Love, Freedom & Trust

Just like love is only love if it is unconditional, trust is only trust if it is unconditional. It cannot be tied to a specific outcome, or else it is not trust. I cannot say to the Universe: “If you truly love me, I trust you will make me a millionaire, make this or that person fall in love with me, bring me a baby, get me that job, heal my illness…” and then feel betrayed or like I failed in “manifestation”, if the Universe does not deliver. It is like saying: “I trust you, but only if you do what I ask you to. If you do not do what I want, I do not trust you and your love anymore.” This is not trust. Trust per definition implies freedom. If trust is tied to a specific outcome, a condition, it is used in a manipulative way and deemed to be “betrayed” sooner or later.

Unconditional trust is trust in the process, not the outcome. It is trust in the content, not the form. For example, I can and I do trust that I am always loved and protected; that I am “worthy”; that there will always be “enough” for me; that I will get what I need (not necessarily what I want) when I need it; that everything happens for a reason and is always in my best interest somehow, even if I do not understand it; that what is meant to be will be, no matter how little effort I put; and what is not meant to be will not be, no matter how hard I try. I can trust my intelligence, both mental and emotional; my awareness, my intuition. 

Unconditional trust is anchored deeply in unconditional love. Feeling profoundly loved even when confronted with difficult situations on the surface. Finding the treasure in seemingly negative events. Looking beyond contrast and dropping stories of good and bad. Unconditional love implies unconditional freedom. In fact, love, freedom and trust go hand in hand.

If I love, I want the one I love to be totally free. If my love implies limiting their freedom, it is not love. If someone is totally free, that again means that they do not have to comply with any of MY ideas of right or wrong. Their only responsibility is to make sure that they are so free on the inside, that they can totally align with what is true for THEM – the inner truth of their mind, of their heart and of their belly (womb). And the exact same is true for me, too. I can help shape their truth by offering my point of view (if asked for it), but ultimately they have to make their choices. This is where trust comes in. Even if their choices go against my understanding, even if I truly know they are making the wrong choice for themselves (and honestly, we can never really know that, and often actually project our own wants on them), even if I know that their choice will cause them a lot of pain, I have to trust the higher wisdom of their souls to make that choice. I have to trust that the choice they make is what will allow them to learn the lessons they have to learn in order to grow and get where they need to get. Even or especially if it implies pain. 

When I was at the heights of my eating disorder my mother obviously saw that I was destroying myself, that I was causing myself a lot of pain, and that this was not a “good” choice for me. She tried to “help” me by talking to me, yelling at me, begging me, forcing me… to no avail other than to create a lot of additional stress and distance between us, because at this point in time my eating disorder was serving me big way. It served me to survive a time of tremendous uncertainty and to learn important lessons that would shape the further course of my life forever. In fact, I would not be doing what I am doing today without having gone through it. It was the higher wisdom of my soul taking me so far down, that eventually I could not close my eyes anymore before the fact that I had to change course completely to prevent major damage to my system. I was intelligent enough to not want to kill myself nor to end up infertile, even if on the surface it seemed that this was exactly what I was trying to do. But I needed to get to that point of realization myself. And once I was ready to choose healing, I did it without anybody needing to ask me to. The begging and forcing from the outside only communicated that they doubted my inner intelligence and capacity to take care of myself. Had they signaled me that they completely trusted me, even if I did not give them any “evidence” to do so, since on the surface I was truly acting irresponsibly, I might have lived up to that expectation easier, who knows. It is a known fact that students perform better if they know the teacher trusts in their abilities and challenges them to realize all their potential, and that they underperform if they feel that nobody believes in them anyways, that they are labeled “stupid”.

My point is that we have to TRUST in the intelligence of the other person to make the choices that serve them most at this point in time from a soul growth perspective. At the same time, we have to trust that their choice is somehow also the choice that most serves US on our soul growth path, even if it does not make sense to us at this moment. Seeing me go through my eating disorder without being able to “save” me, taught my mother important lessons, too. Lessons that SHE had to learn. We cannot say to another person: “If you love me, I trust you will do xyz for me.” or “I trust you, but only if you do what I ask you to do, what I think is right for you.” If we love and trust the other, we love and trust them, incl. their “mistakes” and even if they seem to “betray” us. This seems like a paradox, but it is not. It is just the difference between conditional and unconditional (free) trust, and only the latter deserves to actually be called trust – just like only unconditional (free) love deserves to be called Love.

I had to go through a major lesson in unconditional trust when I found myself pregnant again after a traumatic miscarriage. Even though I was scared to also lose that second pregnancy, I tried to trust in the process rather than the outcome. Had I tied my trust to the survival of this baby, I would have felt very betrayed, resentful, bitter, … when I indeed ended up losing it as well. It would have only reinforced the belief that for some reason Life wants to punish me and cause me pain. It would have made me close my heart to protect me from further pain and attack. But I already knew that Life did not mean to punish me, that it was all fueled by Love. So instead, I took the opportunity to train my unconditional trust muscle. To untie my trust from the survival of the baby. To trust that even if I lost it, this would be somehow in my best interest, even if it did make no sense to me at all, since I had not even asked for that second pregnancy to come. And because I trusted so deeply, I was able to go through the process of this second miscarriage still feeling loved. I was able to receive the deep healing it unexpectedly provided for the first loss. I was able to find deep peace with it all just a week after it happened. I kept my heart open and was thus able to see and to receive all the gifts that Life had to offer me, gifts for which there would have been no space nor time had I still been pregnant. The more time passed, the clearer the divine harmony and beauty of it all became. And the more my trust got reinforced.

Since then I have been tested again and again, and I have slipped back out of trust many, many times. And once I do, I suffer. But each time I get back into it, quicker and quicker, and I stay in it longer and longer. By now I completely trust my ability to always find my way back to it eventually – and when I slip, I trust that this, too, is necessary and good for some reason. My most recent slip for example taught me that it is not just Life I have to trust unconditionally, but also people. That was a major epiphany, one that will change EVERYTHING, and so it was worth the discomfort of slipping.

I am free and I trust my soul’s wisdom. You are free and I trust your soul’s wisdom. Trust can never be betrayed, because it is not tied to a specific outcome. Love, Freedom and Trust go hand in hand and are only real if unconditional.