Who would have thought that TRUST would be the most important lesson on my journey of awakening and recovery?
Why? Because without trust, we will remain in a constant state of anxiety and confusion. And without trust, there will be no inner peace, joy, love, and hence no recovery.
I have never met one person with an addiction who did not have serious trust issues—making trust the most overlooked spiritual principle.
Let’s start by looking at the definition of the word TRUST. As a noun: reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing. As a verb: to have trust or confidence in, to rely or depend on, to believe, to expect confidently. From the definition, it is evident to me that I learned the opposite.
Once again, this is not about blaming my parents. This is about understanding how I became wired to distrust. I feared my father and felt responsible for my mother’s happiness. The direct result was a little boy who believed if something went wrong, it was his fault. Not trusting was the main reason I lived in a constant state of fear, and when you process it, fear is a state of distrust.
I became a great actor by pretending to trust everyone. It was a clever way to protect myself when I trusted no one, especially not myself. It is like that famous quote, “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.” I trusted no one because I feared the possible consequences. To me, TRUST = PAIN, and my unwillingness to trust kept me sick in the Dis‑Ease of addiction for many years.
Without trust, there will be no recovery—it is that simple because we will never seek help or be vulnerable and honest with another human being. And trust can only begin by making the next right move, but it must start with ourselves to reach out.
The more awake I become, the more value I see in trusting the universe. I take on whatever the universe gives me by putting one foot in front of the other.
I lived by my mantra:
Trust Life - Trust Love - Trust Source (God) because it all leads to trusting myself and the inner peace that the world can never give me. My relationship with the One Power is something no one can ever take from me. That, my friends, is true power.
I do not believe we ever arrive fully at trusting ourselves; however, it’s the critical path of all spiritual warriors. It’s about becoming ONE with Life Itself. I have had many moments of complete Oneness, which often happens these days. No one can ever take that life-changing experience from me.
We can learn to trust the journey by taking baby steps, even when we do not understand it.
“Know yourself” is the sump of all philosophical commandments, Socrates once observed. The phrase “Know thyself,” is centuries old, but it's still one of the essential meta-skills of the 21st century. Aristotle also said: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
These two great men were discussing the core of trust begins by getting to know our true self.
Finally, when you go deep - deep within - you discover there actually is no self - just ONE LOVE that we are an individual of.
Warmly Paul Noiles
