If you were hurt as a child, you likely have trust issues that need to be healed.

Were your parents or caregivers trustworthy? Mine weren’t. I could not trust their love. I could not trust that they had my highest good at heart because they didn’t. They betrayed me over and over in many ways.

When we didn’t grow up with trustworthy parents – parents whose love we could count on and who had our highest good at heart – it’s a challenge to trust God – whatever God is for you. We tend to project our early experiences onto our concept of God and to then believe that our higher power is not supporting our highest good.

In a Facebook post about God and love, someone said, “…love is love. ‘God’ is control.” This attitude is exactly what I’m talking about, and what makes me feel so sad. Obviously, the writer of that statement is projecting her experience of her controlling parents, or others who controlled her, onto her concept of God, and now she has no trust in God.

How do we learn to trust again, when our trust was betrayed over and over?

"It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." —Sir Edmund Hillary 

I've Been Thinking...

My friends, this first week of the new year took my breath away. I’m sure it took your breath away as well.

I could not believe my eyes as I watched lawless rioters smash windows and fight police as they broke into the U.S. Capitol. I could not believe my eyes as I watched a rioter break into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and sit with his feet up on her desk. The images that came tumbling out of D.C. on Wednesday enraged me. They shocked me, disturbed me, and took me aback.

I was, however, heartened by President-Elect Biden’s comments that this is not who we are. I really believe in my heart that he’s right. What we witnessed on Wednesday is not who we are as a nation. I don’t even believe it represents most of the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump. That said, I do believe Trump is to blame for the outrageous behavior that unfolded. The responsibility sits squarely with him, as well as with those who have used their platforms to incite, to lie, and to cause disruption. Words matter—I can’t stress that enough. Lives were needlessly lost. This was a tragedy and a disgrace.

Thank God his time is almost up. I cannot wait. It cannot come soon enough.

Covid-19 has offered us the opportunity of a reset. 

Throughout this window of quarantine, self-isolation and lockdown, we have been able to very quickly discern every day what it is we need on a daily basis. Covid has forced us to become conscious around our level of consumption. It has also shown us that we really don’t need most of what we have been consuming at all. 

I would like you to continue the momentum of this reset as we continue to emerge beyond the pandemic, and return to our daily lives. Because the simpler you are, meaning the more you realize your survival is dependent on basic things, the more what you do with your time becomes a choice. It very quickly enables you to get out of a bad trade, which is trading your  time and energy in order to survive. 

Where are you headed?

The Practice:
Find your North Star.

Why?

I did a meditation retreat (at Spirit Rock, wonderful place, including for workshops). One evening as we walked out of the hall after the last sit, I was feeling rattled and discombobulated. (One of the benefits of a retreat – though it can be uncomfortable – is that it stirs up of the sediments of your psyche, which can muddy your mental waters for a while.)

I looked up at the stars shining brightly in the cold clear night, and soon noticed the Big Dipper. My eyes followed its pointing to Polaris, the North Star, and a wave of easing came over me. The star felt steady and reassuring, something you could count on. It connected I think with a young part of me who loved the outdoors and learned to believe that as long as he could locate the North Star, he could find his way out of the tangled woods and back to safety.

This year I don’t plan to make any resolutions.

If I learned anything from 2020 it’s that trying to make plans while in the center of a chaotic cyclone is a set up for disappointment and frustration.

Instead, I am going to make ONE WORD the focal point of my biggest desire for 2021 and that word is CONTENTMENT.

Striving for contentment isn’t a new thing with me, but it is something that I now want to master now.

There were many years when my focus was happiness, but I’ve learned that for me, happiness is not the ultimate goal because happiness is tied to other people, outside circumstances, and unforeseeable experiences.

Welcome, 2021!

We have so many hopes pinned on this new year. It will take us a while to process and implement the vast need for social change and healing illuminated in 2020. Maybe in the past we’d say “that’s it” for last year and be quite glad to see it in our rear-view mirror. But this paradigm shift will require us to pause and take a deep respectful breath of hope knowing there is still a lot of patience and work still ahead as we traverse the in between time from what was to what will be.  

The old way is being dismantled and  being cleared away, and even if we’re not 100% where we hoped we’d be, we are still making room for more love, creativity, courage, compassion, hope…and joy. This and that will be true! 

And, if there is one thing I know for sure.

How we consider and integrate the past has a huge impact on how we experience our future. “If we do what we did we’re gonna get what we got!”