Trusting Yourself...

This has been a hard lesson.  Mostly because there is so much evidence that I do not have my own back, often.  Trusting and relying upon myself has been a mixed bag.  But in review of all of my past false starts and ridiculous results, I have always known what is right for me.  Even if it is wrong...

When I got sober in 1995, many people did not think I had a drinking problem, mostly because I kept a lot of shit to myself and didn’t share about how I pretty much wanted to die every single day.  I knew I had a problem.  I knew how I felt was not “normal” or sane.  I knew I needed what sobriety had to teach me...and so I began a journey despite the naysayers.

When I left DC in 2001, everyone thought I was running away, but I knew I wasn’t.  I knew I needed to go, that I had done the growth I needed to do there and now it was time for me to pivot.  

When I left my marriage in 2015, there were many that thought I was out of my mind.  It wasn’t a horrible marriage.  He not the devil incarnate, why leave?  Because I had long outgrown that relationship and I tried to move the relationship along, but it just had reached its limit.  I consider the marriage a successful marriage:  we cared for each other, we brought two amazing kids in the world, and we both walked away when it was time.  And we did so without ruining the other person or burning down the house, the kids and the ability to work together for the benefit of our children.  I left because I knew that I could not grow in the ways I needed to and remain in that relationship.

When I left a job I truly loved in 2022, people also thought I had lost my mind.  But I knew, all too well, that I had outgrown that job and it was time to move forward into the unknown.  I didn’t know the unknown would result in another hitting bottom, but apparently I had some more growing to do and it was of the extremely painful variety.

And now here we are in 2026 and I am in another growth spurt.  My family dynamics have greatly shifted with the passing of my father.  A job that I really gave my all to has come and gone.  And it is all as it should be.  My dad could not get well and the longer he remained with us, the more he suffered.  His passing was a blessing even as it devastated us.  The job had reached its end, and so it too had to go.  I do not like the way it all went down but the end result is a blessing.

So many times I have had to do exceptionally hard things that almost no one else understood or agreed with.  So many times I have been told: “what the fuck are you doing?  Are you crazy?”  And perhaps, I am just a little bit bonkers.  Or, I think more likely, I am finely tuned to my internal nature, so much so that despite what almost everyone else thinks, I have to do the thing that appears, at the time, to be the most insane thing ever...

But I have trusted myself time and time again.  And it always works out.  It is always better than I could have ever believed.  I am always taken care of and I am always delivered to another place, a higher level of consciousness that allows me to live and vibrate at a higher level.  Those I must leave behind are missed, but the growth is never wrong.

What I have learned is that I regret moments, not outcomes.  Everything that has gone down has grown me out and in a way that has absolutely been for my higher good and purpose.  It just hasn’t always felt that way at the time.  There is always a time where I doubt everything, including myself and wonder what it would be like to just stay put and hunker down.  But the moment I think that, I am immediately reminded that is not who I am.  I am a risk taker, a "fuck it and let’s go" kind of person.  And remaining true to myself, above all others, is the path I appear to be destined to walk.  It certainly isn’t the path I wanted.  So many times I have just wished that I could lock into a relationship, a job, a life and just live there.  Forever.  But that is not the road I tread.  I admire those that live that life.  Steady. Disciplined.  Clear.  But I know it isn’t my path.  And as much as that life is right for them, this one I am over here living, is the one that is right for me.

I feel very Phoenix like currently.  Having just had a great deal of my life burned down, now comes the task of rising from the ashes.  And while the Phoenix makes it look easy, as a person, it feels exceptionally hard and dirty and unfun.

But we rise because the alternative is to mire in the muck.  To settle into something that is not meant for us.  We must grow or go...and so I grow because the alternative is something I have seen others do, and I do not like their results.

Trusting yourself is not easy.  There are many doubts and people who will tell you differently.  But for me, I guess, I always seem to know what my own true north is, and I have either an absolutely reckless commitment to it or, perhaps, an unwitting dedication to moving forward in the direction that feels right for me, no matter what you say...

Growth is always painful and often hard.  But who we become when we are willing to move into the void just created and find our center amidst the chaos and confusion allows us to embrace the process and trust ourselves and God one more time.  I believe I have the skills and experience to move through this time of transition.  And those skills I lack, shall be developed, honed even, during this aftermath.

Again, still...