When you are facing what you wish you weren’t facing, sometimes it helps to stop trying to force another scenario. This might be your time to let go of trying and trying. We are all trying so hard to get things right. Or trying to make “it” go away. Maybe, just maybe, you can give yourself some moments of not trying.

You might be trying to fix something that isn’t broken.

Or you might be trying to fix something that is breaking, only to be transformed.

“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” a friend of mine said to me years ago, when I felt like my life had hit a thick brick wall in every single direction. “Your life is not your fault. You are not as responsible for what is going on as you think.” I felt myself drop a weight I didn’t even know I was carrying. It felt healing. I was afraid it was a cop out, but it didn’t feel like it was a cop out. It felt as though I had just dropped in from my head to my heart.

I know we are all big on taking responsibility for our lives and bravo for that.

But your life turns on so much more than just the actions you take. There is a co-creation with the hourly burly wildness of Life itself. None of us, really, ever knows what’s going on, what’s ultimately “good” or “bad.” The Universe is alive. The Divine is a wild agent of change. Like nature, it’s not all uniform and sugar-coated. Yet what if quantum intelligence and love run through the currents of everything, shot through the whole shebang? That’s the responsibility I do take. I take responsibility for how I choose to see things.

I’ve come to realize that I am not abandoned by my Self or the Universe. I feel abandoned. But I don’t think I can disconnect from the web of wholeness, coherence, and the nuanced logic of Life. Yet I do know that I abandon intimacy with myself. I run from being there for myself or believing that I can pivot or find my way.

So, I want to find the words to awaken your heart and end any sense of isolation or abandonment. I want to tell you I believe in you. And I believe in your Life. You will find your way. The innate intelligence within you already has the coordinates.

“Life is a good teacher and a good friend,” says Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. I don’t know what you will discover from your “friend” pain or discomfort. I have found that I scare myself with stories. I make up interpretations or conclusions that aren’t true. I spiral into a future that doesn’t exist.

I tell myself I can’t handle things. Yet everything in me was born to handle this life—and even my death. I am learning to be present to what is going on right now. Being present is a way to learn from my pain instead of just looking to slam and lock a door that has just opened.

Here’s an example. One time last year when I got present with a grief that kept arising, I realized this: I had been handling so many competing uncertainties for so long as though I was simply carrying a bag of potatoes. I was acting like it was no big deal. Trying to just keep holding on. Clutching to what I think I knew. A moment of very disappointing news made me drop the bag. It made me drop everything, all my bags and let the contents and emotions spill out.

The truth is that I felt terrified of feeling vulnerable or out of control.

The truth is that I deserved my own love and compassion during that time.

That day I saw how helpless I felt, but for once I just stopped and gave the emotion breathing room. The feeling hurt. But it was also a relief in a strange way. A release. It felt loving to feel myself instead of trying to fix myself. And the feeling didn’t kill me.

That experience opened my heart to myself and to all of us. We all have our potatoes, our debts, self-comparison, or tornados. I thought about all the tenacity and hopes upon this planet. And I felt connected. I felt less removed. I even started to trust that just because I didn’t know how to “fix” my life, didn’t mean I wouldn’t be led.

Vulnerability always seems to lead me to availability.

Maybe it’s desperation. Maybe it’s inspiration.

But vulnerability makes me open to new things and new ways of seeing.