I was in the ER some years ago–in a cubicle with my friend, Jane, who was having seizures. (She was soon to be diagnosed with  brain cancer). As I stood there helpless, watching the nurse work on her, my friend’s husband stormed in and yelled that he wanted me out of there. I barely knew him, but I was suddenly caught in this wild whirlpool of his anger and fear, that actually had nothing to do with me.

I remember standing out in the hall, feeling judged for doing all I could to get her there–calling him, calling the ambulance, being her communicator. Something was triggered about how I was being misunderstood.

This was an old feeling.

I was somehow buying someone else’s emotions about me, just as I had bought my parents beliefs about me. For a good part of my life, I had been reluctant to trust myself. I was raised to believe that I did not know better–that God, parents, everyone else had a better idea of what was good for me than I did. Trusting myself was a bad thing. Somehow selfish.

But in that intense ER moment, feeling very alone and very scared about my friend, I suddenly had this sense of me coming from deep within. I was with myself. I knew I had done what was needed, whether he or anyone else agreed. It was as if I was saying to me, “You can trust yourself. I am not abandoning you. You are just fine being you, regardless of what anyone else thinks.”

It has been that feeling over and over that has led me to my present life. It has led me to move from one career to another, to travel freely for 8 months with my husband, to move from one part of the country to another, to open myself to new experiences, new friends, to live a wider, deeper life. A life which feels full of joy and love for myself and others.

I have discovered in my coaching with others. that locating that self-trust–being able to count on ourselves–shifts the attention from problems and uncertainties to desires and possibilities. It may take a fairly complex route to get down to that deep core trust, but once there, it is unmistakable.

It is luminous.

Though I occasionally fall into old patterns of fear and wanting approval, I’m mostly just so happy to be me. Finally.