Wheelbarrow on a Tightrope
Trust
Today’s offering took a fun turn into a short story. If you have the time to settle in, I highly recommend my voiceover for this week’s experience of Seeing Upside Down.
xo - Jeannie
I have had a very specific, repetitive vision over the course of the last few years. Before recently, it was late 2020, early 2021 when I last remember this vision being at the forefront of my mind. I was going through a transition period, finding it hard to trust the process, and barely able to trust a Higher Power with the outcome. Admittedly, it was about something pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. At least, that’s the way I see it now, with hindsight. I was restless in a job and desired a new challenge and role at the university where I still currently work. Please know that I was and still am very aware of how fortunate I was to keep a stable job during the pandemic. My hours were cut during the summer of 2020 and, even then, I was still grateful I could keep my job in the middle of a shutdown. And then, there I was in early 2021, letting myself get all worked up about a new job opportunity. By the end of February, I had interviewed for the role I wanted. I was pretty confident I would be selected for it, but I had my hopes up more than I expected. Fear came over me, and I became irrationally stressed about the possibility that I wouldn’t be chosen for the role.
I was still working with an AA sponsor at the time and going to meetings regularly. I vaguely remember sharing about the stress with my sponsor and talking with her about trust in a Higher Power’s plan. It came to light how little, if at all, I trusted in anything or anyone but myself. Above, I wrote that I was “irrationally” stressed. Yes, it was irrational. This is why I’m glad I had a mentor and community meetings where I could talk out loud about this stuff. The level of fear I had was not proportionate to the nature of the circumstances. Objectively looking at the worst case scenario, I wouldn’t be selected for the position, and I would still have a great job. There would still be dozens more opportunities to come. I think the fear was so acute and enflamed because I was facing the end of my self sufficiency, once again. The outcome was out of my hands. I put myself out there. I finished the first and second interview. Then I had to wait. That’s when the fear and the questioning of my whole entire life started. LOL - anyone else been there? Waiting is hard.
During this waiting period, I shared in an AA meeting about my struggle to trust and the vision that came to me. In the vision, I was at the precipice of a canyon with a God figure, my Higher Self, or Spirit; I use those interchangeably. There, at the edge of the cliff, it was the God figure I was supposed to trust to be my partner while crossing to the other side of this canyon. I could see the other side, and I knew I was supposed to begin the journey to get there. I didn’t even know if the other side represented the new job I wanted. What was my motivation? What did the canyon and the other side represent if I didn’t get the job? WHO AM I? WHY AM I HERE? WHAT IF I DON’T WANT TO GO ACROSS?!
As always, Spirit calmed my episode with her still, calm, grounding presence.
I knew I didn’t want to go back. I knew I didn’t want to keep standing here and freaking out. I don’t know how, but I knew I was called to go across, no matter what it took and no matter what that meant. Even if the short term outcome of the new job didn’t pan out like I wanted, I realized there was more to the bigger picture than that. This was not the first time this fear and lack of trust paralyzed me. I was determined to break through the frozen block of potential energy. I was determined to melt it into kinetic energy.
It is at this point I’m going to write the rest of the vision as a short fictional story. The name Seneca came to me out of a dead sleep back in January. It was so clear and not connected to anything else in my consciousness. I knew it came from somewhere, something, or someone else in the ether. I didn’t want to forget it. I wanted it and those who sent it to know I would safeguard it. In December, about a month before the name came to me out of my sleep, I finally put a little notebook and pen on my bedside table for this exact reason. I wrote down the name in January, and I did not go back to commune with it until this week, in the middle of February.
Meet Seneca.
✵
The people in the village several miles back told her to go and meet the wizard at the edge of the mountain. She remembered they called him many things: a wizard, the shepherd, the angel in the cliffs. Here she was at the cliffs, out of breath, ripped clothes, a bloody knee, and running out of food and water. “Where is this damn wizard anyway? He’s probably not even real.” She should have known those villagers had probably never even seen the “angel in the cliffs” with their own eyes. “Blind belief in an old, traditional tale… typical,” she thought.
The sun was falling back behind the horizon. There was only a slight breeze funneling from the canyon below. Seneca looked out over the cliff and thought of her family. They were resistant yet supportive of her leaving home. Her heart ached, missing them. She felt so loved and understood by them when she left. They didn’t hold her back. They believed in her. They were sad to say goodbye. Deep down they knew she was meant to go find something. Nobody knew what. The best thing they knew to do was let her go. Back in the present, tears streamed down her face. She generated whatever love and light she could muster in her being and sent it through the air to them.
“WHERE ARE YOU?! What the hell am I doing on this cliff? What am I supposed to do here if you don’t show up, wizard?!” Her shouts echoed across the canyon. A flock of birds broke loose from under a rock overhang on the opposite side from where she stood. The traveling sound waves of her voice dissolved into the darkening shadows as the sun descended below her line of sight. She didn’t want to fight anymore. She was utterly exhausted. She had nowhere else to go. She had nothing left to give.
“I will take you across.”
Seneca heard the voice, crystal clear. By this point, she was laying on her back on the hard ground after surrendering to her fate alone at the edge of the gorge. She was stunned by the voice and couldn’t move. She breathed deeply and waited to see if she would hear it again.
Silence.
Breath.
Silence.
“I will take you across.”
She sat up and looked over her shoulder. There stood the promised wizard-shepherd with a kind smile and a patient spirit. He motioned to what looked to her like a wheelbarrow. His eyes wandered to his left, cueing her to look in the same direction. Her eyes barely made out a narrow, wooden bridge suspended by rope, stretching across the canyon. The breeze was the only thing that allowed her to see the movement of the tiny string of wood and rope. Otherwise, it would have been an invisible line through the air, hidden by the shadows. Her stomach tied in a knot realizing that was the way of their path.
“What’s the wheelbarrow for?” she asked.
The wizard motioned to it again, as he did before.
“I will take you across. Trust me.”
Seneca looked back at the bridge, again at the wheelbarrow, and then down at her own body.
“You want ME to get in the wheelbarrow?!”
Everything flashed before her eyes. Her family. Home. The long, dark journey. The fears she faced. The magical places she discovered. The courage she found in herself. The love the villagers infused into her. The belief everyone had in her. The belief she then allowed herself to hold within. She had come too far for this to be a mistake. The tears came again. The only way to continue was to trust this wizard. This part was not for her to figure out on her own. She was to be carried on this stretch. She had no choice but to practice absolute trust.
She got in, and the wizard started toward the bridge. Seneca couldn’t get situated well enough to be able to see where they were going. She kept shifting her weight and turning her head to see how close they were getting to the bridge. She tried to start guessing how long it would take to get across.
“Lay back, Seneca.”
She stopped her wiggling and looked up at the wizard.
He spoke again in the steady, calming tone of voice. “Lay back and trust me completely. You don’t need to see everything. In fact, certain views might cause you to panic and shift in a way that makes us both lose our balance. Lay back. Close your eyes. You must let me take you across the bridge. Your trust is the key to our success. The state of trust is achieved by your calm, relaxed body. Lay back, close your eyes, and let the wheelbarrow hold the weight of your body, rather than tensing your muscles.”
She listened and took a few deep breaths- something she learned in the forest at night when strange sounds would frighten her. Her body slowly melted, and she let her fatigue work for her. The last thing she saw before her eyelids closed was the vast sky framing the wizard’s kind smile and clear eyes. The breeze pulled ever so slightly on his long, soft hair. She felt a new relief, sinking deeper into her inner knowing. She knew in that deep place that she could trust him. Her fear of the deathly pit below slid off of her and fell into the pit itself.
Seneca was suspended in air and time. She felt nothingness. Upon choosing trust, it felt like emptiness in contrast to the usual fear that would shout loudly and act outwardly. She let herself detach from all past experiences and future possibilities. All that existed was her absolute trust as she was transported through this stretch of her journey.
Just when she was comfortable enough to drift into a sleep, she heard the flock of birds that broke loose in the distance earlier. Their sound was much closer now. It felt safe to open her eyes. The birds flew right over her. She was joined with them on the other side of the canyon from where she first started. She felt solid ground beneath her. The wizard and his wheelbarrow were nowhere in sight.
✵
Jeannie here again. Let’s thank Seneca for helping me describe my vision with you: being pushed in a wheelbarrow across a tightrope. That’s how difficult trust can be. It is the direct opposite challenge as the difficulty of effort. The intensity is the same. The effort end of the spectrum moves into the letting go end of the spectrum, both discoverable with the power to make or break me.
Oh yeah, I did get the new job at the university in 2021. Guess what? It was still only a stepping stone toward yet another role, which I am in now. I never could have guessed how it would all turn out. I’m glad I didn’t spend too long trying. The less attached I am to outcome, the better it continually is.
If I’m reading the story of Seneca now and thinking about where I am today, I think I am still suspended on the bridge. I’m to the part after fear has “slid off of me,” so that’s good. Sitting here now, I realize the pit where the fear fell is still within a dormant place in me. I capable of being the pit and the way through.
It feels good to be calm and relaxed. I am enjoying this new understanding that being the way through is not only possible, it is who I am.
I am my way to everything I seek. I am always given a holy shepherd wizard spirit who will lead me to my deep knowing within.
I think I’m only still on the bridge because my shepherd wants me to enjoy this part a little longer.
I already know the other side of this canyon is going to be the best life I could ever imagine. As long as I trust, the best life imagined is always in front of me.
With Love, Jeannie
I am a betting man. I bet on Love every time. It's the only wager that is impossible to lose. I would wager that there is not a single embodied soul that has not stood on the precipice of an identical landmark choice. Unfortunately, for too many souls, the negative energy loop of the Fear Based Traumatic Stress Disorder holds them captive for years, even lifetimes before they realized the simple Changeless Choice which grants them Eternal Freedom.
Dearest Jeannie,
You poised the question,"Anyone else been there?" Yes I have been there. You also described yourself as being 'irrationally' stressed. You were prompted to Trust Seneca, the power within you, the Highter Power, the Wizard, the Shepard, Creator, Creation, God. You realized that Surrender is not giving up, it is not quitting, it is letting go of fear and replacing fear with Loving-Trust. You realized there are only two energies: Fear or Love. Indeed being trapped in the loop of fear can appear so very difficult to break free from; but in Truth, it is an obviously apparent choice to choose Love. Like you, when I found myself on the precipice of this landmark crossroads, I too was prompted to make the obvious rational choice. You disavowed Fear, calling it irrational stress. I too disavowed Fear, calling it ludicrous; in order to capturer the laughable absurdity of any other choice.
Thank you for sharing our shared 'ABURDITY.'
Shanti,
Duke