Oh my, here was a woman who clearly wasn’t putting any trust into the universe. Instead, she was trusting her intuition and taking control. 

The wife covered the phone, and I heard her mutter to her husband. “She says they’re a bunch of tennis players putting a game together. You sure you don’t know them?”

When she returned to me, she said, “Thanks for picking up. Not everyone would have.”

“Sure,” I said, “We don’t know your husband. Sorry for the confusion.”

In reflecting upon this peculiar incident, I find myself admiring the caller’s courage, her desire to get to the bottom of a situation that was well, curious, and maybe ill-timed. I hope my assurances put the woman’s mind at ease, and that the wife’s trust in her spouse’s commitment to their marriage would rebuild over time. 

And I cannot help but wonder, if she has considered putting her trust out into the universe. Because when every available effort and support system is exhausted, why not?

To learn more about what it means to trust in the universe, check out these 9 Tips from Deepak Chopra. In her best-selling book, You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, Jen Sincero discusses when we need to hand the job over to the universe.

FOLLOW ME HERE:

• Julie’s interview with Kelly Schucknecht, a popular Canadian book reviewer and book blogger, will post on Jan. 30th. 
• Julie will be interviewed by Amanda Medina for This Adoptee Life Podcast on Feb. 4th.
• If you missed it, Julie’s podcast interview with host Simon Benn on Thriving Adoptees can be listened to here.

Wait…MORE GOOD NEWS:

Bucket list item fulfilled! In April 2023, Julie will participate in a weekend writer’s retreat at the infamous Ragdale Retreat Center in Chicago with Gayle Brandeis from StoryStudio.

So excited to announce: Julie’s collection of essays about adoption, family and belonging has been picked up by independent traditional publisher, Muse Literary in Chicago. Publication date to be determined. 

And: Julie’s second memoir, a coming-of-age story that precedes Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging will be published by She Writes Press in August of 2024.

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