What It Means to Trust the Process

Life is a process of learning and growing. We learn and grow to be a better version of ourselves. We don’t only learn from school but also from family, people around, and environment; we can even learn from our past, mistakes and failures. The best lesson I learned from my mom is to live life with values and stay true to what we believe in. The best lesson I learned from my late dad was acceptance, let things to be as they are and flow with what is happening. When we learn, we change for the better, either our action or behavior.

One of the learning in life is to trust the process. What does it mean to you to trust the process? For me, trust the process means to live in the presence of now, being mindful throughout the process and have faith in the unknown.

How do we learn to trust the process?

We sometimes find ourselves thinking about what happened in the past and what might happen tomorrow. Live in the moment. When we live in the moment, we learn to appreciate the moments of today and then we can gain calm and inner peace.

Be kind to ourselves. At some points of our lives, we experience happiness, sadness, anger, disappointment and fear. For whatever is happening, give ourselves to process and surrender our feelings and thoughts to the Power greater than ourselves.

Keep quiet time journal. Having a moment of silence each day will help us to focus on the present moment. Having regular quiet times will also help us to bring mindfulness and increase self-awareness.

Practice gratitude. We can express gratitude to ourselves by staying positive and thanking others. Robert Emmons, psychology professor and gratitude researcher at the University of California once said, “Living gratefully begins with affirming the good and recognizing its sources. It is the understanding that life owes me nothing and all the good I have is a gift, accompanied by an awareness that nothing can be taken for granted.”

What stops us from trusting the process?

So often we obsess over something which hasn’t happened yet and insist on controlling the outcomes. Instead of living in the present moment, we sometimes waste times in other moments; observing other people on social medias, feeling that others are living a better life than us, and overthinking what has happened and might happen. This can lead us to difficulties in focusing on what we are doing at the moment and make us easily feel anxiety.

We are also sometimes crushed by our own fear and insist on forcing the process. Bring fear into prayers, take leap of faith and trust the process, no matter how hard it is. As we progress through life, we learn to trust the process and let go of the outcome. In the end, life is meant to be enjoyed. Trust your potential, trust the process.

Yofrina Octika Gultom