Learning to trust myself begins (again) with commitment

Just when I thought I’d finally been getting the hang of it, it’s time to take another leap forward in learning how to trust.

I am specifically talking about trusting myself, and trusting that I am supported in my life. In other words - knowing that no matter what, my spirit’s got me, and my body knows what to do. Learning to trust myself is a daily practice that began when I chose to make a commitment to my own growth and healing. Since that time, I’ve become quite used to trusting myself in so many important ways. When it’s time again for me to take a step forward, take some chances, and be vulnerable - I realize I’ve got another round of trusting to do.

Trust is one of those energies I find myself revisiting regularly.

One of the greatest challenges I face is asking for help, and trusting that I deserve to receive it. Meanwhile, I do ask for and receive help all the time, from my wonderful supportive husband, amazing colleagues, friends, and family members. I have also helped many others, happily so. For me the problem hasn’t been them, it’s been me. I was raised to believe that I should always give more than I received, and perhaps I shouldn’t expect to receive anything at all. This deep seated belief has gotten in my way a number of times. Before I became conscious about this imbalance, as you can imagine, I attracted a LOT of folks ready and willing to have me give to them, with no thought of giving back. Which means I had a lot of ‘friends’ ready and willing to dump their pain on me, without wanting to be conscious about that, or give me anything back except a boatload of pain. People who were being victims and martyrs were my personal Achilles heel, I fell for that crap like nobody. I am over it now, hallelujah!

After spending many years thinking I should be able to do it by myself, the hardest part for me sometimes is to admit I need help. Which means I have to let go of control and instead trust that I will receive, that whoever is helping me wants to do so, and won’t try to control me. These are some of my tender places, and my trust issues get pretty triggered when facing this stuff.

My commitment to being a clairvoyant helps me with this.

As a clairvoyant, I inherently trust my ability to see energy. I’ve become accustomed to reading the energy of a person or situation, effortlessly. For this I thank the excellent clairvoyant training I went through that helped me to learn and hone my skills, plus years and years of experience working with these abilities. The most important piece here is my commitment to show up and practice my clairvoyant abilities, which has helped me grow my knowledge and comfort with this skill. I have never stopped learning and growing in this space, it’s been rewarding to me in many ways.

Once I learned how and that I could do this, my clairvoyant ability became more real to me. The day I signed up for my clairvoyant training, I trusted myself to take a step forward that would give to me in every aspect of my life, though I didn’t get this at the time. I have never regretted that decision, and have thanked myself many times for choosing this path.

As an artist, I trust my creative spirit.

I learned how to trust myself as a creator way back in early childhood. Creativity was a positive and possible thing in the house I grew up in, and both my parents had permission to imagine and create. It was a natural thing to do, I did it very easily all the time as a child.

But later on as an invalidated teenager, I forgot I could trust this, and I felt very negative and certain I wouldn’t get into the art school I wanted to attend for college. I had no interest in attending any other kind of school - for what? Nothing else spoke to me, I was attracted to art school, yet terrified I’d be rejected. I felt that I wasn’t even close to being a real artist. Meanwhile, I was creating and inventing new ideas and designs all the time. Where did that invalidation come from?

Thankfully I had help in the adults around me, including a photographer neighbor who shot my portfolio for me, and parents who supported me taking this step. And so I was talked into getting my art portfolio together and applying for art school. Happily, I was accepted, and then I set off to learn new skills of trusting myself as an artist. That is a lifelong lesson that I learn over and over again.

Two years into recreating my art practice after having stepped away from it for 10 years while building my psychic practice, I am learning new ways of seeing myself as an artist. I am finding myself with a new level of commitment to being a painter, differently from before. The invalidation I used to carry has faded quite a lot, and when it does show up I can usually squish it out by showing up for myself. I no longer care at all about the competition that has always been part of the art world, as I have decided that I get to have my own art world my way.

It’s gratifying to see how my psychic reading and teaching practice has helped me rebuild and re-own myself as an artist.

Those 10 years away were partly because I needed a break from how I was making art and thinking about myself as an artist. I needed to rebuild parts of myself, notably the part that trusts me, the artist. Again. I have a whole new set of questions I ask myself now, and commitment is near the top.

Commitment is one of those things that can make all the difference in anything we create or do.

Whether it’s a relationship, getting up on a surfboard, giving a clairvoyant reading, or giving a performance - showing up halfway is often worse than if you’d never showed up at all. An actor who isn’t fully committed to the role they are playing cannot hide this fact, nowhere and no how. Everyone will see it. What happens when a surfer half heartedly tries to ride that big wave they’ve been longing for? Ain’t gonna happen.

And an artist who doesn’t show up to do the work creates nothing. A psychic who doesn’t take care of their own energy everyday will end up getting shut down by everyone else’s energy in their space.

Let’s take that one a step further.

Everyone is psychic, and by that I mean, everyone is sensitive to energy. And if you are especially sensitive to energy and don’t have some kind of daily practice to help you out with that energy, it will get in your way. You could have the biggest commitment in the world to doing your best, you could read all the books and have the most amazing coaches and teachers, but if you don’t show up for yourself and do something with your own sensitivities, other energy will get caught up in your space, and therefore in your way.

I didn’t know any of that, not really, when I signed up for my first psychic meditation class back in 1999.

I just knew that I could no longer handle whatever it was that I kept taking on from other people. Apparently at that time I was more committed to healing the entire world around me than I was to showing up for and healing myself. Taking an important step into learning about how energy works, and how I could manage it better for myself, helped me step onto a new path of commitment to myself. I didn’t know what that meant at the time. Today, I’m opening up a new level of this commitment to myself again, and trust in my own spirit, after 22+ solid years of committing to learning how to do so.

I don’t have to get up on a surf board to prove I trust myself, but in my career I have often done the spiritual equivalent of surfing! I’ve ridden giant waves of energy, and gotten my space with doing so. Not to prove anything to anyone, but to create the space to grow. Growth is the commitment I make every day.

“Am I wanting and hoping, or am I choosing and committing?” - Tara Leaver