21. Root Gift: Trust
“Replace unreasonable fear with reasonable faith.”
From etymonline.com Click image to view in lightbox.
How do we Trust?
Trust like love, cannot be taught - it has to be experienced to be understood. We cannot intellectualize love. We cannot intellectualize trust. We cannot theorize the life-changing quality of these ways of being until we embody them.
The most important parts of living in the world of form need to be experienced to be known. The cellular, 'in your body knowing' is a very different state of being than thinking something is true.
Trust is not ‘trust that the world of form will always be good and kind and just’. Real trust is knowing that you will be okay not matter what happens. This is the only trust that we ever really have.
The Root and the Heart are together.
This trust is connected to the heart bridge - the love and compassion and acceptance that characterizes knowing Spirit and Land are inseparable. The oneness of the great binding law of Fite Fuaite / Ogichi Tibakonigaywin is the salve for fear and is always trustworthy.
This is the Guardian that cannot fail.
We cannot guarantee safety in the body. It's not possible and any denial or avoidance or turning away from that reality in the world of form is an insult to our experience and an insult to the depths of our love and connection here in the world of form and the pain and loss when it seemingly ends (it doesn’t end, but we don’t really get that support in our society).
“Body safety is not real because your bodies belong to the Earth and return to Them when you are ready. ”
In this way our bodies are always “safe” because material form returns to the Earth where they belong.
We don't come into the world for ourselves or our enlargement of things or profit or reward or success. There is only one reason we are come into the world of form; to be in loving relationship with the Earth and all the ways of physical form. We come here to commune with Them and be in love and relationship with Them. We come into the Earth to learn how we are Fite Fuaite here too.
This is the only reason we come into Earth; to be here in love together and accept that this too is Spirit and there is no separation.
Even here and now.
All harm comes from misunderstanding this truth.
Being in Ogichi Tibakonigaywin, being in oneness, being in Fite Fuaite with the world of form, being Spirit and Land together allows us to experience our lives very differently. It doesn't change the actuality of death. It doesn't change the fact that all bodies return to the Land. Living in oneness changes our real lived experience of those transitions.
Trust comes from releasing judgement about what is.
Judgement is the root of all our unhappiness.
Our insistence on judging some things good and some things not good is the root of all our unhappiness. Insisting that we know what is good and what is not good is the root of all our unhappiness.
You don't know. None of us know.
Where the default is ‘good’.
I don’t know if this teaching is clear or even valuable, but it’s one that came through this month as I was in communication with Spirit about trust. I’ve stopped deciding what is shared and what isn’t - if it keeps coming up, I’ll share it because what good does it do just sitting inside me?
This teaching is about the words we use that define our experience of reality. These often go unnoticed and becoming conscious of how we are describing and framing our reality with the words we use can be helpful. You are invited to share your thoughts and how this shows up in your own life.
We don't know what the fuck is happening here or what is the reason. We are all making it up as we go - and that's the point. WE DECIDE WHAT IT MEANS - so, are you deciding what is is good, or are you deciding what is not good? Whatever you decide is exactly what you get - so make your choice with heart. Make your choice with love and inclusion - because everything else sucks shit.
“You decide what it means.”
There is no great authority outside of you deciding your fate and doling out destiny and luck to some, horseshit and hand grenades to others.
We are creating this shared reality together and we are not creating with the same collective fundamental truth about what is good.
Why is there war? Why is there poverty and torture and cruelty?
I don't fucking know. Not really.
What I do know is that there are enough of us embodied here who believe that war and poverty, torture and cruelty are good. There are enough of us embodied here who act in alignment with the belief that war and poverty, torture and cruelty are good; because if we didn't, it wouldn't exist.
Because if we didn’t, it wouldn’t exist.
This is how powerful we are together. This is how dangerous we are together when we don't own and understand how powerful we are together.
There is only one truth that exists and there is only one wound.
The one truth is that there is only loving inclusion. There is only the Great Binding Law. There is only Fite Fuaite. There is only Ogichi Tibakonigaywin.
The one wound is that we believe we are separate and unloved. This is the source of every painful thing that's every existed, and it's never been true. Not even once, we just believed it and then believed how we treated each other because we believed in the lie of unloving separation.
We are creating this reality together. So, what do we decide is good?
Self Judgement; Eww... Brother, ewww
Judgement isn't an on/off scenario. It's more of a do better more often kind of situation. The best place to start is with the self and our constant and unrelenting self-condemnation and self-judgement.
Really, we are total shits to ourselves, but most of us don't realize it. We don't recognize the tremendous dump we are taking on our self worth and value and purpose; and being unconscious of it makes it very difficult to change.
So, the first step is being self-aware of how we treat ourselves. Bringing our habits and behaviours towards self to full consciousness is a life-long process. Everything is process. This life is an ongoing peeling of the onion of soul sovereignty. We can't change our self-judgement until we are aware of it happening.
©Lezley Davidson, “I Promise”, 2011. Watercolour + ink on cotton rag.
The Mirror Exercise
I've probably included this exercise somewhere in the HSH, but I don't care because it's super valuable and we can't ever overdo this exercise.
Understand that the following statements are true. These statements are true, whether you believe them or not.
You are sharing statements of TRUTH.
For one week, at least once every day, preferably multiple times a day, you will look yourself in your eyes in a mirror and say - while holding eye contact with yourself and knowing this is the only truth that exists:
“I love you as you are.”
“I accept you as you are.”
“I love and accept you no matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter what you think. I love and accept you as you are.”
“There is nothing you can do that will make me stop loving and accepting you.”
“There is nothing that you need to do or change to be worthy and wanted.”
“You are wanted and needed exactly as you are.”
Hold your own gaze and say these statements of truth to yourself. Feel yourself in your body while you do so. Feel the acceptance or resistance and be aware of the internal talk back &/or defence &/or rejection against these statements of truth.
Do this every day for the rest of your life and you will release all judgement you hold in the world.
Our judgement against the world comes first from our judgements against our self.
Heal self-judgement and we heal how we see the world.
Heal how we see the world and we heal the world we see.
The Practice
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...or whatever works best for you to record thoughts and ideas as they happen. You need to do this in the moment or soon after or the thoughts and ideas and feelings and experiences will disappear.
• The ego mind is great at getting rid of anything that threatens it's on-going control. Bring a notebook with you for a week and note what kinds of shitty self-talk and judgements you use against yourself.
• At the end of each day - look at each shitty self-judgement and see if you recognize where that comes from outside yourself. Who does that sound like? What source as a child taught you those messages? Who was saying those things about themselves or others when you were little?
• Write a counter-statement of truth about those messages:
"I call myself a piece of shit because I watched my dad do that. The truth is that I am a soul in wholiness and the Universe is incomplete without me."
• Do this for every shitty self-judgement you spot each day.
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After this week's exercise, try to recognize and remain conscious of the shitty self-talk you throw at yourself on the daily.
• Remedy this shit talk with truthful statements of your wholiness.
• This is process, not perfection.
• This process is never done. We are constantly finding new ways to talk shit on ourselves.
It's okay. You're okay. I'm okay. We're okay.