Learning to Trust

The much watched rain gauge

Children teach us so much about trust, they make good friends in 5 minutes

Two very different experiences have recently brought me to the same realisation, quite simply, to trust. There are so many things over which you have no control, but what you can choose is the way in which you live your life. And learning to trust that which you can’t control as well as that which you can has provided an incredibly meaningful shift of perspective for me.

A few months ago we were all wearing gum boots and people on the street were shaking their heads and muttering to themselves ‘will this rain ever stop?’,  we all thought summer would never come. I alone was fervently thinking to myself, ‘please, please let it rain some more, not just a drizzle, not a soft caressing rain, but a downpour that rings on the tin roof and fills a rain tank in a day. Please, please let it rain!’ I was guiltily aware that I was probably the only person in our town thinking that and yet nothing was going to stop me wishing for rain, I longed for it so much that it ached.

We had been having the kind of rain that made my dear man and I look at each other in wide-eyed wonder and grin as the rain falling with such incessant strength rapidly filled our tanks until they were overflowing. There is not much for me that rivals the joy of rain filling tanks. Not having enough money for a couple of months is deeply stressful, but running out of water is a devastating feeling. But luckily, we were all set for the summer with full tanks, a good place to be.

But lots of powerful rain also leads to lots of leaks in new and interesting places. And an attempt to fix the leaks to prevent the lounge from flooding once again went horribly awry when the rain arrived earlier than predicted and the paint on the roof had not yet dried.  I discovered, with horror, that the water that had been entering the tanks was milky white. With paint. Our drinking water, our everything water, our lifeline, had been contaminated. The decision we took to drain the 15 000 litres was extremely painful, but necessary. And the immobilising panic morphed into the constant dull ache for a downpour.

I cut out the Dalai Lama from the cover of the Big Issue with the quote ‘Don’t worry, it’s pointless, be happy’, because no matter how much I wished for the rain I couldn’t make it happen. And so I had to learn to trust. And it did rain again. And although our tanks didn’t fill to the brim we should be ok. And if we aren’t, I simply need to trust that, on a day not of my choosing, it will rain again.

So while I may not be able to choose when it rains, I can choose the kind of schooling experience my children have. And although I had fallen into the trap of boxing Waldorf education as ‘airy fairy’, all it took was for me to walk into a kindergarten classroom and experience the care with which each natural element had been placed for me to see it afresh. My children are so blissfully happy at school because they are given the space to truly play, to genuinely imagine and to gently explore their place  in the world by interacting respectfully with both friends and the trees they love to climb. I don’t want my children to ever lose the love of learning and I have experienced how Waldorf makes this possible.

And perhaps it is because I come from a line of doctors with a true gift for helping, that my need to help others is sometimes misdirected. I definitely felt the calling to help within me when choosing what to study and at the last minute chose not to do medicine, but rather environmental science, a calling of a different kind. And yet I still find myself attempting to help others, whether it be by telling them about some amazing biodegradable baby wipes or where to buy organic veggies. So when it came to our pioneer school and the delight my children were experiencing there I was over eager to share the joy. I expended so much energy trying to convince people how wonderful it was so their children could experience it too, instead of allowing myself to simply enjoy how happy it was making my own children. Until I was reminded by an insightful teacher to trust. And I immediately took a step back and for the first time allowed myself to relish the fact that my children and in fact all the children at the school are really flourishing. And to trust that the school will grow because of that. In the same way that I trust that the rain will always come, at some point.


I have learnt that: no matter how much I wish for it, I cannot make it rain, I simply have to trust that it will because the alternative is too mind numbing to think about. And secondly, if you build it, they will come. If you find something good that you want to share with others it is almost impossible to convince them vicariously. You simply have to live it, enjoy it and be it and trust that there will be those who will find it in their own time. My favourite quote of all time by the great Ghandi says it all, quite simply “be the change you wish to see in the world”. And trust it.