I Talk About Trust… But I Still Struggle With It

I talk about trust and faith a lot.

And if I’m being honest… I don’t always live it out as easily as I talk about it.

I’ve always been the type of person who likes things in order. I work in compliance, for fuck’s sake — structure is basically my personality trait at this point. I love planners, checklists, organization, color-coding… give me a system and I will thrive.

But the flip side of that?

My brain sometimes feels like I have 20 tabs open at once and I’m glitching trying to close them out.

And somewhere along the way, earlier in life, I created this quiet expectation for myself:
By x age, you’ll have x, y, and z figured out.

Spoiler alert: none of that went according to plan.

But if I’m being real… it actually turned out better than I could have imagined.

Still, I notice something about myself. Once I get to a certain place in life, I start looking for the next thing. If I’m not immediately great at something, I lose interest. Onto the next. Keep moving. Keep improving. Keep controlling.

Which sounds productive… until it’s not.

Because underneath all of that is this constant tension between what I say I believe and how I actually live.

I say I trust.

But do I always?

Not exactly.

It’s not that I don’t trust at all — it’s that sometimes it takes time for things to make sense. And in that in-between space, I get uncomfortable.

Then eventually I look back and think, oh… that’s why that had to happen.

And I’m reminded that the moments I struggle the most with trust are usually the moments I need it the most — not when everything is going my way.

That disconnect doesn’t just sit quietly either.

I feel it everywhere.

Mentally, I’m overthinking.
Spiritually, I feel off.
Physically, I feel it in my body.

It bleeds into how I show up — in my relationships, at work, even how I take care of myself.

But the one thing I do know?

It doesn’t last forever.

I’ve had enough moments in my life that I now see as “signs” — things I can look back on when I’m struggling to trust.

Back in 2021, I went to a sobriety convention and had a Reiki/psychic reading (stay with me here). She told me:

“You’re a pearl inside a clam — opening and closing. It’s time for self-care. Let your true self shine. There’s a wild woman inside you. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Go with the flow.”

She also said something that stuck with me:

“The person you’re meant to be with… you already know.”

At the time, I remember thinking back on every guy I had ever known and thinking, absolutely not. Like… respectfully, no.

And yet — three years later, I reconnected with someone I knew from middle school.

He’s now my fiancé. My soon-to-be husband. The love of my life.

So yeah… that one humbled me.

The point is — there have been so many moments in my life where things worked out in ways I never could have planned.

My relationship.
My career.
The environment I’m in now that feels safe and aligned.

None of it came from me perfectly controlling every outcome.

It came from showing up, doing the work, and trusting — even when it didn’t make sense at the time.

And still… I struggle.

Even with something as simple as being myself.

Some days, I genuinely do not care what anyone thinks. I feel grounded, confident, at peace.

Other days, I’m rehearsing what I’m going to say in my head, talking too fast, overthinking every interaction, wondering how I’m being perceived.

And then I have to remind myself:

Most people don’t even like themselves half the time… why am I this concerned about what they think of me?

Those days when I don’t care?
Those are the days I feel the most peaceful. The most powerful.

So I’ve had to ask myself:

Am I expecting perfection from myself?

Sometimes, yes.

Not as much as I used to — because honestly, it’s exhausting. And I’d love to blame my mom for that one (kidding… kind of), but at the end of the day, we’re responsible for unlearning our own patterns.

Because if everything were perfect, we’d never:

• grow

• fail

• learn

• pivot

• or become anything new

Lately, I’ve been going back to something my therapist used to make me do.

When I felt overwhelmed, she’d have me literally hold up one hand and say, “slow down,”
and the other hand and say, “breathe.”

Simple. Slightly dramatic. Very necessary.

Because trust — real trust — isn’t something you master once and move on from.

It’s something you practice.

Daily.

Moment by moment.

It’s part of your relationship with yourself. Your faith. Your spirituality. God — however you define that.

You need something to lean on.

And if I’m being honest, I don’t write about trust because I’ve mastered it.

I write about it because I need to be reminded of it.