A Trust Fall

If you could tell your 16-year-old self one thing, what would that be?

I was asked this question recently and immediately laughed. I envisioned a long list of life lessons I wish I would have understood and embodied back then. But the question wasn’t asking for an exhaustive list. It asked for only one.

I pondered and evaded the question, buying time to determine the perfect answer. I mean, a lot was at stake here. My imagination devoured this question, and I began to worry if I could ever choose the right answer. It felt almost like being asked “If you had three wishes, what would they be (and ixnay on the asking for more wishes)?” At least with the wishes question there was room for a mistake, or even two.

As I ran through all of my biggest life lessons and what I learned, some kept rising to the top. Slow down. Believe in yourself. Love and accept yourself. Know that you are enough. Listen to your body. Slow down. Oh, I already said that. Well, that’s a big one for me. And then I realized a theme.

Trust.

To quote from one of my favorite movies—The Princess Bride, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

Most of us know that technique called a trust fall. It’s where one person closes their eyes and falls back, trusting that the person behind them will catch them. Imagine that you are about to do a trust fall, and yet, before you started, you never saw or heard the person behind you. In fact, you are not even sure if there is someone behind you! A little scary at first, right? But that’s the level of trust I am talking about. And the trust is directed toward yourself.

At one point along my healing journey, I was told by my cardiologist that I needed to have a heart procedure. My heart rate was racing so fast that the character Dash from the movie The Incredibles would have been a little envious. I held off doing the procedure for a number of years. I was afraid, and rightfully so. I didn’t trust.

I tried a wide range and number of modalities to heal my heart first. In some cases, holding off on surgery when there may be a better alternative can be a terrific approach, since there is not much worse than getting an unnecessary surgery (I’ve had a few, and I wouldn’t recommend them, definitely a one-star rating on Yelp kind of thing).

But over time, nothing helped my heart, and it became weaker and the beat more frenetic. The problem got so intense that I kept getting rides by handsome paramedics to this over-crowded, loud, and quite expensive place called the cardiac unit. Not exactly the life I wanted to be living.

After seeking many expert medical opinions, it was unanimous that my heart could no longer handle its excessive thumping and that the procedure was truly my only hope (Oh, and you too, Obi-Wan Kenobi). During that week leading up to this procedure I did a lot of contemplating. Although the doctors recommended that I have the procedure, in my particular case they said they wouldn’t know for certain if I needed the procedure until they were conducting it. How’s that for ambiguity? This is where the trust fall came in. Actually, it felt more like a trust drop into a gigantic abyss.

The funniest thing happened the night before the procedure. I realized I had a choice of what state of mind I was going to be in before the procedure: terrified or trusting. I chose the latter, which was a pivotal point in my life. Instead of being nervous the night before the procedure, I slept soundly, so much so that I slept through my alarm and arrived late for my appointment. I laughed on the ride there, thinking, they can’t exactly start without me, so I trusted again that it would all go well. And it did.

This type of profound trust is not blind. Trust needs to be built on careful self-reflection. Knowing when to trust something is all about connecting with your inner wisdom, that calm sense within your heart that resonates and gives you a sense of peace. Developing trust in yourself and your intuitive knowing can take some practice. But it’s so worth it.

So that’s what I would tell my younger me. Trust yourself. Trust you are amazing. Trust that you are worthy of love. Trust that you are enough. Trust that you have everything within you that you need. Trust and listen to your body. And yes, please, trust that if you slow down, you will have all the time you need to do everything you need. And trust that moving slow is a sign of strength, and deliberate purpose. Of poise and grace and presence. And trust in the infinite wisdom of Bob Marley, that “every little thing is going to be alright.”

So, younger me, please, trust.

Now, what would you tell your 16-year-old you? Whatever it is, I hope you trust that it is the perfect answer for you.

With much love,