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Trust is the opposite energy from resistance. When we trust, we say we are "going with the flow." But what is the flow? It's the way things are going. For instance, in line with the popular metaphor of a river, the flow is the direction the river is going in. Nothing mysterious or complicated about that. What complicates our getting into the flow is our resistance. This resistance can come in the form of fear, denial, upset, anger, or any number of emotional states, that we then
 use as the reasons to resist that flow, and in doing so, immediately feel the effects of trying to stand still in the middle of a fast moving river, with all manner of hard objects racing by us, and of course, smack dab into us. Ouch!

The question then, that is begging to be asked, is "how do we get back into the flow, when there are so many attractive reasons for resisting it?" Attractive, because they're backed up by accurate information, such as "Somebody did something to me that I don't like, and it's upsetting me." Or, "See, see how things are! You would be upset too!" And you would probably be right, what happened to you, if it happened to us, would be upsetting. We're all human, we all get upset. Yet in developing our practice of trust, we have to come to realize that part of the flow of our lives, is sometimes the truth that somebody did something, and we don't like it. There they are, reasons floating right on the surface of the river, slamming into our tense and rigid bodies time and time again, with a pain that is not coming from outside of us, but from inside of us, each time we visualize that upset racing toward us. Get ready, here it comes again! Yet truth is, our upsets don't ever come toward us, they only ever come from inside of us! Humans, we have so many things backwards.

How do we get back into the flow? Especially now that we know where the resistance to doing so is coming from? By being, because being is an inside job. Inside of us! By being totally responsible for having stepped into the way of the way things are going in the first place, we gain back our power. And we do this, we often get in the way of our own busy river, giving our power to be away to others. Our power to be happy, our power to be successful, our power to be calm, centered, and satisfied. Even when not one outside other ever has such power, unless of course we freely give it away to them. And yes, we have been trained to do that. Now may be the time to retrain ourselves, to learn how to stay in the flow, and to trust.

I once had a court case where because of my belief in the direction my own kid's education should have been going in, in order to support them, was different from my ex-wife's belief system, and the judge's similar-to-hers belief system, I was forced to see my kids less of the time than I wanted to. That, you might say, was the flow my life was going in, and at first I resisted it mightily. But then I could see that in doing so, I was simply creating more and more upset over the original upset. The way out of that pain was to as always, go with what was happening, even though I knew I would never like what was happening. To fight it? That would have simply caused my kids, and myself, more pain, and I wasn't interested in that.

What came out of the giving up of my resistance to the way things were going was a relationship with my kids that I would have never had, had I stayed angry. I was forced by law to accept what was happening, but even in the midst of that, I could also see that I was being forced to grow in a way that I wanted to grow anyway, and in being legally supported in developing the power of unconditional love, the sheer magnitude of the good that has come into my life from this practice has been overwhelmingly powerful. The practice of unconditional love no matter what, including an unconditional love for myself, has affected every single area, including my relationship with my kids. The sheer amount of manifestations of friendships, true love, money, career success, and sublime joy, have been incredible. All out of something I didn't want happening. Not the method I would have chosen, but certainly the results!

Was this easy? No. Yet long ago I determined that no matter what happened in my life, I was going to use that circumstance to grow, to become more powerful, and to add to all the joys I have always wanted for my life, no matter what. To in short, trust. Of course, as it is in all of our lives, over the years a few things have happened that I have not liked. Yet no more or less things than any other faces in their lives, because I have worked with enough people to know that we all have our pains, our tribulations, and we are no different from each other in that. I articulate mine, some others do not, yet truth is, no matter what our responses to them are, we all live them out. The difference between living them out and being in joy, or living them out and continuing in upset, is that of trust. To trust that the flow of things is what's supposed to be happening, and in some way benefits all those around you, including yourself. Would Nelson Mandela say this same thing about twenty-five years of imprisonment, now that he's President of the very same country that once held him in chains? I imagine he just might.

Now our situations may not be as dramatic as Nelson Mandela's, but nonetheless, they are our circumstances, and what we feel about them is certainly equally powerful as whatever he felt about his. They are our lives, after all. The time has come to free ourselves from that which chains us down, standing still, resisting the flow of our own rivers, and to allow ourselves to buoyantly float down that river, going with the current instead of resisting it. At times this may seem contrary to what we have been taught, because we have been taught to fight that which is "bad," to not "put up with it," and to take up arms against the enemy. While in some situations this might appear to work well, but if you think about it, if it's us who are generating our resistance to the flow, then just who would we be fighting? Ourselves? And who loses that battle?

It's not to say that the circumstances that we don't like, we will ever like, and that's perfectly okay. Not spending as much time with my kids as I used to is something that will never be okay with me, and I will always be in motion, being, doing, and having, whatever it takes to create the family life with them that I desire. Yet with an irony that The Universe is so famous for, when I give all that upset over the current situation up, and simply trust, I go with the flow. Once in the flow, I am in my power, clear headed, centered, and relaxed, and from there, there is no more powerful place to be to then effect real changes. Changes that are not upsetting, and that support the relationship I have with my kids. And one of the most valuable things I can be in order to support that relationship? Trusting. And in so trusting, to be happy no matter what. Nothing, no state of being, more nurtures us and those around us, and in doing so keeps us in the flow. It even completely changes the course of the river over time. Just ask Nelson.