Trusting Life

During a meditation some time ago, I sat with a whirlwind of pressures, projects, responsibilities and unsolved problems spinning madly around me. I searched for a still center in the midst of it all. Some days I can find that still center; other days the best I can do is get the whirling to slow down a little.

That day something disturbing happened. The whirling actually sped up: How can I get it all done? What should I do first? What if it doesn't work out? What do I really want to do? What's the point of it all anyway?

The more I fought this vortex, the faster it whirled. I felt my mind spinning out of control, an old feeling of panic invading my body. Then suddenly the whole vortex flew apart and I sat within a vast and silent nothingness.

I saw that my own mind had created this vortex and that it was fueled by a deep anxiety, the fear that something could go tragically, fatally wrong with my life at any moment. A misstep, a wrong decision, an accident, a failure, a misfortune, and I might fall into that dark and bottomless pit from which there is no return. There's a part of me that walks through life as if the path is strewn with land mines just waiting to explode.

I let myself feel my Sacred Anxiety about the existential truth that life is fragile, death is real, and any moment could be my last. The truth is that something can go wrong at any moment. Job loss, business failure, cancer diagnosis, loss of love, the possibilities are endless -- and real. The even-more-relevant truth is that plenty of things had already gone wrong in my life: a difficult childhood, a life-threatening illness, a divorce, career struggles, etc.

Still, there was something about this belief that something could go wrong with my life that felt untrue, despite the evidence.

As I sat there in the silence, I felt a subtle energy moving in my body and I was compelled to devote my full attention to it. This brought a calmness, a strange peace, a sense of connection that was mysterious yet soothing. Sitting very still, breathing quietly, I realized it was Divine Energy moving in me.

"I am in you all the time," a Voice said in a quiet, caring voice that came from an unfathomable depth of confidence and power.

"In this world everything is constantly changing. At this moment some people are experiencing success and others failure. Some are recovering from illness and others are falling ill. Some are finding love and others are losing it. This is the way of the world, that things are always being created and always being destroyed. This is part of the divine plan, for without destruction there can be no new creation, without pain no growth.

"You suffer anxiety because you believe that 'something is going wrong' whenever events occur that are not to your liking or that do not accord with how you think things should be. Nothing is going wrong. You just have a hard time accepting that you, you yourself, are also part of this cycle. When you judge the universe as wrong or unfair, you become fearful and angry and you separate yourself from me."

With an amused tone this Divine Voice added, "You then turn around and accuse me of abandoning you! Having cast away my love and protection, you begin to erect elaborate defenses of your own devising and live in constant fear. The soul's journey requires no special skills or abilities, only your willingness to dismantle your defenses and trust life unconditionally. I am with you always. You are safe, even in death."

I listened and was comforted, but my inner skeptic still harbored doubts that there was a God who personally cared about me and was mindful of my personal existence. Yet I had a sense that this gentle voice was telling the truth. The Divine Mind is indeed so wondrous that it is conscious of everything and everyone in this universe.

When we look at life through anxious eyes and judgmental thoughts, we live in fear that something can go wrong. It is not life that needs correcting but ourselves. We live in a universe of divine design in which success and failure, pleasure and pain, even life and death are all part of a universe working right.

My old habits of making things wrong obscure the beauty of this loving universe and can turn heaven into hell. Knowing that nothing can ever go wrong freed me to love that day, to see more clearly, to do the next thing that needed to be done and to recapture the feeling of joy and excitement that comes from living life as a glorious adventure. Each day we are being guided expertly and lovingly in ways we cannot always fully understand or appreciate.

This is part of a profound mystery far beyond my understanding. What I do know is that you and I are safe at all times. There are no minefields and no bottomless holes. If we explode we explode into God. If we fall, we fall into God.

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