“Trust the universe.” I’m sure someone’s tried to make you feel better by saying these words at some point in your life when you felt hopeless.
In order to trust the universe, we need to understand what’s called a leap of faith.
A leap of faith is about ditching the skepticism and obsession with control, and simply embracing something outside of the boundaries of reason.
As philosopher Kierkegaard said while contemplating the same subject, “To have faith is to lose your mind and to win God.”
Or the universe. Whatever is more applicable to your personal belief system.
However, there’s a catch.
A lot of people tend to just accept the passive role and wait for something to fall from the sky. That’s not what trusting is.
Trusting that the universe will show you your purpose while you wait and do nothing is, in fact, disrespecting yourself and your purpose.
Purpose is found within ourselves. It demands our action and commitment.
We are the reflection of the universe – and the universe is in constant movement.
Action will be answered with action. The only thing you need to focus on is to do all you can do.
In the process of gaining trust in the universe, there are a few things you should know and keep in mind. Here are some of them.
You’re a reflection of the universe
“Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny.” – Neil Armstrong
You’re a reflection of the universe. You’re a microcosmos, one single piece, reflecting the whole, the macrocosm.
That’s why you should act like it. Act like you know you’re something powerful and big.
Don’t forget that that same universe accounts for infinite possibilities and never stops expanding.
In other words, don’t forget that anything is possible and that you’re a being of growth and change.
Look up to it to learn about the ways it brings change. Don’t fall into the trap of giving your free will to the mercy of something of ”higher power’.’
The universe is not a higher-up, it’s your accomplice. You’re not helpless, you’re given the tools to grow.
You’re not a dependable creature bound to merciless waves of fate.
You’re in charge of your destiny. Yes, some things are meant to be, but the way you react to them changes the perspective.
With the right attitude and a lot of self-awareness, you could turn something that could’ve been the chomp of an angry lion into a harmless mosquito bite.
What’s going to happen is inevitable, but the consequences are up to you. The way you prepare for things – it’s up to you.
You have what you need to free yourself from illusory thoughts and fears.
Once they’re gone, you will release control and be happy with whatever life has in store for you next.
That’s true acceptance of freedom. Freedom isn’t about doing what you want. It’s about being prepared and ready for whatever comes to you.
The greatest gift of life is our free will. Don’t waste it on nonexistent things. Let go and trust the universe, but first – trust in yourself.
Let go of the things that don’t serve you
“A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.” – Byron Katie
One of the biggest obstacles on our journey to a better life is attachment to things that don’t serve us, such as old beliefs and behavioral patterns that simply don’t work for us, yet we’re attached to them anyway.
Sometimes we can’t even recognize them because we’re so caught up in our habits.
Many people overlook this, but habits are the very first thing we need to switch if we’re looking for a real change in life.
Be aware of your daily habits. Ask yourself: Do they serve me and how so?
Changing habits is a powerful way to better your life.
Yes, big fated changes sound better, but little things are how life constantly changes and evolves.
Humans are complex combinations of reason, emotions, wants, needs, and all the other things that make the human experience.
Most of our yearnings are based on unmet needs we’re not even aware of.
Based on our subconscious unmet needs and false beliefs, we take actions in everyday life.
For example, you may believe you’re not capable of having a happy relationship. Unfortunately, this belief is exactly what’s keeping you from one.
Instead of perpetuating this belief further, get to the core of it and discover what fear lies behind it.
Is it fear of not being good enough, or of vulnerability? All of this is highly individual and has to do with your personal experiences in life.
This method is also part of the law of attraction theory, where positive and negative thoughts and beliefs directly influence our lives.
The first step towards letting go of those needs is to bring them into the light of consciousness.
Once our needs are validated, understood, and experienced, we will no longer be slaves to them.
Learning to let go is one of the most valuable life lessons and your biggest ally on the journey to personal growth.
Give up expectations and be open
Letting go and detachment is what eventually sets us free from expectations. Expectation is a happiness killer.
We’re so concerned about the outcome that sometimes we don’t even notice the fact that what we want isn’t what we actually need.
For example, we can want a specific job for whatever reason, but in reality not getting that job is what’s going to save our health, even though we don’t know that yet.
Our desires are not always what’s best for us.
Sometimes it’s just a projection of our ego. Fantasies we build in our heads so often fall flat in reality.
It’s okay to have goals and aspirations, but insisting on things that don’t serve you isn’t going to do anything.
Obsessing over specific things is putting too much meaning into only one thing.
Sometimes things don’t come easy to you for the right reason.
Maybe there’s something that you need to learn but can’t comprehend just yet.
Make all your intentions pure
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” – Lao Tzu
One of the best things you can do to know that the universe has your back is to do everything in life with pure intention.
What does that mean? As I previously mentioned, humans are prone to habitual behavior.
That means we often don’t really think about what we’re doing; we just do it automatically.
This kind of behavior usually just deepens already existing flawed circumstances we don’t actually want to be in.
However, awareness and intention can change a lot once we put them to work.
Putting intention into everything we do is how we become aware and fully accept responsibility for our actions.
Being aware of everything we do, even the smallest things throughout the day (for example, interacting with people, preparing food, the way we spend our free time) – it all makes a big difference.
The key is to be mindful, to think about every little thing we do, but not to the point of obsession – rather to the point of full awareness and responsibility.
When you feel uneasy about doing something, ask yourself: Why? Is your intention behind it pure? If it’s not, why?
One of the ways to start implying intention and mindfulness into your life is to deliberately stop and think about what you’re going to do before you do it and speak intention in your mind – even if it’s just washing dishes.
In other words – every time you take an action, think about the intention first and see how life starts changing in small steps.
Ditch the control and need for perfection
Perfectionism is the plague of the 21st century.
It probably has to do a lot with the fact that, in a way, we’re being watched more than ever.
Our lives are more public and we’re involved with other people’s lives more.
Of course, social media is to blame. It’s so easy to fall down the rabbit hole of comparison and feel not good enough after seeing someone else’s staged life.
It’s bizarre what projection can do to mental health.
To fight this nonsense yet extremely present phenomena, we must radically commit to our own life and self-love.
We’re all connected beings, but we also experience reality in our own unique way.
That unique way is our personal string of consciousness, our own mind.
We need to clear our pathways of opinions and actions of others and go with the flow with our personal truth.
Our personal truth is always within us and nowhere else.
The less resistance you have towards it, the faster it will get to you.
What causes resistance? Simply the belief we’re not good enough on our own and denying our potential.
We look at the world around us and think we fail at something, when in reality we’re just postponing our growth with thinking about things that don’t matter at all – at least not for our personal journeys.
You don’t need perfection, you just need yourself. After that, everything else will fall into place.
Listen to your intuition
“If we would just take a moment to look around, we would find that the universe is in constant communication with us.” – Alexandria Hotmer
The number one method the universe uses to communicate with us is through synchronicities.
This is the most wonderful kind of often symbolic and sometimes very straightforward, direct communication.
What are synchronicities? Synchronicities are simply a meaningful coincidence. They’re little nudges from the universe.
Now, of course, if you believe in them, you also believe that there are no real coincidences.
It may seem like reality is in a state of continuous randomness, but it’s not.
Trusting the universe is equal to believing that everything holds a purpose in life.
The good things, the bad things, the scary things – everything has its place and meaning we’re unable to grasp right away.
However, there’s one thing we can do to better understand and notice those synchronicities – that’s listening to our intuition.
Not just listening to it, but working on making it stronger.
To get in tune with our own intuition, there’s a lot of ways that can help us.
For example meditation practice, mindfulness, journaling, and many other spiritual practices can help you experience a spiritual awakening.
Reexamine your views on morality and fairness
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” – Neil DeGrasse Tyson
A man’s way of reasoning and judging is less like any other creature on this planet.
Human-made rules and laws don’t work just everywhere in nature – only in civilization (a man-made system).
With that being said, morality as we know it is often flawed and can’t be applied in every situation.
For example, if you ever contemplated the concept of karma and perhaps believe in it, you’ll know that every bad thing has its consequence, but that consequence doesn’t have to be experienced right away.
Sometimes it takes lifetimes to come around.
For the same reason, many people have difficult lives for seemingly “no reason.”
Think about the animal world – animals don’t behave immorally, however brutal their behavior appears to us – they’re just acting in accordance with their nature, with the exception of not having the conscience of a human.
Does that make them immoral or somehow wrong? Absolutely not.
Stepping out of the strictly dualistic world view is what’s going to help us to see things from a point of view that’s closer to the one of the universe.
Be grateful every day
One thing many of us forgot to do is to be grateful. But why is gratefulness important when it comes to trusting the universe?
Gratefulness is essentially recognizing everything as a gift. Even the things that don’t seem like it at first. Gratefulness is wisdom.
You don’t need a life coach to level up your life. You just need to recognize your blessings and more blessings will follow.
Understand the bigger picture
Now, after everything that has been said, I’m pretty sure you already understand the importance of seeing the bigger picture.
What we’ve learned is that we’re working with the universe and not for it, we’re responsible for our own life, we’re powerful beings with the ability to grasp the intangible, and we have the free will and power to let go of things that don’t serve us.
Now that you’re reminded of all these things, go on and make your life whatever you want it to be.
Be authentic
“Everything you’ll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body.” – Dan Millman
The most simple yet complex advice of all. Authenticity was always a big deal, but right now it’s more important than ever.
What is authenticity? Authenticity is living in accordance with your free will.
It’s the most genuine self-expression. It’s being who we truly are no matter where or what.
Without authenticity, nothing and no one will answer our needs and prayers. Why? Because it doesn’t come from our true self.
In other words, if we don’t know ourselves, we don’t really know what we truly want and need.
That kind of existence is disrespectful to our being, and our being is deserving of experiencing its full potential and fulfilling its purpose.
Don’t hold yourself back for fear of other people’s reactions.
It’s normal to have the need to belong and feel like a part of a community. That’s never a problem.
The problem is only found when external things dictate our internal life and veer us off the path to our purpose.
Unfortunately, our deepest desires, passion, and beliefs are often shunned by society or we’re simply too afraid we’re not good or strong enough to put our dreams into action and make them our reality.
We’ve been taught by our authorities that it’s more important to fit in and be liked by everyone than it is to live our truth and follow our passions.
What’s bizarre is that almost every person spends their life regretting not doing something they’re passionate about.
Why do we choose a life of regret when there are so many opportunities before us?
One of the most prominent reasons is fear of failure, which is essentially fear of not being good enough and being seen as not good enough by others.
That leaves us in a constant fight to somehow fix ourselves and make ourselves better in front of the others, instead of embracing ourselves as we are.
There’s nothing wrong with being who we are. Nobody is worse or better than us – we’re all different.
Imagine a world full of self-aware and authentic people. Imagine how effortlessly the universe would communicate with us all.
The saying trust the universe would be a thing of the past because it would simply be an everyday reality for every person.
Wrap up…
Many of us tend to be skeptical even when we do believe in unexplainable things, such as trusting the universe as something anthropomorphic that listens to our needs and wants and answers them.
Many of us get stuck obsessing and continually reflecting on those same obsessive thoughts that often have nothing to do with actual reality.
In a sense, we’re trapped inside our minds, in our fear-based projections, and that’s precisely why we sometimes don’t see further than the end of our noses.
Trust the universe.
This simple and uplifting saying contains two big words.
When I say big, I mean they’re big in a sense of how their meaning triggers something that’s connected to our soul and purpose.
There’s the word trust and there’s the word universe.
Trust is a sensitive and important matter.
It’s unmistakably one of the most important things in anyone’s life.
Without trust, we would be condemned to live in a state of constant distress.
Why is it so important?
It’s key because it’s the cornerstone of any kind of relationship. It’s something that makes you feel safe yet it’s fragile at the same time.
It demands vulnerability and strength simultaneously.
In other words, it requires stepping into the power that doesn’t use force but love, and requires faith that that’s enough.
The other word is the universe. How to trust the universe? Why should we trust it anyway? Why does it hold our purpose?
The starting point of putting trust into something must be the existing reliability we feel that something has.
We trust that the universe is reliable. After all, it created everything we know, it created all the laws of nature we get to see and feel every day.
Everything in nature flows effortlessly and makes patterns. The spring always comes after winter; the day always comes after the night.
That’s a solid foundation for reliability.
But, what we also need to accept is the fact that despite its reliability, it’s still chaotic.
However seemingly predictable it is, it’s still never fully predictable.
That may sound contradictory – because it is – unless you observe it from a less dualistic perspective. That’s where that leap of faith steps in.
To end this lengthy essay that hopefully regained your trust in yourself and the intangible forces around you, I’ll leave you with the beautiful poem written by Rupi Kaur:
“The universe took its time on you
Crafted you to offer the world
Something different from everyone else
When you doubt
How you were created
You doubt an energy greater than us both
–irreplaceable”