Positive Energy Guide

Unexpressed feelings need to be defined and shared to establish durable and productive structures in relationships. ~Jeff Jawer

Practicing Trust is the third post of a series that supports understanding what it takes and howto develop trust in relationships. This post suggests behaviors that build trust, and lists key characteristics of trustworthy people.

Behaviors that build the ability to trust:

Learn to trust what is actual, not what you hope may be there. What we need to trust is OUR RESPONSE TO life, not that life will be a certain way.

Become reliable in caring for yourself. This greatly aids forming solid relationships. We trust ourselves when we are not willing to sell out our values or perception to try and get love or care from people we cannot trust.

Limit the WAYS you involve yourself with people to the extent that you trust them–or to your ability to manage your risks. If you can afford to be hurt or are not easily hurt you have more room to extend trust.
Stay alert to signals and sensations that tell you whether or not to trust. Keep your intuition at peace by listening to it and responding.

Sustain good communication. Clear up misunderstandings. Avoiding discomfort causes “emotional drift.” Emotional distance opens the door to situations that can compromise trust. Defining and sharing feelings builds intimacy and trust.

Maintain realistic expectations based on mutual agreements.

Practice discussing difficult topics “in a container of love.”

Make trust a priority–not as a demand but as something lovely and valuable that you craft over time.
Allow trust to grow naturally, without forcing it. Once you have it, take great care to repair damaged trust through communication.

Clearly define for yourself the particulars of your basic need for trust. This will be different depending on the type of relationship. For me basic trust in intimacy requires that the person is committed to truthfulness, does not cause pain intentionally, communicates their needs constructively, and can return to a caring frame of mind fairly quickly after an upset. Knowing what you are looking for makes it easier to trust yourself in relationships because you have a basis for evaluation.

Release relationships in which basic trust is not possible.

Remember that trust is a learned skill. Be compassionate with yourself in the process.

Enjoy trusting. Savor and accumulate this form of wealth.

Key Characteristics of Trustworthy People:

• Authentic
• Actions and words match
• Able to say “no” respectfully and “yes” dependably
• Keep agreements or renegotiate if necessary
• Able to admit it when they do not know something
• Able to be both flexible and reliable
• Show genuine feeling for you if they need to let you down
• Willing to make compromises but never compromise core principles or personal integrity
• Consistent ethics, positive values, or principles inform their behavior
• Willing and able to tell you things you do not like to hear–kindly
• Able to disagree without needing to argue, or to have friendly arguments that lead to increased understanding
• Let you know how they feel, where they stand, and how you stand with them
• Able to recognize, accept, and enjoy the differences between you

After considering others, be sure to turn the same list around on yourself.

Can you be up-front about what you do and do not trust in yourself and your friends? How and when do you intentionally build trust through communication?

“Trust one man with your money and another man with your wife.”
(Old Persian saying)

When you think about whether or not to trust, ask yourself, “Trust TO WHAT?” To return aborrowed book? To keep a confidence? These things are hard for some people and easy for others. To never hurt you, read your mind, and put your needs and interests ahead of their own? This is unrealistic.

Example: I have a friend who is unreliable about time. I trust her to keep me waiting and to inconvenience me. For this reason I do not set myself up by making time-dependent plans with her. We may take separate cars or meet at her place instead of mine. I make back-up plans. She is exceptional, creative and funny. I trust her sense of humor, her heart, and her loyalty.

An important distinction about trust is supported by this Far Side cartoon: Mr. Chicken is on the couch reading the newspaper. His wife has just rushed up to the door, breathless. She has a leash in her hand. The front door has just been slammed behind a large, panting dog. Mrs. Chicken says, “You raise a dog from a pup and what do you get!? A chicken killer!”

This cartoon is practically a parable. Healthy, adult trust takes into account the nature of the other. In wisdom we trust someone to act according to his or her character, history, and context.

Wanting to be liked can set you up for misplaced trust, especially if you have a friendly but vulnerable nature like Mrs. Chicken. Those who abuse trust are keenly attracted to a trusting heart. It’s their food.

If you want someone to hunger for you, go ahead and lay out absolute trust like bait. Don’t be surprised if the person you attract goes all werewolf on you down the line! Here is the antidote to holding out food that attracts people who will hurt you: Get clear about the difference between needy, compulsive hunger and genuine love. This will greatly increase your ability to trust yourself.

Trust takes time and experience. It is rarely possible to develop trust when someone is on“honeymoon behavior” to win your approval or get you to be with them. A big gap between on-display and everyday behaviors is a red flag. Real tasks that require complex decisions and have actual outcomes are essential for establishing trust. We do not get to know one another deeply by enjoying entertainment together.

Enjoy a gradual and extended courtship while you discover the deeper nature of friends and loved ones. Take notice of potential issues, but focus on what you CAN trust.

My life is graced with several rare gems who I can trust wholeheartedly. These wonderful people make good mirrors. They provide honest and loving feedback and help me to stay true to myself.

In Part 4 we explore HOW to develop trust in relationships and key characteristics of trustworthy people.

Who do YOU trust? How did you develop this trust?

A trusting nature is considered fetching; attractive. What makes trust so appealing? How do we increase trust without becoming too vulnerable?

Trust has several different faces. Healthy Trust: When we trust ourselves to effectively evaluate and respond to other people, being trusting reflects emotional health. We are able to allow others to take actions that displease or frustrate us without taking this personally. Genuine trust is attractive to people who are ready for healthy relationships. We telegraph confidence because we trust ourselves to resolve issues.

Unhealthy Trust: The face of wound-based trust is different. If we cannot trust ourselves to represent our needs and keep ourselves safe we tend to go into the either/or experience (see Part 1). We may seek to achieve or maintain relationship by extending blanket “trust.” When the alternative is distrust we may want to hold onto the “trust” and overlook indications that trust is warranted. Along with the need to be liked, approved of, wanted, or kept safe by another person, we might give away “trust” to try and make someone feel a particular way about us, or about his or her self.

Such efforts almost always backfire by causing us to distrust ourselves. Unhealthy trust is attractive to people who are not emotionally healthy. Excessive vulnerability advertises that it is safe to take advantage, care-take, or do both, according to the person’s nature.

This post series began with a comment by a friend about “placing love and trust in persons who have not earned it.” Her thinking is a good starting place. She is taking responsibility for learning, and recognizes that a process needs to occur for trust to develop. She has noticed that we need to carefully observe the way others treat us. Let’s take some involved concepts a step farther:

Words can be powerful. The word “earning” can introduce complications. Expecting someone to earn trust smacks of making them work for it while you hold trust ransom, like a prize for performance. Trustworthy sorts shouldn’t have to work hard to prove themselves to us. They can simply be themselves and allow us to observe who they are and what they do. We see them demonstrate behaviors that build trust. That is less about earning than about living through a variety of situations and seeing whether they respond with natural and consistent integrity.

My friend may not have fallen into this word trap, but I hear a lot of emotional-wound-talk to the effect that so-and-so had to EARN IT! This was past the point of no return for the relationships concerned.

Almost everyone wants to be trusted. Immediate, unqualified trust is tempting. We want to give it freely like love. We want to give it over completely and get the establishing-it-part beyond us so we can enjoy absolute trust and feel safe and all that good stuff. But life and people change from circumstance to circumstance. Even for highly intuitive people, real trust is built brick by brick.

Unconsidered trust is like living on credit–inflated. We can extend trust like a line of credit, and increase it as trust develops. If we extend trust way out ahead of actual, direct experience we make ourselves vulnerable. Yes, vulnerability IS essential to intimacy. Healthy vulnerability; openness. There is a difference between healthy vulnerability and leaving ourselves open to being used by ignoring signs and signals, substituting wishful thinking for clear observation. Hurt and disillusionment that follow inflated hopes are like penalties and fines for missing payments. What we need to pay is: Attention.

Sustainable, flexible, trust is full of possibility. It is a learned skill.

In Part 3 we’ll begin to look into specifics about Developing Trust.

What do YOU trust in yourself?
Can you trust yourself to negotiate honestly for your needs in your relationships?

Trust carries a positive energy that allows relationships to thrive and promotes growth in special ways that cannot occur without it. In this post series we will explore trust. Learning to discern the genuine energy and experience of trust from fear-based hopefulness makes a great foundation.

As ever, grafting a positive image or energy on top of a root twisted with issues is fast and easy. Real and lasting mastery come from learning to establish the genuine thing—in this case trust–starting at the root. Let’s take a look at real trust and the dynamics that compromise it.

This post series builds on the previous “Inner Work” and “Betrayal” series. If you have trust issues or are serious about working on yourself, find these series by scrolling to bottom of the Home page and clicking on “3” and “2.”

Trust is a reliable, solid, clear feeling, not flighty, flimsy, or ungrounded. When we trust we feel supported. We experience trusted relationships as adequately defined. We know where we stand. When we trust we may also feel respectable or respected.

Distrust may be simply factual—an observation without emotional weight. You know you do not trust the person, accept the situation, and base your actions on the way things are without distress.

Let’s begin with basics for understanding issues with trust:

Distrust complicated by emotional issues and frustrated desires is a different beast. Factual distrust now carries the freight of negative emotion. Unresolved distrust can linger around as suspicion, or escalate to paranoia. It can feel slithery, dirty, painful, unfair, vulnerable, and so forth. Emotional distrust usually involves wanting someone to be different than they actually are. Events from your past add intensity.

HOW we think enters in. Thinking of trust in all-or-nothing terms probably implies influence from inner wounds. Young children think in either/or. Either/or thinking is therefore a really good clue that an issue has been triggered. (See Inner Work series for details.)

Blanket (total or absolute) distrust offers an escape from the endless and exhausting mental and emotional processing characteristic of suspicion. If blanket trust is the only alternative, distrust appears to be the only safe stance. Thinking in opposites can also give trust the allure of a peaceful island in a sea of seething distrust and uncertainty. The more uncomfortable your distrust the more inviting it seems to push it all away and just trust.

In either/or thinking we may unconsciously prefer total distrust to uncertainty. Uncertainty is scarier than slamming the door to possibility by being sure something or someone is no good. Either/or thinking is a hedge against uncertainty and insecurity. It occludes options that bring up potential uncertainty. The false certainty of black and white substitutes for the clarity developed by learning to recognize subtlety and to manage uncertainty.

In Part 2 we delve into Healthy and Unhealthy Trust and we start to explore avenues to healthy trust.

Where do YOU go inside when you wonder whether someone can be trusted? How do you manage your uncertainty?

Inner strength, peace and clarity of mind result from knowing and accepting who we are. Self knowledge gives us the ability to chose actions with which we are wholeheartedly aligned. Moving beyond betrayal depends on knowing what drives us. Whether or not we have inner conflict, we can make loving choices when we are in touch with ourselves.

Even principled, powerful men or women with upper-level business and social skills sometimes experience themselves as being unable to say “no” in more personal relationships. Intimacy can set off submerged issues. Those who fear intimacy feel conflicted about it. Part of them longs to be close while another powerful part works to undermine that intimacy, to reject the vulnerability. Control issues can make the fearful part of them resent or even hate those who love them or come too close for “making” them feel vulnerable.

A person of fairly good character, in conflict about vulnerability, may resist expressing uncomfortable feelings until fantasies of acting out blossom into actions that betray others. Efforts to act honorable can contribute to denying negative feelings and they override candid expression until their discomfort busts their seams. Then the built-up energy is expressed in inappropriate behavior.

People do not betray because we are doing something wrong. They are just as likely to betray if we do something right! And if they do, you can bet they are in conflict. Here are two examples:

• When we are able to be more vulnerable and open than another person, they may feel threatened if we get close.
• If you are virtuous it can bring up conflict in others. Those who want the feeling of virtue may judge themselves because they cannot live up to what they see in you, like alcoholics who caustically criticize people who do not drink.

To understand betrayal, accept and pay special attention to your own tendency to betray. If you are honest with yourself–and even if you never actually act it out because you recognize the consequences–you may be able to find a whiff of temptation to betray. Sniff out your conflicts and you can act intentionally instead of acting out.

• What forces, fears, feelings, drives, and conflicts operate within you when betrayal crosses your mind?
• What part of you feels weak?
• What do you actually need in those moments?
• What would you have had to admit, to yourself or to another person, to be open about your needs?
• Do you need the other person’s approval?
• What, exactly, are you afraid of?
• What did you tell yourself that blocked up your compassion?
• What is the most loving way you can meet your needs?
• Are you willing to feel compassion for your weaknesses?
• How can you use the challenge of sorting out betrayal as an exercise to develop your personal values and clarity?

Which of the above questions do YOU find most useful? Why?

While one of my brightest and most loyal-hearted clients wrestled with an inner conflict about his marriage, I had an interesting window into our humanness. As we explored feelings, actions, and possibilities it stuck me that we were skimming the water line between the airy realm of the mind and the deeper waters of the heart.

I noticed in a new and immediate way that these two realms have quite different physics, laws, subtle structures, and sensations. I sensed almost physically the way these different “realities” touch–like the great expanse of sky kissing the sea, stirring together surface-to-surface during storms but never merging or become like one another.

I was tracking my client’s buffers—the residues of trauma; invisible walls that keep threatening feelings and memories apart from awareness like a sheet of one-way glass in a fish tank. His buffers were thin. Like pointing from a boat into the depth; at certain angles of light we could see in. From the realm of mind we watched the movement of emotion like fish beneath the surface. He had enough awareness to stay with his feelings while using his skills to go up to bat for his needs. He remained loyal.

On the heels of these observations I saw the way unprocessed trauma–with thicker and more numerous buffers—can make balancing thought and feeling nearly impossible. Buffers cause thought and feeling to alternate without awareness, so they cannot modify one another--different realms a mirror surface away. Our motivations can be invisible to us even while they take shape in action.

Conflicts build up inner pressure when parts of us do not have a voice. The actions that spring from these hidden parts are not consistent with our stated values. Frightening feelings and unthinkable motivations activate the buffers that make us unaware, turning these hidden parts into exiles. So unresolved trauma can make us emotionally and spiritually deaf to the effects of our own actions. Survival mechanisms have no principles.

Reclaiming the brighter legacy of our humanity by becoming self-aware results from courageous Inner Work. As we explored in my post series on this important topic, we can develop an unshakable habit of deep yet detached self-observation.

Yet even Inner Work does not guarantee that we integrate buffered material. I am thinking of someone who excels in self-observation yet fails to apply it when triggered. He has an allergy to psychology, denouncing it frequently in favor of spirituality as a superior practice.

The role of psychology is to assist us to approach and manage the trauma hidden beneath our buffers. Once we are able to feel, identify, and interact with the issues that trigger us, drive us to dissociate, or make us act against our values, Inner Work on its own may be enough. If we cannot approach buffered issues we need frank, experienced assistance to reflect us to ourselves and free our inner exiles.

We all know people who do what they think or fear is expected of them to hold on to relationships. They resent their weakness while blaming the other person and feeling controlled. When we lack the inner strength to remain loyal to our own needs, feelings, ethics, boundaries or beliefs, attempting to be loyal to others brings up traumatic inner conflicts. These conflicts usually originate in childhood and reside behind buffers.

We may experience the other person as interfering with our ability to take care of ourselves or get our needs met. What is usually going on here is a lack of self-honesty and awareness about real needs, and about who is responsible for our care. We can ask others to participate in meeting our needs, but not to read our minds or to step in without a direct request.

Even in actual situations that force us to choose between our own needs and those of another, we can be forthright, sincere, and loving.

What do YOU do when you feel like someone is stopping you from doing what you want to do? Can you take responsibility for your feelings and remain loving even as you free yourself?

When we are loyal to ourselves, we are able to be loyal to others. At a very basic level, betraying others occurs after first betraying one’s self. When we are out of touch with our real needs–especially if we sell ourselves out and do what we think others want us to do–we are much more likely to betray. Betrayal can be a skewed attempt at self-care, with a hostile twist.

Betrayal can be blatant, or diabolically subtle. Cheap and obvious betrayal like cheating on one’s spouse or misrepresentation in business may reflect low standards and values. More shocking are betrayals from those who believe themselves to be upholding positive values. Some go to great lengths to convince themselves they are taking care of themselves or doing something emotionally healthy while creating real life dramas in which they betray.

I recently watched an intelligent professional, able to manage and guide businesses, who appeared powerful and spiritually motivated, betray a dear friend when an honest conversation would have achieved her aims without causing pain.

When betrayal seems out of character, what else is going on?

When someone betrays you it reflects on their ethics, maturity, level of spiritual development, and ability to sustain compassion. It is not a reflection on your worth, or even a matter of whether or not they love you. It is more a matter of whether they love themselves enough to face their own issues honestly.

There are psychological reasons why we betray. Issues mask feelings and motivations that the primary (conscious) personality feels a need to deny. “Triggers”—experiences that re-ignite these buried traumas—make us behave in irrational and unconscious ways. We are so much more complicated than our conscious experience.

Betrayal involves control. The betrayer keeps the betrayed person in the dark while s/he devises and starts to execute a plan, letting consequences shock or shatter as these acts set up a drama on the stage of life. This ploy is sought to ensure that the betrayed has no power. At some level of experience the person who betrays feels powerless, and may imagine that betrayal is a powerful act.

The false power of betrayal emotionally bankrupts those who rely on it. An emotionally healthy person with inner strength can and will discuss with close associates any decisions that could hurt or shock them, in advance of acting on these decisions. Out of respect they give the other person time and information, allowing them to prepare for changes.

Rational as I am, I ask myself why we do not import the skills polished in business into more intimate relations, to negotiate respectfully for what long to receive. Before risking damage to our connections with others and our self-respect, why do we not till the richest type of soil for what we’d love to grow, or woo those we love as we did initially to win intimacy? The careful, fruitful efforts we extended before we felt entitled to receive were so much more effective than acting out. But we may not be as intentional as that, or as aware of what drives us.

Betraying someone we love IS self-betrayal. We are connected. Hurting a loved one hurts our own heart.

Can you sense inside YOU the part of yourself that would betray under any possible set of circumstances? What does that part feel like in your body? How do you talk to yourself when that part rears its head?

The homegrown sweetness of sincerity draws less attention than enthusiasm–but its frank simplicity may outshine enthusiasm in the long run.

Sincerity makes our energy smooth, open to feeling and meaning. Energy goes out from us into the world and returns to us with situations, people, and events. Sincerity powerfully crafts what comes back to fit with who we are and what we are ready to take on. Sincere energy moves us into life simply and directly.

The pure mirror of sincerity allows us to see one other’s heart and intentions. Lack of artifice creates a clean, direct, wholesome interface. Sincerity is like an open flow or a portal that invites connection. Sincerity is a gateway through which the universe can interface with us.

In my early twenties I met a martial artist with astonishing talent. He positioned me exactly, moving my body parts a fraction of an inch this way or that, straightening or expanding me into the stance he had asked me to maintain. Suddenly I was shot through with energy like liquid lightening.

I had no funds then to pay for instruction. The friend who introduced me to this master told me I did not need money if I had what it took to work with this teacher. He set up an interview.

I was amazed by the energy and beauty in the room where we met. The master declined taking me on. With respect, intention, and presence he told me that I was not sincere enough. I lacked the dedication to practice intensively and stick with it. I asked for his contact information should I wish to return, but the opportunity was gone. Yet his words about sincerity cut through my disappointment. They entered my heart and took up residence.

I still understand that sincerity is a key that opens special situations.

I do not share this story as a regret. My journey at that juncture drew me to live in a spiritual center. I was sincere in my involvement, correctly placed, and still draw upon what I learned.

The beauty of sincerity is that it cannot be manufactured, or bidden by will. Sincerity is natural response. We can uncover it in ourselves, make room for it, and permit ourselves to express it, but we cannot create sincerity. Sincerity can be an attribute (part of you) or an expression (showing the feeling of the moment). Either way it is springs from authenticity.

Sincerity has a special grace. That grace is powerful, opening hearts and opportunities as our own heart is sincerely open to making a full response to the possibilities life presents.

Some substitute enthusiasm for sincerity. Enthusiasm comes across as highly positive. It may or may not be totally sincere. Sincerity implies heartfelt willingness to commit. A sincere response can lead to life changes or change who we take ourselves to be. Enthusiasm can be practiced for social approval. Enthusiasm may fasten on each shiny new possibility without the ballast of a sincere heart.

There is a difference between the heightened interest of enthusiasm and the committed willingness of sincerity. Enthusiasm may enter situations or relationships full steam ahead only to turn the same, warm attention elsewhere when challenges emerge. If less flashy, sincerity proves to be a more grounded and sustained state over time.

Pay attention to any opportunity to express completely sincerity. Sincere moments are usually lucid moments, when we are present to life in authentic feeling. Sincerity is inherently meaningful. You can make your life more meaningful by expressing your sincerity.

What have YOU noticed about your energy and your experience when you are totally sincere?

The purpose of this post series is to learn how to become loyal to yourself—the cornerstone of a positive life. Like the mythic journeys of heros, the prize of genuine loyalty is won by journeying into your inner underworld and returning with the self-awareness to carry real virtue into daily life.

Genuine Loyalty is the first post of a detailed exploration of betrayal. Betrayal is one of the most intense of common human experiences. This makes it useful as a vehicle for transformation. Whether or not you encounter betrayal, the observations, principles, and exercises in this series will stimulate insight and Inner Work. We will approach betrayal from a number of different angles. The last post is a series of practical tips for managing life when you feel shattered.

Let’s begin with loyalty—the end of a successful journey for those who use betrayal to transform rather than wasting suffering or going numb:

Loyalty can bring peace and joy to life by sustaining close relationships and expressing personal honor.

What is loyalty? Let’s make a distinction between loyalty as a rigid practice, based on an external sense of honor, and loyalty based on authentic feeling.

Basing loyalty on externals means you behave in ways that fit with the requirements of your contracts. You do what you think is right– based on how others will interpret your actions. Following rigid codes of behavior based on external approval feels binding. It can lead you to suppress the thoughts and feelings that conflict with these codes. You may feel bound by this sort of loyalty even as you choose to maintain it. When internal feelings and external rules collide you may feel tense and restricted.

Authentic loyalty is less about doing what it takes to protect or maintain your investment in a relationship and more about honoring the loving connection you feel inside–to yourself as well as toward someone you respect. This expression of loyalty is not about the letter of a law or contract but about extending heartfelt consideration, respecting the feelings, reputation, and integrity of someone you choose to honor. Honoring them makes you feel good, not stuck.

Loyalty based on real feeling is rooted in Sincerity. (See previous post.) It is not about attempting to be blameless in the eyes of others. Rather, it seeks to protect the hearts and peace of mind of those we are loyal to, as an act of solidarity or love. This is an expression of inner beauty, not an obligation.

Like commitment that springs from choosing and valuing solidarity with a close friend or loved one, true loyalty depends on clarity about our own needs and values. When we are able to be loyal to ourselves, we can be loyal to others.

Have you explored YOUR inner experience of loyalty? What does it feel like inside when you are committed or loyal? Can you find the part of yourself which experiences loyalty as a powerful and free choice?

The Sufi saint Hazrat Inayat Khan said,  “Shatter your ideals on the rock of Truth.”

Part of the beauty of this quote is the implication that we—after building our ideals with precious and sincere intention—can be active agents in removing our own illusions. I love this quote because it says so simply that we need not feel powerless and passive when disillusionment begins to arise. We can be idealistic without becoming rigid, by renewing our beliefs. We can take an active part in re-creating what we take to be true, sensing what is solid and using even the hardness of experience to orient ourselves once again.

Embracing disillusionment makes it more comfortable.

But how? When we resist the actualities of life we suffer. Resistance may be the only pain we can spare ourselves. Releasing ideas, opinions and beliefs that keep us from adjusting to life as it is now is the first step to releasing resistance. Disillusionment sheers away the ignorance that supports resistance. Realization is a lot less painful than having the same realization down the road, after you invest even more time, thought, energy, money and love.

Shedding an old belief is not about having “been wrong about life.” We cannot learn what life has to offer before it is in front of us. Like a new tooth, a more effective and mature state grows in to take the place of shattered beliefs—if we do our Inner Work instead of retreating from the pain. Unlike a tooth, we can shed beliefs many times in the course of a lifetime.

Disillusionment is like yoga for your identity, allowing you to stretch. The more you do it the better it feels. Flexibility of belief turns so-called mistakes into stepping-stones.

When expectation or fantasy do not bear out, step carefully. Relax fury. Sink deeper than despair and refuse to become jaded. Insisting that life “should be” different is like saying the way a universe spins should be based on whether or not we personally approve. Life– from the perspective of ego–does not play fair.

Fairness is a human concept and Life is not constrained by it. Find the part of yourself that is bigger than what you wanted.

Disillusionment can feel like a death. It is the death of a state of ego, a form we adopted—borrowed from life. In the world of energy, pain does not always mean something is wrong. Pain can mean something is right. Opening and awakening the heart center farther or faster than you ever have before can feel like floating shards of broken glass.

Disillusionment, embraced, is a spacious feeling. It offers a poignant freedom. We are no longer chained to a view that does not truly serve us anymore. Losing an illusion is cause for celebrating significant success after confronting and rethinking an old point of view.

In a very real sense, beliefs in the early stages of spiritual growth are like training wheels. Periods of disillusionment are like essay exams, when multiple-choice answers we have been given are no longer enough. It is a time to demonstrate understanding from within. Disillusionment is a time to shed points of view that are no longer large enough to longer contain our wisdom.

At first this may feel like losing the path. In practical life we seek to arrive at a destination. In spiritual life the parameters of progress cannot be measured by the same set of standards. What seems to be a sidetrack may be the main road. A receptive seeker gradually learns to sense the direction, attunement, or quality of energy that feels ‘right’ in any given moment. Disillusionment helps us learn to sense this direction instead of making assumptions.

Unshakable acceptance and peace come from being in touch with life as it actually is. Disillusionment is progress to those who aspire to a greater truth.

What have YOU discovered about life that surprised you? What belief did you need to release to be able to discover it?