In which I reflect on the unpredictability of life and the value of so-called ‘lifetime guarantees’.
I’m dipping my toes in the waters of something new right now. It looks good. It’s pretty enticing, pretty promising; it could even be very bloody exciting. Do you see my English-Girl-Reserve at work right now? But whichever way I hold it to inspect it, it seems like it’s got to be a good thing for me. It smells good, it tastes good, it feels good. I have no complaints with what I’ve seen so far. So why am I holding back a little, instead of leaping boldly forward, both-feet-in?
Those lessons in trust just keep on coming
I might have mentioned Trust before, here and here and probably in other places too. But these lessons just keep on coming for me. When someone says, “Trust me, I won’t let you down,” I love the idea of letting go, of going with the flow for a while. As if some sort of universal transaction takes place in which I can hand over a little bit of the responsibility I was carrying to the person I’m putting my trust upon. But how easy do we find it to do just that?
Look, I’ve already admitted to being a Control Freak, so the answer for me is fairly obvious. I’m fiercely independent and acutely aware of the responsibilites I’m bearing for the choices I make and have made in my life as a single parent. But I have the deepest suspicion that refusing to surrender to Trust on a grander scale is going to deprive me of something wonderful and magical that is part of our natural birthright in life.
You can’t half-trust someone
You can’t trust someone just a little bit. You can’t be trusting and then snatch it back on an off-and-on basis. Trust demands of itself 100%. It’s not wishy-washy or whimsical. It’s either there or it’s not. Any small absence of trust becomes doubt and suspicion, and once you let that in, you’re going to have to run with the energy of it for some time.
And here’s another thought {this one came to me over my giant soya amaretto latte in Nero’s this morning, so you know it’s gonna be good}~Trust isn’t something you can give to someone else. You can’t earn it or trade it or exchange it with others, because it only exists in your own heart.
When you make a choice to drop into the space of Trust, about a person or a product or a service, you are giving the gift of the experience to yourself. You are choosing to open your heart to whatever the experience is going to provide. It might be a gamble, it might be a risk. But you’re either in or out, and, as they say, you’ve got to be in it to win it.
Once again, I’m going to blame the Scientific Paradigm
I recently joined in a discussion on Mark Silver’s blog about the importance of providing proof for your customers so that they feel they can trust you. You can read my comment there if you feel inclined. Some of my thoughts on the matter have developed and changed a bit since then {you’ll notice that I did talk about trusting someone ‘half-way’, and less than 100%} but it brought me to really consider the subject of proof, which essentially comes from the scientific paradigm that’s been dominating our culture for the last 400 years or so.
In school I learned to develop a hypothesis and then an experiment to test it. A good experiment would prove your hypothesis and allow you to declare, with full confidence and righteousness that potatoes grow on Mars, or whatever. Then at college, I learned to apply scientific tests to the outcome of my results to see how reliable my findings were, and again to further declare something ‘wholly trustworthy’ about the nature of reproduction in fruit flies, or the likeliest reasons for the formation of human relationships and their predictable life-expectancy.
Yuck. Is it any wonder that academia turned me off?
At some point you need to learn to ride the bike without the stabilizers
How can you measure and predict the magic and joy of life experience, and furthermore, why would you even want to? Life doesn’t come with a guarantee. If you choose to live it fully, you’re going to fall off your bike a few times and get scratched and bruised. Something terrible might even happen. Life is a roulette wheel; the Wheel of Fortune. You will rise and you will fall. Fact. Now get over it.
But those scratches and scars become the lines along which a wonderful story is formed. The story of you. It’s unique and hopefully colourful. Not boring and dull and safe. Who’s going to want to read a story like that?
My point, on Mark’s blog, was about taking a leap when making a choice about buying a product or service, and trusting your instincts completely. I believe the more you do this, the more you finely hone your own wisdom-skills. You’re going to start to recognise the signs of a company you can trust, or a therapist or a web designer or even the right hairdresser, the right plumber. But it’s more about a feeling of value-match and authenticity than the testimonials they can provide about previous satisfied customers.
{I remember having an aha! moment about this when I read Tara’s post about finding a dentist that matched her authentic needs and values here}
Obviously, some of this feeling is likely to come from how you respond to their marketing materials. If they have a website or blog, fantastic! You can peer straight in and see how effective or savvy they are. Sensible control freaks (like me) will take a bit of time to suss someone out and see how they operate, but at some point, nonetheless, you’re going to have to take the plunge and opt in or opt out.
In business, Trust cuts both ways
Once I make a decision to opt in to a certain service, a course or a product, I try to embrace the experience fully. If I’m hedging around in doubt and discomfort, I don’t think I’m going to get all the benefits of what’s on offer. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? And whilst writing my comment to Mark, it dawned on me that I hold this value quite highly in my own interactions with potential clients for my teaching or coaching services. You might think I’m expecting too much of them. I’m the provider, after all, so surely it’s up to me to ensure the quality of the service they receive? Hmm. I’m willing to say it goes deeper than that.
I learned the hard way. When I started out as a therapist, doing Thai Massage and Reiki, I booked every client that phoned me for an appointment. I felt I couldn’t afford to turn anyone away. I was just grateful for clients. I loved giving people treatments that made them feel physically better and improved the quality of their lives. But then I had one or two client interactions that were not so welcome or easy to deal with, and I started to think about being more selective about the type of clients I agreed to treat.
Practicing discernment is an absolute must
I started to develop an instinct, from having an initial chat with an interested client, about whether they would benefit from what I had to offer. A lot of this came down to how much I could sense that they were really open and comfortable with the kind of service I was providing. I realized that out of all the enquiries you get, some of the people are going to be totally wrong for you (“No, Mr Smith, it’s not that kind of Thai Massage”), and some of the people are going to be right for you. Only you can learn to figure out what your Right Client looks or sounds like.
For me, it came back to the matter of proof and trust. With spiritual services, you can’t offer much tangible, visible proof. Some people would be willing to throw themselves in for the experience, happy to pay the value I’d placed on my services, and others would never feel confident or sure without a greater measure of proof available before they committed themselves. I decided to be more up front about this, and turn away potential clients that did not seem comfortable trusting me, or direct them to someone else that might be a better match for their needs and demands at that time.
There are no losers in the game of life
That’s the other thing about Trust. If you view it as the doorway to a wealth of varied and wonderful life experiences, you can’t ever lose. There have been times when the outcome of a trust-based decision hasn’t quite gone the way I’d hoped it would. Maybe I didn’t get the ‘product’ I thought I was ‘buying’ initially, like a lifelong relationship with Mr Right-Now, but I’ve always been able to come to value the quality of the gifts I’ve received from the ‘purchase/experience’ in the end.
Actually, I count myself as incredibly lucky, even blessed, because the things I’ve bought into in this life, based wholly on trust, have usually been the things that have brought me the most joy and magic and amazement. Like Rubin. Motherhood at 30, in the event of a relationship breakdown, was not an opportunity I was consciously looking for at that time. But the payoff has been great (and I mean that in terms of a measure of quantity as well as an expression of quality).
I know I’m still learning to embrace Trust more fully, but it starts with this acknowledgement here, and this reminder to myself today. Samantha, what have you got to lose, other than some more of your rough-hard edges and that old-fashioned English-Girl-Reserve? It only takes a little bit more of that wonderful gift called Courage to help you spread your wings and fly. You wouldn’t want to be stuck with being called a coward forever, now would you?
And just remember this:
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
Anais Nin
