This is a phrase that sticks to me every single time I come to record for Tales & Tea or stand up to tell in Ceremony, trust the story, trust where it wants to take me, trust that it knows better than me, trust that the message, the medicine, the teachings it is wanting to share through me in that moment, at that time is exactly right. That if I forget something, or the story goes in a completely different direction to what it is meant to or normally does that this is exactly right too.
I don’t find it easy!
Or rather my body does, but my mind sometimes lags behind a bit.
I feel it when I speak the words, that I am a part of something other, bigger, greater than just me telling a story to a room of people, or curled in my basement recording something for people to listen to, I know not how or when.
But then the mind pipes up again - greater than you just telling a story, who do you think you are missy?!
It is immediately replaced by that whisper, that calm and ancient and, today anyway, decidedly feminine voice: trust the story.
I don’t need to know what it means, or what flows through me, or if it’s right or if it’s wrong, or if it’s too short or if it’s too long or if any one or thing other than the flower on the altar listens to it.
All I need to do is trust the story.
Trust.
It’s such an awkward, loaded concept to hold.
What does it mean to trust something?
I sort of know what it is to trust someone, to trust that what they say is what they actually mean, to trust their sincerity, their honesty, to trust that their thoughts, their words, their actions are aligned.
But how do you trust something you can’t touch?
And when I am asked to put my trust in it what does it look like, what is it I am trusting?
You know, the more I type that word, the less I understand what it means.
Okay, I did it, I googled the word, because you know, shouldn’t this kind of enquiry always have a definition found on the internet?
I’m not sure if it helps - firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.
But there is more!
It offered up some interesting alternative questions:
What is the true meaning of trust?
yourdictionary.com answers this as basically having a belief in something like the sun will shine again every day.
cheatsheet.com offers up answers on how to trust -
Stay present.
Staying present is vital in overcoming your trust issues.
Learn to forgive. Forgiveness is key to trusting again.
Don't repeat the same mistakes. Don't keep doing the same thing over and over in your relationships and expect different results.
Know what you want.
Let go of fear.
(I’m just leaving that there, I think the more I read it the more I take issue with it, what do you think?)
This is my favourite though, I’d never even known there was such a thing!
Google asked “What does trust mean in texting?”
acronymfinder.com replied Totally Relying Upon Spiritual Truth.
Admittedly we could be here for hours picking apart every single word, what is truth has perplexed scholars for centuries and the meaning of spiritual…
So, let’s circle back to the beginning, where we started from and the mantra of trust the story. There is more to it than simply calming stage fright nerves I am sure. Because when I am able to let my worried mind step aside I am left with a sense of being in the company of exactly that, spiritual truths wrapped up in fairytales. As much as I really really want to, I don’t need to understand how that works, not right now anyway, in a few years, well, shrug of shoulders. Right now I just need to stay in this place of learning to trust. Trust that even though the story is being told in the middle of a city that it absolutely has to be a story about the Ocean. Trust that even though a story is only 2 minutes long, there is someone who really needs to hear it next Tuesday morning. Trust that by speaking it out loud I am tapping into an ancient coding we have forgotten, that the reason I feel like my heart swell as if it has received a blessing of recognition is because it has received a blessing of recognition, that stories are more than simply pretty distractions but a way for the old Heart Language we used to know so well to be able to circumvent the sharp, uncompromising trappings of the mind.
At some point, there will perhaps need to be a rambling on Archetypes, but not today, let’s just languish a little longer in the felt sense rather than the rational understanding of it all, for now all we need to do is trust the story, trust that perhaps it comes from something bigger than anything our frail human selves can fully understand, that it speaks to us through myth and tale and story, that this is a special language of the universe created just so it can communicate with us, which also means our soul communicating with ourselves too.
