Trust the Process

Trust the process- I feel like I’ve heard this phrase 1,000 times! What about you? It’s fine if I’m the one saying it-HA! It’s much harder to do when I’m the one having to do the trusting. It implies that whatever the end result is will not come quickly or easily. In this day of immediate response time, that is really hard to accept.

I watched a show recently that was set in the 1800s. In those days, if you wanted to talk to someone who lived across an ocean, you would write a letter and wait MONTHS for a reply. You had to trust that your letter was going to make it from your village or town to the port, onto the boat, across the ocean without sinking, from the boat to the other person’s village or town, and into their hands. Then the whole process had to happen in reverse with their reply. Can you imagine??? We get antsy if an email or text recipient takes more than a few hours to answer us.

Waiting is hard! Having a situation end up looking very different than our visual image of it is hard! Does that make it bad? Or wrong? I don’t think so. Let me give you an example- last Fall I opened my coaching group up with 10 spots. I filled 2. I was worried. I was disappointed. I had images in my mind of a Zoom screen filled with faces of my clients making strides and breakthroughs in their health and lives week after week. I was worried it wouldn’t feel as powerful for them if there were only two in the group, but I decided to practice what I preach and TRUST the process. Trust that I and they were right where we were supposed to be and that it would all work out. Guess what? It was wonderful! At the end of our first group session, I was in tears. Had anyone else been in this particular group, the energy would have been off and they wouldn’t have gotten out of it what they needed. They have taught me as much as I taught them!

In my coaching training with the Health Coach Institute, the other students and I were eager to get to the Life Coaching lessons and were impatient with the Health Coaching portion which was taught first. We were repeatedly told by the wonderful instructors and other students who were farther along than we were to TRUST the process. And guess what? They were right!!! It all fell into place just. exactly. so.

When I find myself getting antsy and impatient now, instead of letting annoyance take over and run away with me, I try to step back and ask myself WHY I’m feeling so impatient. What is so frustrating about this situation? Then I ask if I can actually control the outcome or just my reaction to it. Often, my reaction is all I can control. At that point I have a choice. Do I get angry and throw a fit and invite stress into my mind and body or do I trust the process? Do I trust that there is something here for me to learn? Do I trust that I will grow from this experience? I’d love to say that I always choose trust, learning, and growth, but that would be a lie. What I can say is that I’m trying. I’m trying to choose trust, learning, and growth more often than not.

This blog was scribbled into a notebook while my family and I sat in a packed airplane waiting an hour and a half to take off on a long flight from Phoenix back home to Nashville. Instead of choosing annoyance and worry and anxiety about the delay, I chose to trust that I was right where I was supposed to be in that moment. Choosing that inspired me to share these thoughts with you. I hope it inspires you to trust the process and know that you are right where you’re supposed to be. Once there, try to choose learning and growth. You never know what might come of it!