Radical Trust “The Universe (or God) has My Back”

My little one had a fever that wouldn’t break last night. I woke up with her almost every hour, searching for ways to comfort and support her body.

Last night was a Wednesday, which is relevant because Thursday is one of my client-packed days.

Instead of panicking and worrying about my client’s schedule, my brain thought “the universe has my back”.

My brain did not always default to this thought; in fact, most of my life my brain has freaked out and believed the worst thing would for sure happen, like a few years ago my brain would have said, “all my clients will quit and I cannot be a mom and a have a successful business.”

One of the mind-bendy exercises I have done with my brain is to intentionally believe that ‘nothing has gone wrong’ when my brain wants to believe there has. This requires intentional trust and practiced thought creation.

My mom decided to baptize my brother and me, “Just in case.” I am not a religious person, I actually see there to be a lot of downsides to religion. And at the same time, I have come to see enormous value in the faith and trust belief system that religion provides many people.

I have a childhood best friend named Meghan, we have a Marco Polo relationship where we exchange with each other long videos. About a year ago we had a long deep discussion about religion. We had a very open-hearted curious exchange about beliefs around God and religion.

Much of my response had my coach filter perspective. What I took away from our in-depth conversation was the gift of believing in something bigger and greater than ourselves.

It is so easy to feel small, disconnected, and scared. Which is a pretty miserable way to live life.

I went to Brazil in my mid-twenties. I had never tried a psychedelic and was frankly against it. A Brazilian friend who I was living with at Esalen suggested we, my brother and I, go to Brazil and meet their Ayahuasca friends.

I slowly agreed, after having a dream that I was in Brazil looking for this friend group, with the promise that I would not be pushed into trying Ayahuasca.

Well, I ended up being surprised at the consciousness, connection, and kindness I saw in this Ayahuasca group. And the universe had lined up that I was there for an opportunity to join five weeks of the ceremony.

For five weeks, every other day, I drank Ayahuasca, swam in pristine waterfall ponds, hiked in the Amazon, ate nourishing foods, sat in circles, and felt deeply connected to the earth, the universe, and myself.

I have gone on to become a psychonaut. I get asked often what is the difference between Ayahuasca and x.

I always respond that Ayahuasca is an incredible experience of feeling deeply connected. An almost unexplainable feeling of oneness which is so much of what religions offer- the promise or pathway to oneness with god.

Before oneness… purging.

Over the five weeks, there were two different groups I sat with in the ceremony. I saw a pattern of who came in with heaviness, emotionally or physically, and the amount of purging or cleansing that the heavier people went through. The heavier people were also the ones who had the biggest shifts, seeming almost born-again.

Many, not all, religions offer a belief system of faith and trust. That a certain amount is out of control and that we can relax into the unfolding of a greater power’s plans.

My choice to believe that the universe has my back is not so different. What is the universe? Energy? Karma? Matter? Stardust?

I’ve come to decide that it doesn’t really matter. What matters is my choosing trust over fear, faith over skepticism.

Our brains all evolved to lean towards fear as a survival mechanism. Being scared of dangerous things might save our life. But we are over-scared to the point where we live small disconnected lives.

Trusting the universe has my back means that instead of going into fight or flight when my kid is up all night with a fever, means that I get to save my body from the physiological stress of my brain’s worst-case scenario, it means I stay level-headed, and make higher level decisions, it means that I stay more present and connected to myself.

One of the mindset shifts that has helped me get here is realizing that seemingly tragedy often has silver linings. Like my man did not get a job at Tesla that he really wanted a few months ago. In many ways, his getting that job would have been really useful.

I sat in the park talking to my dear friend about it and remember saying, “Maybe this is a good thing, maybe he will get the job he really wants and the one that won’t have him overworking and going from home an obscene amount of hours every day”.
I must share with you, that this sounds simple than it was. You see we went through extreme financial hardship when my man was going through his green card process and was unable to work. Tesla was likely one of the only companies that would hire him AND give him a work visa.

So believing that him not getting this job, was a pretty big leap of faith and trust given the context of how badly we needed him to work and bring home the bacon.

It is easier to trust and believe in good times. The real test is when the shit is hitting the fan, the cancer diagnosis or terminal illness knocks, or when we are at rock bottom.

And these are the most important and life-changing times to truly believe, “the universe has my back.”

Whether your trust and faith come from religion, plant medicine experiences, or your own internal work, well done.

And if you haven’t gotten there yet… I highly recommend it.

Plus, what are the upsides of not believing?

Ps. Thursday, the day I had five clients scheduled and my daughter had had a high fever the whole night before. Three of my clients canceled, and one short follow-up person signed and paid me six thousand dollars that very day.

This woman found my flyer after telling her husband that she was going to walk over to a billboard (one where I had a flyer hanging) and listen to the universe for the health help she was wanting to call into her life. I put that flyer there almost three months ago.

The universe has all of our backs.

So often we later see the gift in a tragedy. When we close the gap and choose to believe that amidst the hard moment, there is in fact a gift, it relieves us of a substantial amount of unnecessary suffering. Sure sadness and the like are not to be avoided and necessary to process, but the mindset of “I’m sad, and this is terribly wrong” is just not useful.

Feel the sadness let go of wrong… next step, choose to believe ‘the universe has my back’.