No choice

But to surrender to the truth of what’s happening.

The more I choose to respect the truth of what’s actually happening in my heart and life, it gets harder and harder to go against it.

The paradox of agency seems to be that the more you realize you have autonomy, the more you realize that you have no choice but to surrender to what is true.

Choosing to not honor what is correct for you is actively disrespecting your inner wisdom. Of course, you can always choose to ignore your inner wisdom, but that will make you sick and miserable, or caught in cycles of chaos or destruction, or at the very least just living a stagnant life. Which is fine; many people do this for their entire existence.

There is an inevitability to true things — to impending conversations, to breakups or quits, to mutually felt (or unrequited) love. Eventually the bread you’re baking will have to come out of the oven or else it will burn your house down. Eventually you must act on what is true, even if it is hard, and it will build self-trust and trust within your relationships. You don’t have a choice. You have to do what’s right for you, if you know what’s right for you. Don’t pretend you don’t know what you know.

When you take your inner wisdom seriously, you create trust with yourself. Sometimes this means you act on these knowings, or just that you allow things to happen organically without interfering with your big strong rational mind. Get out of the way, stop overcomplicating.

Honesty builds trust.

When you’re honest about what you want and how you feel, people can trust you. Even if what you want and how you feel changes, if you continue to be honest about it, the trust will last.

Something big happened a couple years ago that left me very afraid that people would think I had been lying (because I did a complete 180 over the course of 10 days. Literally a full yes transformed into a wait no not really). But no one was mad. I was genuinely honest about how I felt on day one, it just happened to change entirely by day ten. If I hadn't been honest then and it turned out six months later that I’d been keeping this big truth to myself, that would certainly have fractured trust with a lot of people and created more upset. This was an incredibly healing experience, as in the past when I changed my mind, I was met with a lot of anger.

What if we trusted that truth surfaces when we’re ready to face it?

Awareness is a gift. Don’t pretend that you don’t know what you know. And as Glennon Doyle says: “for the rest of your life: continue to shorten the gap between the Knowing and the doing.” Small steps are good steps, too.

What is true will always be uncovered, and it unfolds as you are ready to receive it. Allow the unfolding.

xx maggie 

p.s. happy full moon in cancer, let yourself emote.