Cars with light on driving in Fog

Trust The Process

TTP.  These 3 letters changed my life.  My professor Dr Clay wrote them on a chalkboard 20 years ago in a graduate school class I was taking. TRUST THE PROCESS he taught us fledgling counselors filled with self-doubt on the cusp of seeing “real patients”.

Whenever we are learning something new, or facing the prospect of change and jumping into the unknown, it is overwhelming.  Because of the intensity of it, our analytical left brain takes control conjuring up plans, to do lists, ways to think our way through it, and what has to be in place to make things happen.  Ironically we plan to lessen the fire pit of anxiety in our belly and our efforts only fuel the flame.

I’m still learning how to just trust the process, which for me has now morphed into can I just trust my life?  Can I trust the people who show up, the doors that close, the feelings that arise, the contradictions I see, the injury that just happened, the challenges that arise, the love that I feel?  Can I just trust it?  The writer Pico Iyer so eloquently reminds us that “life generally has plans for us much wiser than the ones we might have concocted ourselves.”  Amen.

So for me, trusting the process means I have to slow down and carve out time to be with me.  When I’m really willing to sit with myself and let all the crazy plans and things I “must do to make things happen” slip away, what remains is space, guidance, and a deep sense that all is well (even if things don’t look so good on the surface).

Life is a little like driving on a foggy night.  You can only see as far ahead as your headlights shine, but this is enough.  It’s all you need to reach your final decision, if you can just trust the road that lies ahead.

Archives