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I Trust the Process. Even when I don't - Journal December 19th, 2024

Cecilie Conrad·Dec 19, 2024· 5 minutes

I love change.

I love wrapping things up.

But I do not necessarily love saying goodbye.

But I don't hate it. 

I love change. Changing. New places. New options. 

But then again: 

Do I genuinely love change?

Yes… I think I do.

But do I love it when it takes me by surprise? When it hurts, like a sting? When it’s beyond my control, unpredictable?

No.

And yes.

Life is a wild teacher.

I am here to learn. To live. To explore. To love. 

And the life I’ve chosen to live? Perhaps it just made things even wilder. It’s vulnerable. It’s open. It’s adaptive.

I do love change. I really do.

I suffocate at the thought of stagnation — of things being the same, repeating, immobile. I like things fresh and new: new places and new frames. They open the mind and prepare the soul, tuning the receiving apparatus.

Just recently, I wrote a piece about how I realized that some forms of pain are beyond control. In the same way, some forms of change are not exactly… in line with what happens within me.

Let me touch upon this pain thing: Most pain stems from distance—the distance between how we want reality to be and how we perceive it to be.

It becomes too complex if we start talking about how it actually is. Reality. Who knows, really?

Not long ago, in London, just ten days ago, I realized there’s another layer. An important one. My reality and my desired reality are, somehow, both realities — as I understand them, seen from some form of identity, from an ego-driven perspective that might be soul-guided, but still.

But there’s more. There’s what we receive when we tune in. When we allow guidance. If we do that and try to understand the bigger picture, then there’s another form of reality. The one I understand, which I call spiritual reality, is the one that shines when I open my eyes and look into infinity.

And when what happens around me doesn’t match what’s happening spiritually, everything gets rather strange. That’s what I wrote about that day in London.

Now, I’m trying to understand whether I truly love change, and I think I do. But I don’t love change when it’s out of control, when it’s surprising and painful when it closes doors around me and makes things harder.

At least not to begin with.

But then comes the challenge.

Can you walk the talk, Cecilia?

Do I trust the process? Do I know that if I walk with The Light, in The Light, I become The Light? Do I trust “this or something better”? Do I truly know that life always gives us exactly what we need?

Not entirely, to be honest. When my cousin lost a baby, it was incredibly hard to trust the process. Some elements of my life experience have challenged my worldview, and I constantly have to fight to see the steps as true and good.

Some of these battles, I may never win. Some of them stand back, like shining black stones in an otherwise beautiful life experience, as mysteries in the bad way, the most extreme example being this child who never got to live, who we never got to get to know. She is not alone in challenging my worldview - but I leave it there: I trust there is something I don't know, I trust the challenge to be part of the journey, and I carry on - sometimes in a pain I do not understand. It is what it is. And it does not always make sense all the way through. 

That does not make it false. Just hard to grasp, hard to be in, hard to understand. 

The two phenomena: changes I have no control over that come suddenly and feel painful, and the dissonance between my perception of the universe’s calling and the concrete unfolding of reality around me — both demand the same:

Adaptation.

Am I just a quiet forest lake with a mirror-like surface and the Milky Way reflected between treetops and wonderful mountain ridges: clear and responsive, precise and receptive, ready to react as needed, letting everything settle once more?

Or is it more complex?

Sleeplessness. Silence. Time. Conversation. Meditation. Time. The soul reaches out, sensing where the energy moves, where there is light. Finding a way through life’s entanglements requires so much spiritual precision, far more than I have, always asking for more readiness than I’ve built, more preparation than I can manage, and more reserves than I can summon.

So, I adapt. It takes time. It requires the presence I always talk about, which is always central, always the path to what matters.

Am I rambling? No.

In our lives right now, it is an urgent thing, top of mind, the reason it is worth reflecting upon.

All plans are up in the air, things are shifting, many heavy pieces are moving around, there’s uncertainty and vulnerability, and yet, it seems the path ahead is shining clearly. A few sleepless nights, some extra espresso, a few lessons to learn, and we’re ready again.

Ready to live in The Light. Moving on. Shining. 

To love the change itself, not the sting that carried it, not its cause, not the dissonance — but the change: the opportunities, the openings, the perspectives. Yes to them. Always.

Yes.

I love change.

And yes.

I trust the process. Even when I don’t.

FOTO: Cecilie Conrad Vestlev, Brighton 18.12.2024
TEXT: Cecilie Conrad Vestlev, London 19.12.2024

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