after confusing my brain with shiva nata yesterday, i asked myself some questions. i often ask, “what am i wrong about?” (the answer is usually some variation of: “pretty much everything.”) this time, i asked myself, “what is true?” this was my answer.

you matter.

you are worthy.

the way to peace is through peace.

love is the answer.

do you know that as of today, atlas has been with me for eight years? eight years! i cannot believe it.

in some ways, it feels like he's always been here. in other ways, it feels like i've hardly had any time with him and need at least eight more years. (at least.)

i was thinking about atlas and nature the other day and i realized that they elicit similar feelings in me.

there are moments when i look at atlas and i feel so much love and gratitude and joy that i can hardly stand it. my entire body wells up with feeling. he is full of sweetness and love and joy and a zest for life and he has been one of my greatest teachers. i cannot believe how lucky i am to have him in my life.

there are moments when i am in nature (particularly in the forest or by the ocean or when i see a bluebird) and i am so overcome by love and joy and beauty and wonder that i can hardly stand it. my entire body wells up with feeling. the best way i can describe it is to say that it feels like my soul is singing. i cannot believe how beautiful the world is and how lucky i am to be living in it.

so today, i will take atlas for a run on our favorite trail in the woods, and i will offer up a prayer of thanks for this moment, this puppy, this life. i wouldn't trade him (or it) for anything.

{my attempt to capture 52 photos that represent trust – my word for 2011}.

today, in search of a thread to share in my musings on trust, i pull from my journal.

what if i were worthy?

huh. that would be a game-changer. the trouble is that it's hard to just think yourself worthy after years of hearing, learning, thinking, believing that you are not.

if i believed in miracles, i would believe that i could just flip a switch and transform this pattern. except even that is scary because it seems to make all the years of suffering unnecessary.

and yet, maybe everything happens the way it does in order to bring us to this moment.

everything certainly does happen the way it does in order to bring us to this moment. that is the truth of it. (the question is whether there is a plan or a point or a method to the madness. maybe it doesn't really matter – unless it brings me comfort.)

and so, this is where i am – still sitting with the question.

what if i am worthy?

i draw in my breath. the answer, it seems, could change everything.

there is a practice i find very useful in working with my fears, when i remember to do it. it’s from the book feeding your demons by tsultrim allione.

atlas was having health troubles over the weekend – it is likely that he is developing an intolerance to the one food he can eat – so i was feeling very sad and discouraged. during my process of working with my sadness and discouragement, i remembered the practice, and felt strangely moved to share the result.

deep breath.

i ask to see the fear of losing atlas.

i see a tall stick figure. it’s a bird with beady eyes and a giant beak. it might have wings but it is really hard to tell, possibly because the wings are just sticks dragging from the shoulders. the image looks awfully familiar. (now, as I write this, i think i know what it is. it looks like my memory of the drawing of that creature in the last book in the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe series – that creature that comes into the barn where they keep the donkey that they’re pretending is a god and picks up the people and carries them away.)

i ask the fear what it wants, what it needs, and how it would feel if it got what it needed.

i change places. as the fear, i answer my questions.

i want to grab atlas and squeeze him tighter and tighter and never let him go. i want to keep him with me forever. i want to always be as happy as i was in that moment when lisa opened the door and i saw his happy face through the screen door and fell in love.

i need you to treat yourself with love and kindness. i need you to know that you are worthy of both, to know that you are worthy no matter what, to realize your inherent value. i am afraid that without something external that reminds you that you are loved no matter what, you will forget, and things will go back to the way they were before. i am afraid that you won’t remember any of this without atlas here to remind you.

if i get what i need, i will feel safety and relief.

i change places.

i ask to transform myself into safety and relief. i see myself whooshing – like a genie going into a bottle – into a tall coke glass full of liquid with a bendable straw in it.

the fear drinks the liquid. (surprisingly, it has no trouble sipping from a straw with its beak.)

as it drinks, it begins to fill with color. by the time the glass is empty, the fear has transformed into a beautiful iridescent blue peacock.

i ask the peacock how it can help me.

i change places. as the peacock, i answer my questions.

i am here to help you remember your inherent beauty and radiance and worth and value. i am here to help you remember that everything you need is inside you. it lives in your heart. you are learning to access it. atlas is in your heart, and he will live there forever. you no longer need something external to remind you that you are worthy.

i can help you remember this by allowing your eye to catch the sparkle of sunlight on the wet grasses and flowers. when you see that sparkle, you will remember my message.

if you need to access me, put your hand on your heart and follow the sunshine. there is sunshine every day. you are learning to find it.

i change places and sit with all of this.

my computer is gone right now. it is at the apple store, where they are transferring all the files over to my new computer. hopefully they will both be home later today or tomorrow.

yes, i am finally upgrading my beloved eight-year-old imac. i have been procrastinating on this for well over a year and a half, and slowly working through the things that were in the way of me upgrading.

on monday, i was finally ready. and then i cried while i was driving to the apple store.

it turns out there was another reason i was procrastinating.

i got my computer the same year i got atlas. atlas doesn't look like he's eight, and i don't feel any older myself, so it is easy for me to forget that eight years have indeed passed. the decision to say goodbye to my computer reminded me.

so, i gave myself a mental hug, told myself that it was perfectly and completely ok that i might feel sad upon being reminded that the puppy i adore is getting older, and let myself be sad. now, i am enjoying his company while he is here – and soon, i will enjoy my new computer.

when i am completely grounded in myself and in my truth, i am never alone.

i believe in something bigger than all of us. the name i use depends on the day.

i believe in angels. i say thank you to them every night and sometimes i ask them for a sign to let me know they're near.

i believe in faeries. i build them summer cottages in the woods and ask them to keep the wasps away from atlas.

i believe that trees have spirits. (well, i believe that everything has a spirit.) once, when i said hello to a tree, i heard it say hello back in a deep, kind voice. it was so amazing that it brought me to tears.

i tell the trees and the flowers and the weeds how beautiful they are.

i say hello to the squirrels and the bees and the blue jays that stop by my window.

i talk to spiders and ladybugs and butterflies and dragonflies.

once, i even called a slug "sweetie", as in, "sweetie, you are the most gigantic slug in all the world!" (it came out unconsciously, which made me think that i use the term a bit too often.)

i am finding my way to my own truth.

the point is not to try to convince you that angels or faeries exist or that trees talk. i feel very strongly that we all have our own truth and i have no wish to try to convince anyone out of their truth and into mine.

the point is not even that angels or faeries exist or that trees talk. it's entirely possible that they don't.

the point is that i want to choose what to believe in.

i choose to believe in these things because the me who believes in them is different than the me who doesn't believe in them.

the me who believes in faeries and angels and talking trees is open to magic and mystery and possibility and wonder. she lives in a world where anything is possible and where things can happen in the blink of an eye. she remembers the inherent value in everyone and everything. she sees the goodness in everyone around her. she makes choices that are based on hope and faith. she makes choices that are based on the kind of world she wants to live in – a world full of peace and joy and kindness and love.

living in that world is important to me. the things i choose to believe remind me of that world. they help me to access the wiser part of me, the part of me who can rise above my fears and make those choices.

this isn't to say that i am always the me who believes in angels and faeries and talking trees; however, even in my most doubtful moments, i believe in the possibility of all of them.

{my attempt to capture 52 photos that represent trust – my word for 2011}

i had an epiphany about surrender today that seemed perfectly suited for my trust project. since i was hiking at the time, i recorded it as a voice memo on my iphone so i would remember to write it down.

instead, i'm trying something new. listening to the recording made me laugh, so i thought i'd let you laugh along with me. fingers crossed this works!

Surrender

p.s. did you see the ladybug in the photo?

at the moment, i am somewhat obsessed with energy anatomy by caroline myss. (i think i already mentioned this.) i have listened to it at least three times and am pretty sure i'm not done yet.

you know how sometimes a book (or a quote or a song or a person or ..) will enter your life in what feels like supremely perfect timing? this feels like that.

here is some of what really struck me.

the idea that choosing to invest your energy into group perceptions is a way of trying to control the rate at which change happens in your life.

this hit me like a ton of bricks. of course this is what frightens me. i've always liked the idea of surrendering completely (you know, the whole "here i am, do with me as you will" thing) but it totally freaks me out. i like my life. i like thinking that i have control over it. what if it changes in a way that i can't even imagine right now. it doesn't matter if the change is good or bad, it still scares me.

the idea that choosing to invest your energy into group perceptions is essentially giving that group a vote in your life.

again, of course! this is exactly what i'm doing! i'm doing this every single time i think, "but what would they think?" i'm doing it for every single they. sometimes the they is clearly defined, sometimes it's a very fuzzy concept. when i look at it from this perspective, it really hits home. i don't want any of those theys to have a vote and here i am giving them one – and it's often the deciding vote.

the idea that it's not the choices that are important, it's the motivation behind the choice.

this has got me thinking about all my choices and whether they're based on fear or faith. surprisingly, it works even for seemingly small ones.

sitting at the computer – accompanied by mindless internet wandering – is often based on fear. i'm scared that i can't trust what i really want to do in that moment. i'm scared of even listening to what i really want to do in that moment. i want someone else to tell me the right thing to do that will make everything work out perfectly until the end of time. i'm afraid that if i'm not at the computer, i'm not working, and then i am somehow being a drain on society. the list goes on and on.

i could go on and on, but i will spare you. it has clearly got me thinking though. (you know, because i don't do nearly enough thinking as it is. hee.)

i am now the happy owner of an iphone (which i adore and have named cleo, after cleopatra) so i've been thinking a lot about usability.

a year or two after i started working, i read a book called the inmates are running the asylum. the author explained that high-tech products are driving us crazy because they are designed by engineers who design products for users who are just like them; they don't realize how hard the products are to use for the average user. the book was fascinating. the behaviors familiar. and in it, i found my passion.

that passion drove me for many years. my eventual goal was to get into a group that focused on the user, even though i didn't have one of the typical degrees. i read and learned about usability and user-centered design. i learned how to run usability tests. i worked even longer hours so i could volunteer to do fun side projects related to usability for the products i worked on. i conducted informational interviews with people who had related jobs so i could learn what else to learn. i even wrote an essay – purely for fun – about how i had found the perfect thing for me and how it connected all my interests and how lucky i felt to have found my passion so early.

and then that passion faded. right about the time i discovered reiki.

when i quit my job to be a reiki person, a part of me was so very confused (as, no doubt, were many people i worked with). how could i work so hard for so long for something that i thought was my dream only to abandon it for something else. something that, truth be told, didn't seem to have the same level of passion behind it. (well, this may or may not be true. i think passion has many forms.) what if that really was my dream and now i was even further away from it.

after months of angst and confusion, i found my way to the truth.

the reason i care so much about how things work is because our experience with devices or applications or web pages is often full of frustration, pain, hopelessness, powerlessness. we feel like we must not be smart enough. we feel like we can't be trusted to make the right decisions. i've been there. we've all been there. i wanted to help make those experiences better.

the essence of user-centered design and usability is the interaction – the relationship – between the user and the thing they're using, whether it's a device or an application or a web page. when that relationship works, it is full of qualities like trust and sovereignty and permission and ease and safety and support and beauty and hope.

i still care about all of that. only in learning to listen to myself, i realized how very much i care about the interactions – the relationship – we have with our own self, our own body, our own life.

it turns out that i didn't lose my passion. it was there all along, waiting for me to realize it. oh, i suppose it's possible that someday i might decide that i want to help make applications that work. for now, i find it comforting to know that the thing i cared so much about is still the thing i care so much about. it just changed form a little.

flexibility came up in a bodytalk session earlier this month. as i thought about flexibility, i suddenly knew why i have trouble with it.

when i think about flexibility, i think about changing directions. if i were to change directions, it feels like i would be saying (admitting) that what i was doing before didn't work.

it's hard for me to do that. (translation: mostly, i can't. yet.)

i have to be the right thing. i have to do the right thing. i have to be and do perfectly. if (or when) i don't, i run the risk of experiencing shame, guilt, judgment, the loss of love & approval. i can't think of anything worse.

of course, it's impossible to be and do everything (or anything) perfectly, but that doesn't really matter. i am still convinced it's necessary. i am still convinced that when i do experience shame (or guilt or judgment or the loss of love & approval), it wouldn't have happened if i were only perfect or could do things perfectly.

when i realized this, it struck me as interesting that i've been able to try so many things related to health & wellness, an area in which i am most certainly a tryer-of-things.

do you know why i can?

it's because i don't tell people. or i pass it off as a joke – something that i'm doing for fun, something that doesn't mean anything. or i quit easily and early – i don't see anything through. that way, no one will ever know that it mattered, and the only one who will know that i failed is me. (me knowing is bad enough, but it's still better than having other people know.)

this pattern is also why i wound up with – in one example – a degree in computer science. i realized after i started that it wasn't the right thing, but i didn't know what that right thing was so i couldn't do anything.

if i am going to change directions, i can only change to the most perfect thing. the thing that is so absolutely perfect in every way that no one will be able to see that i failed at the other thing because they will be blinded by the sheer perfection of the new thing. in other words, i can only change to a thing so perfect that it doesn't even exist.

goodness. it amazes me that i was able to quit my job at all. and it also explains why i like to say that "i quit my job to try out self-employment".

ah, perfectionism, you harsh mistress. i keep finding you buried deeper and deeper and deeper.