This pandemic is beyond my control. It is beyond your control and that can be a scary thought. That benevolent safety net that has my back and yours too has a lot to hold these days. The world is fragile and highly vulnerable. I think that collectively we held the belief that the earth below us was solid and today we are witnessing how everything even our beliefs can melt into nothingness before our eyes and under our feet. Where does certainty take refuge today? Where and in what can we invest our trust? How can we speak about trust in unprecedented times like these? The dictionary defines trust as, a belief that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable.

Trust is a difficult concept to fully understand and conceptualise. Intrust, do we ever fully surrender? Can we trust ourselves, our hearts, our minds and our bodies when they appear to be falling apart? Can we trust others when we doubt their sincerity? Can we trust the planet when the earth crumbles below? Can we trust our idea of God when life becomes fragile and death is present? It is in these times, the shaky, unpredictable ones when things appear to be going very wrong that we are asked to let go. Moments of uncertainly give way to our response to them. Do we close down, cut off and dissociate? Do we continue to trust but with strings attached, with our agenda? Do we trust conditionally? These moments give us direct insight into our level of trust. Through our hardships, life offers us a multitude of opportunities to practice trust. Life is patient and most of the time, we are not.

I draw my thoughts back to trust. How have I experienced and expressed trust in my life, in my moments of joy, in my moments of pain? Have I trusted without a guarantee of the outcome? Can I trust today without knowing? Trusting with certainty is the way I reduce my level of risk and appease my fear. I often hear myself asking, ’’Is there any risk?’’ Of course, there is a risk, risk in loving and even  getting out of bed each morning. I wanted certainty but I know deep down there is no such thing. Trusting with questions, trusting with guarantees and conditions is not trusting. Dropping my need for certitude and recognising my fear is a courageous act. Yet I don’t feel so courageous. I feel more like that last second before the rollercoaster plummets a hundred meters and it’s too late to stop the momentum. That exact second when I realise that no amount of fear or need for security will help is that second that I let go into my fear. I am coming to understand that to truly trust, TRUST MUST STAND ALONE.