Trusting the Present Moment, part 1
Question: "I have difficulty in trusting the moment, in relaxing into 'what is' instead of trying to control everything. I have difficulty trusting people, even though I would like to see the good in them. Sometimes I just don't. How can a person learn to trust more?" (from 2002)
Try not to use it to create more shoulds or to beat yourself up for what you are doing or not doing. It might be helpful to try to get some conceptual or intellectual feeling about what trusting the present moment would look like, or feel like, for you. For me, at first it seemed conceptually possible but emotionally inconceivable. It's not something that is easy to do, and some of us only move towards it in baby steps, over a long period of time. But having a mental vision of the possibility seems to help, at least it did for me.
I gave a talk at the centre several weeks ago, and the topic was Generosity. I wrote a letter to one of the people who attended afterwards, that contained this:
"After the talk on Wednesday I feel like I have a couple of things I want to say to you, and it’s always hit and miss if I get to talk to people for any length of time on a Wednesday, so thought I would write you a letter instead.
The first thing, and most important, is that I could feel that you are right on the edge of something, but it was difficult to spend enough time on it in the talk because everyone is at different places in their practices. I have more thoughts that I want to share with you. It’s about what you said about trust--in my view that is the fundamental thing, and I feel like it means that you are teetering on the edge of making the key breakthrough.
What’s needed is not trust that everything will “work out” in the traditional sense of that phrase--whether we are present or not, both joyful and painful things happen. It is a different kind of trust--trusting that being present in each moment will ultimately bring more joy and satisfaction to ourselves and more help to our fellow beings, than any kind of analyzing, strategizing, protecting or thinking will bring. Trusting that being present will bring the best outcome in any situation, even in painful circumstances.
In the beginning, this trust is intellectual--we come to believe that it is true, but it is hard to let go of our defenses and our habitual patterns--so we have to consciously make the decision to be present when we can, even when it seems dangerous or vulnerable or uncomfortable. And often it is difficult to make that decision at all.
Over a period of time, we see that in fact being present does usually lead to a better (sometimes almost magical-seeming) outcome. Because of that, over time the trust becomes more emotional, more “in our guts”, which leads us to choose being present more automatically. An upward spiral starts, of “intention to trust--outcome--more trust--intention to trust--outcome--trust” until the trust becomes our fundamental way of being."
***
Just wanted to start with that previous letter, but I have other thoughts that pour out of my mind about it. What I mean by "trusting the present moment" (maybe this is repeating a bit what was said above) is really believing that there is more to be gained by being RIGHT HERE, with whatever is happening, simple or complex, than by thinking, analyzing, trying to understand things, working out problems, worrying, etc. And also developing a belief, eventually a first-hand knowledge, that all of that mental activity doesn't actually help, even though we believe that it does. Eventually we can develop more trust that the answers to our problems and questions, or even just a shifted view that makes the problem disappear, emerges out of nowhere, magically, when we are present, when the time is right. We start to trust that being present yields more help to us, more insight, than any amount of "figuring things out".
One of the first things that I came up against in dropping some of my constant thinking/worrying, is that I realized that there was a real emotional loss involved. This particular thing wouldn't be true of everyone, but I'm telling you because I think it might be true for you. Because my parents weren't that emotionally present due to their own challenges and worries (like many parents) I didn't get as much emotional connection as I needed as a child. How I learned to take care of myself was to think everything to death. If I was always scanning the horizon for potential problems and taking the appropriate action to head them off or brace myself for them; and if I analyzed everything that happened to me to see if it contained anything where I might have disappointed someone or screwed up in some way (what I now see as "threats to my sense of self" or "threats to my sense of emotional safety")--then at least I was being looked after and taken care of by someone—myself! I think that this pattern started at quite a young age. It was reinforced in the work world, where one is rewarded for a fixation on anticipating and preventing problems.
When I first noticed these patterns, and thought about dropping the thoughts to return to the present moment, it was very difficult. The exercise that I suggested to you in an earlier email--dropping the thoughts and locating the emotion underneath--by 8:30 at night on the first day I did that exercise, I was ready to jump off a bridge. I felt completely unprotected, alone, bereft, devastated. If I didn't let myself think in my usual ways (how did I do? is there anything to repair? what will happen next? how will I cope with it? what did that mean?) how would I ever feel safe again? It was good to connect with, and understand at a body level, how those mental patterns make me feel safe and cared for, even if they also ultimately get in the way of having a richer experience of life. I didn't understand that at all before. Now, when I am caught up in those patterns (which still happens), they seem more transparent--I am able to see my attempts at emotional safety more clearly, and it doesn't get as tight a grip on me, though I might have the same kinds of thoughts as before. It's as if they don't take up all the space inside of me--there is some observation, and some wisdom, around it.
I have this sense of how we all have this perfect, completely present compassionate being inside--I know, I know, in some people it's really hard to see. But in many people, underneath all the layers of pain and dysfunctionality and aggression, it peeks through. For myself, I see it as trying to remove the layers of habit and defense and fear and shame that stand in the way of that best, core presence, so that it can shine through more easily, and help reduce pain in the outer world (as well as not add to it as much I might have in the past). You mentioned that you want to see the goodness in people. I don't know if it's possible to start with that or if you always have to start with yourself (I'm not saying it's not possible, just mulling it over). Once you see the radiance inside of you, and also the ways in which you cover it over, it seems easier to see what is happening with other people.
You mentioned how difficult it is to believe in others’ goodness. I do believe, as I mentioned in that earlier email, that some people just seem to start off more ‘transparent’. They have an ability to feel others' pain, or a spaciousness, or a clarity, or intuition, or even a few of those things. If you get to know yourself better and see that you have this when others might not seem to have it, you can see that it is as if they have a kind of handicap in comparison. Their pain is so thick, and their resources (mental, physical, emotional, support system) so small, that their goodness might be completely obscured. But it's possible to develop some kind of patience and love, anyway. At least I feel that I go more in that direction all the time. Humans seem more and more simple to me in the basic outline--just the details are different. We have goodness, we have pain, we hide ourselves, we have longing, we try to get what we need in skillful and more often unskillful ways.
You could ask yourself, when you think about trusting this moment, dropping thinking and just being here--what comes up for you? What will happen if you just drop your thinking and experience exactly what is happening now, inside your emotions and body, and outside of you in the rest of the world? Is your experience that this moment can't be trusted? Or that you can't get that far even because your mind is racing too much? It's good to check in and just see what surfaces when you ask yourself questions like that, but not get too caught up in analyzing.