Trading transactions for trust

In a world where something is only a "success" if it yields tangible, measurable results– learning to trust and validate the messy unknown journey instead

There’s a song in Wicked that opens with “the trouble with schools is, they always try to teach the wrong lessons”. I feel like we could mold this for our needs to be “the trouble with healing is, we always try to guarantee the outcome”. Because that’s the transactional formula in our capitalist society– if we’re going to put time and effort into something, it better yield tangible, measurable results. Healing seldom works that way though. Maybe a scraped knee can be measured in fresh new skin grown in a matter of days. But most healing is a convoluted journey of forward and back, an ever shifting destination. An inquiry of am I different, am I the same? How do I even want to be?

The struggle has felt especially present the top of the year as “resolutions” are spoke of regularly with a vaguely threatening undertone. It makes me feel like everything I’m doing better have a specific goal and a corresponding timeline. Listen, I’d love to write all my aims down on a piece of paper and have them go according to plan. But I don’t love the sense that if things aren’t “happening” in like a linear fashion, if I can’t state clearly all the gains I’ve made, then I guess all my efforts are worthless, don’t count?

I’ve been studying healing’s non-linear bias, its insistence on complex and meandering and subtle revelations, for a long time though. I’ve never met a silver bullet approach that actually works– have not found myself to be one for magical chiropractors or supplements or even spiritual awakenings. Hundreds of hours of trainings and 15 years into my yoga path, for instance, I don’t feel like I’ve just “figured it all out”. Actually I’m much the same as I’ve always been if measured by linear frameworks– I’m still dealing with ongoing chronic pain issues, I still have two autoimmune diseases, I’m still single, and I’m not even “doing something impressive” as a yoga teacher. Like I currently teach one class a week, write this Substack, have my personal practice and that’s it.

But wonder if we threw some middle fingers up to the old measuring sticks and said hey, I don’t have a lot of tangible results for you… YET. Wonder if were still swirling through space and time and didn’t know where we were going, but we had trust that meaningful healing and growth was still occurring. Because what even is healing or growth anyways? I used to think it was a force outside of me, decided upon by others– and shown through metrics like accolades, certifications, packed yoga classes, Instagram followers, or I guess just the ability to say to someone that I’ve “cured” one or all of my ailments. But now I’m starting to wonder if healing is actually a subtle peace within oneself, like a day where you wake up and sort of harbor this vague contentment for the ways things already are. Even if things still don’t seem all that impressive or transformational, even if you have “nothing to show”. A peace derived not from the praise of outsiders, but from your own trust of the universe. Just logging into the mother board of your thoughts and changing the programming from “I’m behind and lost and have nothing to show” to “I’m out here trying and I trust that that is enough and is all it takes to lead a meaningful life”.

I’ll leave you with the wisdom of my orchid, Emma (yes I named her). Emma bloomed magnificently for months when she first came into my life– I’m talking stunning, bright blooms cascading from her stems by the dozen. But now she hasn’t been blooming for about a year. In the linear, output-oriented model she would be failing right now, basically dead. But if you actually spend the time observing Emma, you can see that she’s growing and evolving all the time. First she grew a new giant 8” leaf– green and shiny. Now she’s seeming to grow a new roots too. So whose to say only blooms are worthwhile output from Emma and her other growth is not? Maybe I’m not growing many blooms right now, don’t have a lot of flashy results to awe the people. But maybe what I do have is a lot of leaves and roots– areas of growth and potential. Maybe you have a lot of leaves and roots too. So trying this on for size– wonder if we don’t need society’s preferred timeline or stamp of approval to be living a meaningful life. Wonder if we only need to trust that we’re getting nowhere and everywhere, all the time.