April 23, 2024

Do you feel it's possible to move through life trusting yourself?

This is a big one for me. I've rarely pulled it off. I've spent most of my life not trusting myself, not really trusting other people. Definitely not trusting life or any kind of higher power.

One of my intentions for this year is to trust myself and life. To stop looking outside of myself for that sense of safety or solidity. 

I've been a seeker for a long time now. Seeking more and more knowledge to help me successfully navigate my life and this confusing world we live in. Always looking to the experts to give me the information I need to optimize life. Always looking to what other people are doing to figure out what I should be doing. This expert says everyone should follow these rules. This other expert says everyone should follow those rules. 

There's a sea of information out there. We are drowning in information. Have an opinion you want validated? Someone is out there on your side. And someone else is out there on the exact opposite side. It seems you can always find evidence to support your point of view. 

I no longer seem to have it in me to keep looking for THE right answer on how to live life. Don't get me wrong, I still do some seeking, some learning. But I no longer have that desire to find THE answer driving my life so much. Maybe there is no one answer. Maybe it's different for each of us. Maybe we have to let go of searching for the answers for our lives through other people's advice and find our own inner compass.

What if we could trust ourselves? What if we do know what we're doing here and how to thrive here? Even in the mess and chaos that is the world we live in. 

I recently watched a video about making thousands of dollars on YouTube. I was looking into how to set up a YouTube channel for IU, wanting to know the basics of how to do it. The initial video talked about that, but then it led to another video. This video was also about the how to, but then it also talked about how to make money on YouTube. The guy started making YouTube videos at 14 and is now a millionaire at 22. Of course 🙃

I must admit I got caught up in it. He made it seem so simple, though he did say it required work. He's of course selling a course on how you too can do the same thing. I admit I was tempted, but I sat with it for a while. Sat with the frustration that some people make so much money so easily. Frustration with our whole financial system that profits off of useless or harmful practices. Frustration with myself for not being able to make money so easily.

And I checked in with my heart. What had started out as an attempt to set up a YouTube channel for IU had morphed into something else. I originally was excited about playing with YouTube, making more guided visualization videos. I enjoy playing with AI to come up with the story and the art and then putting it all together in a video with some music. 

But then I got sucked into the money making aspect of it. Listening to this guy talk about all the ways you can make money through YouTube, getting people to keep watching more and more videos, earning money through advertising and affiliate marketing. And the fun disappeared.

My relationship with money and work is fraught with uncomfortable emotions and painful childhood memories. I keep trying to resolve it all, find a way to make peace with both money and work. To let go of old beliefs, old patterns, so that I can work and make money in ways that feel good to me. Where I don't have to suppress parts of myself just to survive. And where I don't have to leave my heart and my soul out in the cold.

This is where trusting myself comes in. Do I trust my heart or do I trust some stranger on the internet? Do I look to this 22 year old because he has more money than me? Do I give all my power or even a little of it over to him because he seems to know how to make money better than I do? Or do I want to trust myself first? Even if it doesn't make as much sense financially?

Ultimately, I want to trust myself in this life. More than I want to make a million dollars. More than I want a YouTube channel with millions of views. I want to look to myself as the expert on my life. 

It's a constant struggle, a choice to make over and over again. I don't know how it will work out. Maybe it's not THE answer either. But it's the one that resonates the most with my heart.

And I did eventually end up creating the YouTube channel for IU. I went back to playing, to creating what I wanted. I started working on a video I wanted to create - a guided visualization of walking through a cave. I played with AI to get some fun, dreamy pictures. I figured out the logistics of setting up a second YouTube channel with my same email. And now it exists. There are no videos on it yet, but it's there for when I'm ready to add any. The millions of views and dollars will have to wait.