Tao Thought For The Day

"... Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever."

— Lao-Tzu in the Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell

Trust

Last night, someone (Hey Billy!) said, "why haven't you posted in a long time?" My answer was that I posted yesterday. Just now, however, I was thinking a particular thought that might be worthy of sitting right down, right now, and meandering through.

The thing that was I thinking about actually, was trust. Trust in myself and placing my trust in the process. There's another trust that came up for me this morning, and that was placing trust in my guide - who happens to be a Sufi.

That said, I will give a little background information about my "story" that could prelude to where i am now in my trusting process. I have written previous posts and perhaps alluded to the fact that i was raped as a child. Further along my story line, I was married and was in therapy with my then-husband for many years. During the therapy, he would lie to us (me and the therapist) and I would eventually uncover this and he would apologize, ask for forgiveness and promise not to do it again. This proceeded to last seven years. Eventually, when he said "I Love You" and expected me to believe him, I couldn't. These two abrupt and not-so-abrupt disturbances were the beginning and ending points in my life's journey leading me to consider who to trust.

I didn't really know how to trust myself. I had given away my trust to others and then experienced a state of beyond disappointment. I worked on learning to trust myself. Seriously. I sat with myself and did some visualization, meditations, etc. I also worked with a wonderful women who had studied some of this in a Star Program. That process took a couple of years to accomplish a sense of selfworth and continues today. So began my journey to myself.

Several years ago, about 5 or 6, I met my spiritual guide, Musawwir. One of the things he first asked me was "do you trust me?" Well, I couldn't say no or yes, since I didn't feel I knew exactly what he was asking. I may have said "Yes", although, I did tell him I had to think about the whole thing - which I did for about 4 months before saying "yes" again. Over those years, I have had to learn various stages of trust.

Now, I am learning just to trust the moment. That's not to say that I forget about my responsibilities and work towards balancing my inner and outer life. This just means, that I have had to learn to leave the past behind and open myself up to the future, but not stay looking at the future. I'm practicing staying here, now. In the moment. Sometimes those moments lead to other moments - creating a string of moments.

This, too reminds me of what my old boyfriend, Jim, said to me at one point when we were together - although he was already seeing us apart, I think. Anyways...that was a slight divergence from trust and staying in the moment...Although not really, since the beginning of the thought - Trusting in the process is just where I thought to sit down and write!

A bit convoluted - sorry gentle readers.

Irregardless of all of that - trusting in the process had become a new 'mantra' for me. I think it has to do with my concept of surrendering to what is. This definitely leads me back into "staying in the moment" - again a circular thought pattern.

Enough now, though. I will go ponder as I make jewelry.

Early Saturday Morning

I haven't written in awhile, and right now, I don't really have any particular topic to write about, but felt the urge to put up another post. I guess I have been rather busy with cleaning up. De-cluttering. The kids and I are getting ready to move - we don't know exactly where, but we are ready for a change.

So far, I've been cleaning out the closets and have given away lots of clothes. This week, I put notices up on Craig's List to sell some old stuff - Sam's old baby dress (now that he has the new dragon one), and their old crib. Yep...moving stuff out of the house.

This weekend, I have houseguests again. It's really wonderful. I spent the night on the futon and have decided that it will probably be going on Craig's List sometime soon too. I think I'd much rather have a sleeper sofa...

Craig's List is a wonderful thing. I found my job there, too. Actually, one of my friends saw the job listing and forwarded it to me. It's been almost a year - I've made it though that shift!

Today, though, I will stay at home and hopefully sell these two items. I'll clean out some more, do some reading and writing, and generally have a quiet day off.