You are never alone... How to trust yourself

Today, I was reminded that I am not alone in the world. There are subtle beings around cheering me on. Call them angels, guides, or the divine…or call them synchronicity (although that falls short to me). But it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you, and I, are not alone.

And it is easy to forget that.

I remember the first time I heard these words. I was sitting in a small apartment with one of my teachers, up a rickety staircase in a building called “The Carriage House," on the edge of the blustery North Sea in the tiny town of Findhorn, in Scotland. The Carriage House was hundreds of years old and had a courtyard in the center where buggies would be housed for the night…a carriage parking lot of sorts that now included rambling gardens in a state of late September dishevel and wild abandon.

I was divorced after a 22 year marriage, was no longer homeschooling my son, and my family and I were not communicating. I felt very alone. I felt alone when I was married as well. (You know what I mean if you have ever experienced a lonely relationship, as so many have).

When I spoke of my sense of aloneness, my teacher’s response was:

“Well, Terra, of course you know you are never alone.”

Now it has taken years for me to really understand what he meant. It has taken working with my chi gong teacher who could see subtle beings and would often refer to “my crew” meaning the angels around me (and we all have a “crew” in my understanding…so please don’t assume I am unique).

This morning, I scheduled a post to publish and to send to you. It is the post you got last week. I had written it a few weeks before and questioned myself about it. I wasn’t sure if the idea I was sending you on breathing was backed by studies. I wasn’t sure it was “good enough.” What I was sure of was that it was fun for me to experiment with and it had helped me. So, I felt excited about sharing it with you.

That is, until I started questioning myself.

So I sent you a different post. One that I knew was “good.” One with phrases that would help you. I knew they had a good chance of doing so because they had helped me for years. And if they didn’t, they were just phrases.

Except nothing is really “just” anything and phrases have the potential to embody the energy of magic spells and prayers, just as all words do.

But I digress.

What I want you to know is that I tussled with that post. I put it aside. I asked people about it. I sent a question to two friends who teach breath-work to see what they thought. They didn’t respond.

I don’t think this is by accident or because they don’t care. I think this is because my “crew” wants me to learn to trust myself.

So, eventually, after wheel-spinning for a number of days, I worked on it more last night, and then more at 4 am this morning. And I hit a button on Substack, and scheduled it to go out to you, at 9am PT, on Thursday.

You may not know this, but that is a pact I have made with you. To send you something once a week at 9am PT, Thursday.

I am determined to follow through, and if I don’t one week, it will be because it felt like loving myself to allow some softness around sending things to you. This may be the case as I will be traveling soon. But anyway. There is a pact. And I wanted to send you something.

So, after I worked so much, and sweated about that, I hit the “publish” button early this morning and went back to bed and back to sleep. Then I arose later than usual to join my 81 year old mother for our early morning routine of walking a mile together through the misty, sage-scented air here in the little town of Fallbrook, California.

I opened Spotify and turned on a playlist to accompany me in my morning routine, and guess what song came up? Seriously…take a minute to think of a title of a song that might be encouraging for me to hear, after weeks of contemplating telling you about a breathing technique?

The song that started playing was Breathe It In by Beautiful Chorus. They were singing about what I had just written and sent to you: “Breathe it in, let it out. Breath it in, let it go. Breathe it in, let it out. Breathe it in, let it go…”

And I knew, I knew for sure, my “crew,” my guides, God, or Angels, were right there with me and they were encouraging me. They were telling me that what I sent was just fine, and that I was doing fine.

Ahhhh…..

That song was followed by others, and I knew the playlist was a gift for me and I was not alone.

You are not alone either. People had to tell me this, and then I started to notice. And I started to talk to my “crew” in various ways. For you, that might be through prayer, or writing, or whispers from your heart that you hardly notice.

But no matter how you feel, you are never alone.

You can trust that. I am sure they will send you a sign if you need one. And for me, I had to work through my resistance before the timing was right for them to send their gift to me.

Later this morning, whilst walking with my mother, she spoke of things. I am enjoying this misty time with her. Things have not always been easy between us and it feels good to connect more deeply as she approaches the finish line of life. And I know we are all approaching this place.

This morning, Mom mentioned dancing. She had a good friend who was a dance teacher. My sister and I took lessons from her in her garage studio.

Mom and I were talking about dancing because a neighbor stopped her car next to us as we walked and mentioned a dance class. I thought Mom might enjoy going to that class. Dad too. At one point, Mom had mentioned Dad had been a good dancer. She says that she doesn’t remember that now.

But Mom also said she likes to dance from her feelings and not follow steps. She has mentioned this a few times and I realize my mom, like me, is more of an ecstatic, intuitive dancer. She is more of a Gabrielle Roth kind of 5 Rhythm Movement person, even though Gabrielle Roth probably had not discovered or written about 5 Rhythms back then. Mom told me a story from her past about her dance friend who we called Mrs. Jackie.

Mom said she danced in front of Mrs. Jackie, once. They shared the same birthday and I know Mom loved her deeply. Enough to be vulnerable enough to dance for her. And Mom said Mrs. Jackie started to evaluate her and give her “tips” to improve.

And Mom never danced for her again. Or in front of me as I have never seen my mom’s intuitive dance moves.

But the thing is, the thing I think was going on, is that Mrs. Jackie probably felt a little jealous or threatened by Mom’s dancing. That kind of dancing, in my experience, is a form of prayer. It doesn’t come from the mind, it comes from the soul. And people can wish for it when they see it. They might imagine the person they see has something they don’t have. They see a connection to God. They see someone who is not alone, and there can be jealousy.

I believe Mrs. Jackie wouldn’t have been aware of any of that. I believe she would have told herself she was “helping” Mom. She would have tried to feel better about herself by criticizing Mom and justified what she was doing.

People do this all the time, unconsciously. They will do it to you. They will do it to me.

“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

These are words that I contemplate often. I feel they encapsulate one of my growth edges here on Earth, which is to accept and love people, including myself, where I am. I am learning how to see in that way, and I am a work in process.

But, people will say things to you, in the context of being “helpful” that are not always true. So in the end, I really believe the key is to trust yourself and if you want to, to trust your “crew,” whatever that means to you.

Follow your own heart. Follow your creativity. No one can be the butterfly you are. No one can know what that is like. You are unique. Mentors are great. Reading blogs like this might be great. And in the end, what matters is you. That you follow your impulses and the whispers in your heart that come from your soul. And allow yourself to put it out into the world, through your presence with someone, through a conversation, through a moment when you connect to your breath. You do you. And you don’t have to do it in front of people who criticize you. That is self care too.

So the main take away here, is that synchronicity can be a gift. It can be a gift to let you know that you matter and you have a place. This is a subtle and a physical reality and no matter what happens around you, even if you appear to be alone physically, you never are. You are cared for. Just like me. Maybe you will hear a song, or meet a stranger who offers that moment of care…it can be almost anything, anything that lets you know that you are loved, always.

Sometimes, people may criticize you in your flow of life, unconsciously. I hope you keep dancing, or singing, or expressing your version of care or beauty in the world and don’t take their reactions into your heart too deeply. They are just feeling alone. And you don’t have to be. Because in the end, aloneness is a very false sense of reality.