There was a time when I believed I had to control everything.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I thought I had to.
If I planned enough…
Worked hard enough…
Thought about every possible outcome…
Protected myself from disappointment…
Then maybe life wouldn’t catch me by surprise.
Looking back now, I realise I wasn’t really trying to control life.
I was trying to protect myself from being hurt by it.
After enough painful experiences, it felt safer to expect the worst.
If I imagined every possible thing that could go wrong, perhaps I wouldn’t be disappointed when it did.
At least, that was the story I told myself.
The truth is living that way is exhausting.
You spend so much time preparing for tomorrow that you never fully experience today.
You become hyper-aware of problems.
Constantly scanning for danger.
Always waiting for the next thing to fall apart.
It isn’t a peaceful way to live.
And it certainly isn’t freedom.
One of the greatest gifts spirituality has given me isn’t certainty.
It’s trust.
Not the kind of trust that says life will always go my way.
Because it won’t.
Life will still bring loss.
Disappointment.
Unexpected endings.
Moments that make no sense.
I’ve lived enough to know that.
The difference is that I no longer believe those moments are evidence that life is against me.
Instead, I have started asking a different question.
“What is this trying to teach me?”
That single question has transformed the way I experience difficult moments.
It doesn’t take away the pain.
But it changes my relationship with it.
When I look back over my life, I can now see that some of the moments I fought the hardest against were quietly leading me somewhere I couldn’t yet imagine.
The relationship that broke me also became the beginning of my healing.
The breakdown at work – the moment I thought everything was falling apart – became the breakthrough that led me deeper into spirituality than I had ever been before.
At the time I only saw the ending.
Now I can also see the beginning that was hidden inside it.
Trust doesn’t mean believing everything will be easy.
It means believing that I can meet whatever life places in front of me.
That is a very different kind of confidence.
It’s quieter.
Less about certainty.
More about resilience.
For years, I searched for guarantees before I would move forward.
Now I understand that life rarely offers guarantees.
It simply asks us to take the next step.
There are still days when fear whispers old stories.
Days when I wonder if things will work out.
Days when uncertainty feels uncomfortable.
The difference is that fear no longer gets the final say.
I acknowledge it.
I thank it for trying to protect me.
And then I gently choose trust instead.
Not because I know exactly what will happen.
But because I know I have survived every chapter of my life so far.
That gives me confidence that I can survive the next one too.
Perhaps trust isn’t about believing that life will never hurt us again.
Perhaps it’s about believing that whatever happens, we won’t lose ourselves in the process.
That has been one of the greatest gifts of my healing.
Not that life has become easier.
But that I have become gentler with myself as I move through it.
Today, I still make plans.
I still have dreams.
I still hope for beautiful things.
But I no longer believe my happiness depends on everything unfolding exactly as I imagined.
Sometimes life gives us what we ask for.
Sometimes it gives us something completely different.
And sometimes, only years later, do we realise that what felt like a detour was actually the path all along.
So now, instead of gripping life tightly, I am learning to walk beside it.
Curious.
Open.
Present.
Trusting that not every unanswered question needs an immediate answer.
Trusting that not every closed door is a punishment.
Trusting that I don’t have to know exactly where I am going to appreciate where I am today.
Because healing hasn’t taught me how to control life.
It has taught me something much more valuable.
How to trust it.
And perhaps, in learning to trust life again…I have finally learned to trust myself.
