Do You Trust Me?

Photograph by Bill Miles

How winter, Mother Earth and good friends help me stay aligned with my truest self because, the most important person you can trust is yourself

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March. She’s a complicated one. And here in the Catskills we never know what we are going to get. As the daylight stretches longer and the temperatures rise, there is hope that we are coming to the end of another dark winter. But the landscape is still covered with a shallow blanket of snow and patches of treacherous ice to remind us…she’s still here. Aaaah, the push/pull of March. Will she roar like a lion or saunter in like a lamb…If I’ve learned anything about her…it’ll likely be a combo of the two, kind of like the complexity of us all.

But she whispers to us to trust…trust that spring will come, trust that leaves and flowers will bloom, trust that we will feel warmth upon our bare shoulders and be able to dip our toes into river water again. Trust has been coming up a lot for me lately.

I recently asked a friend, “Do you trust me?”

“Only as much as you trust yourself,” she responded.

WOW. Those words cut to the core and made me think.

At first, I was taken aback and took it personally (as we tend to do). What did she mean by that? What were the hidden insinuations? What was she really trying to say? Yet, thinking about it afterwards, I realized this was a gift of beautiful truth.

I started contemplating this notion of trusting myself. Have I been trustworthy? Well, inner Lea responded:

Not exactly, when you ignored your gut…

when you wore yourself down…

when you sacrificed your wellbeing for someone else’s…

when you placed more attention onto the agendas of others…

when you didn’t create clear boundaries of protection…

when, you weren’t trusting yourself enough to listen to what you needed.

It’s so easy to do and we honestly do it in big ways and small all the time. We think we are making things easier in the moment, but in fact, it’s the opposite. We can only show up in our truth, if we express it and practice it...all the time.

It’s kind of like following the procedure on an airplane of putting on your own oxygen mask before trying to assist another. There is a good reason we do this. We can’t be of help to anyone if we first don’t save ourselves first.

I’m always being inspired and nudged and rerouted and shoved right out of my comfort zone by the people and environment around me — and I’m really grateful for that.

Comfort zones are definitely overrated! And as a mother to a teenager, a mother to a business and staff and one who desires to keep evolving into my highest self — I try to hear between the words and expand further within their meaning. And I know I am being supported to step into this version of ME because when I listen, life flows and I feel more playful, lighter and joyful.

I know winter can feel like it’s dragging along to some, but I believe it’s because we sometimes push against things instead of fall into their embrace. I secretly love her and I think it is exactly for that reason — I don’t try to resist her, instead I try to flow with her. I’ve been grateful to winter for the ability to rest, restore, ruminate before we all awaken again. I love her moons, skies, snowflakes, frost upon my window, cold brisk air and her tempo. Of course, this past year has looked unlike any other before, but it has also given us permission to slow the pace of our frantic lives. We are able to fall into cadence with Mother Earth — and what a beautiful thing that is.

I’ve been inspired much more than ever to walk in the woods, sometimes even at night in the pitch black led only by the glow of the moon on the path. BTW, if you’ve never done it, I highly recommend it. Your senses come alive. Everything looks different and you see so many new things. Besides, winter skies are glorious, full of stars on one night, poetic clouds on another. I’ve definitely forced myself outside on cold mornings when I would rather have stayed cuddled inside — but something called to me and I trusted it.

I’ve been learning how to trust myself more — to listen to my gut, to a tingle in my body, to my heart.

The more we unleash this within ourselves, the more we listen and the more we feel aligned with the world around us. And even when we feel ‘off’, we know we can trust our grounded selves to navigate it.

The more I trust myself, the more I let go of painful residue from old scripts and programming. I move forward with clarity and ease and refrain from looking backwards. My intuition is pushing me to keep going — to keep learning, expanding, evolving. And as I mentioned in my last newsletter about intuition, I’m even geeking out on the science behind it all. I love how we have scientific evidence to validate what we once called coincidence or woo woo. I’m paying attention to things, trying new things. I’ve even discovered that I’m a very good baker! You should try one of my cakes…or even my scones. When I just allowed myself to experiment, have fun, make mistakes, enjoy my kitchen and be imperfect — I know my love became one of the ingredients.

What could you try doing, if you allowed yourself to not be perfect?

We don’t discover these precious parts of ourselves if we keep ourselves so tightly wound up in our routines and rigid ways of thinking about ourselves.

I don’t know what’s next or where anything is actually going. However, I’m trusting that as I engage more deeply with myself, my community, the food on my plate, my furry friends and the planet — that I will feel life’s joy more abundantly.

But the truth is that trust isn’t a given…it is earned…and we have to show up for it — especially for ourselves.

Where have you not been trusting yourself? Do you need to put on your oxygen mask in some aspect of your life? This is your beautiful reminder and permission slip to do so. And when you do — as you engage differently with life, life will dance differently with you.

March on!

—Lea Haas, Owner, The Garden Café woodstock