It's Going to Be Okay, But You Will Need To Trust

"I wanted to kick-things off by letting them know…it will be okay, but they will need to practice trust."

I gave a talk recently at Creative Mornings MPLS. It was a goal of mine to be a speaker at this event, ever since I started to attend 'CM' a few month ago.

You know that saying, “Be careful what you wish for… (go ahead and say it if you know it) Because you might get it. ”I’d like to say that I MANIFESTED THAT SHIT! But who knows, in the self-care, self-empowering work I’ve been doing for quite some time now, practicing things like manifesting, comes with the territory.

So yeah…I MANIFESTED THAT SHIT! LOL!

The interesting thing is that as part of this event, each month a theme is chosen, and mine happened to be TRUST.

What was I going to say about this?

As I shared in my opening…after my rock-star entrance to AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, as I had on the screen a gigantic photo of myself in First Grade. I began by saying, “I want to tell that little boy, it’s going to be okay.”

Maybe this idea came to me after this past summer, working with a group of 60-70 high schoolers and everyday I kept thinking I wish I could tell them, “It’s going to be okay” or more specifically, “They are going to be okay.” But I didn’t, because even if I said that, they need to live their own lives and gain their own experiences to fully understand what I meant with this statement.

Like the audience in attendance at CM, I wanted to kick-things off by letting them know…it will be okay, but they will need to practice trust.

When I began to brainstorm on the theme of trust, I came to realize how much I think of this word and how often this word shows up in my everyday life. I don’t know if I knew before planning this presentation, but I do practice trust a lot.

I must ask, which of my speaker professionals out there get nervous (sometimes) before coming out and doing your thang? I was. And it’s funny because I kept repeating subconsciously, “Trust, Pete, trust, it’ll all work out.” Don’t freak out, don’t not do it, just go out there and TRUST. You’ll see.

When I share my stories, usually it involves some form of pain, heartache, difficulty in life. This is my style. I like sharing what hurts, or what might continue to hurt. I feel that this is what comes naturally to me, connecting to others on their hurts. Their fears, their worries, their pain. BUT in the same light, I also feel that within sharing our pain, we are also able to share our beauty, our power, our inspiration…our greatness. My mentor used to say to me, "We shouldn't try to avoid the pain, but go towards it."

As I prepared for my presentation, and had more than two weeks to do so, it took awhile before I felt confident in what I wanted to share, even up until the morning of I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to say or do, but I trusted myself, I knew in my gut that I was going to be fine, that it was going to be fine. I believed in myself, my experiences, and my craft.

Still, as the days got closer and closer to the day of the event, I kept on changing my thoughts around. Deleting previous drafts and reworking outlines, I went back and forth from feeling nervous, racing thoughts, to relax and confident, ready to go. I love what I do, and the reasons why I’m doing it so much that sometimes it comes super easy and natural without any hesitation, and others like this one, the complete opposite. When this happens, I give myself some time and remind myself it will come.

The Universe WILL provide. Trust that it will.

Then a week before the event. I received news that a friend of mine in LA had died. Cancer. Damn cancer. We were not very close but the times we talked they were memorable. He lived a lifestyle much different from mine, but we always had good and real conversations. He was someone who I knew cared about not just me but the group of friends that we hung out together with. As I reflected more on our various encounters, I thought of how you don’t need to know someone or be close to them to be affected by them. How you can lose contact with them for so many years and never stay in touch but when you hear news about them, how you can be so affected that you need to take a moment to pause and at least for me, feel grateful. Grateful that you had that. Grateful that you met someone who cared enough for you and you them to carry meaning in each other’s life.

Around this same time, I also received the news that a good friend of our family, a much older gentlemen had also died. Again, I didn’t know him well, but I remember the many times we attended the same family events. Those events where he always checked in with me on how I was doing. How he always reminded us how much he loved our family. My Mom and him worked together volunteering together and I know this hit her way harder. Again, another person who touched your life, because they cared about you, and cared about those that you loved too.

As I’m writing this, in past and present tenses, it was only a few days ago, we attended his funeral, and it was quite remarkable to hear about not just all his accomplishments but how much he truly cared about others. I had no idea how a like we were. He worked with youth too. He loved to read, to study, to learn. He loved to embrace all cultures, he was always jovial and wherever he went created a great presence. I was encouraged to learn of the various programs, companies, organizations, communities he affiliated with during his time.

Why am I talking about these two people who recently passed? Because I’m hurting again.

If you can find a practice or more then one practice, it can help keep you calm, at peace, despite the chaos that will surround you."

My body feels the pain of loss and grief again and as I prepared for my talk and what I wanted to say and leave for those in attendance, there is yet again this phenomenon of death, more particularly how we find life in death. As sad as I felt. Bursting out in tears during a home practice of yoga. I’ve learned not to fight it, but now found ways to embrace it. Embrace it all. Those parts that make sense, and even those parts that I have no explanation or answer to. This is all life; this is also about having trust.

By the time my presentation concluded, what I wanted the audience to leave with was through sharing of my stories, my pain, those parts of me I am sure of and those parts of me that are clueless, it is still important and valuable to find practices to develop our trust.

Because in our lifetime we will come to the decision whether or not we can face much adversity, in this process we will most likely feel much pain. Sometimes we know exactly the cause of it, but others we might not have any explanation, and that is totally fine.

The secret between handling it in a healthier manner versus an unhealthy one is to find ways to not let it consume you or overwhelm you; but instead if you can find a practice that can help you, you might just be able to navigate these feelings and areas of impertinence.

If you can find a practice or more then one practice, it can help keep you calm, at peace, despite the chaos that will surround you.

When we can be present, life can be hurtful, but at the same time, miraculously beautiful.