Language of Letting Go - July 2014

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Learning to Trust Again

Many of us have trust issues.

Some of us tried long and hard to trust untrustworthy people. Over and again, we believed lies and promises never to be kept. Some of us tried to trust people for the impossible; for instance, trusting a practicing alcoholic not to drink again.

Some of us trusted our Higher Power inappropriately. We trusted God to make other people do what we wanted, then felt betrayed when that didn't work out.

Some of us were taught that life couldn't be trusted, that we had to control and manipulate our way through.

Most of us were taught, inappropriately, that we couldn't trust ourselves.

In recovery, we're healing from our trust issues. We're learning to trust again. The first lesson in trust is this: We can learn to trust ourselves. We can be trusted. If others have taught us we cannot trust ourselves, they were lying. Addictions and dysfunctional systems make people lie.

We can learn to appropriately trust our Higher Power - not to make people do what we wanted them to, but to help us take care of ourselves, and to bring about the best possible circumstances, at the best possible times, in our life.

We can trust the process - of life and recovery. We do not have to control, obsess, or become hyper vigilant. We may not always understand where we are going, or what's being worked out in us, but we can trust that something good is happening.

When we learn to do this, we are ready to learn to trust other people. When we trust our Higher Power and when we trust ourselves, we will know who to trust and what to trust that person for.

Perhaps we always did. We just didn't listen closely enough to ourselves or trust what we heard.

Today, I will affirm that I can learn to trust appropriately. I can trust my Higher Power, my recovery, and myself. I can learn to appropriately trust others too.

The reading seems to say it all. It was like my previous post, looking in the mirror and what do I see?

Thought I had it, then realized I had none! Certainly not in myself and others had proved me wrong or done me wrong so many times. The walls were up and I was darned if I was going to break them down.

They had to come down in order to recover. I had to let others in and me out. I had to build a relationship with my Higher Power. I couldn't project it all onto Him, I had to do the action. I had to learn to trust Him and know that when the time was right, there would be change. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I learned to trust the process and know that I didn't have a race to run and that life was a practice field to a better way of life.

We talked about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, when it was safe to do so.

The key word is safe. You want to be able to put yourself out there for others to see with the hope that your words and deeds don't come back at you.

I was sharing with my sponsor tonight about all the counselling and group therapy session that I went to on my journey. The one counsellor said, "You process things well, you don't need counselling, what you need is a safe place to share."

After having a lot of things go in someone ear and out their mouth, I didn't always feel comfortable about sharing certain things at meetings. I shared with my sponsor. I also found a need to share with a therapist as well. I introduced them to the Twelve Steps. I was told to stay away from psychiatrists as they tended to label you. I probably would have walked away with a couple if I had gone. Yet for me labels, are just that. Any problem or issue in my life, I apply the Steps. I have learned to trust the process.

Don't always trust the people, but do trust the process of recovery. It works when you work it. It is something you can put your trust in time and again.

Written in 2010 on another site.

For me fear is lack of trust. I can`t trust God and fear too. That fear has to be replaced by faith, faith in my God, faith in the program, and faith in myself.