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“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” ~ Steve Jobs
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A new client walked into my office a couple of weeks ago, and like many people beginning therapy for the first time, they had taken a long time before finally deciding to seek help.
Naturally, they were curious. They wanted to know what therapy would look like, what they should expect, and perhaps most importantly, whether it would actually work.
While I answered all the practical questions they had, I left them with one simple thought: “Trust the process.”
I told them, “Give it a couple of weeks. Slowly, the conversations, the questions, and even the silences will begin to make sense. You’ll start coming up with realisations on your own. I’m merely here to facilitate the process and hold that space for you.”
A week later, they came back for their second session. As we settled in, I asked them how the week had been and whether they had noticed anything after our first session.
They smiled and said, “You asked me to trust the process. So that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’m just letting things take their course.”
We spoke for the next hour. As always, I didn’t try to give them all the answers. Instead, toward the end of the session, I handed them a worksheet. They looked a little puzzled. I smiled and said, “Just give it another week. Do the worksheet. When we sit together again and bring all your thoughts and experiences together, so much of it will begin to make sense. You’ll start understanding why you are the way you are and why you respond the way you do.”
As they were leaving, I found myself saying the same thing once again: “Thank you for trusting the process.”
They smiled, paused at the door, turned around, and said something that stayed with me: “No…thank you for being so patient. I only hope that one day I’m able to trust the process and the flow of life the way you do.”
I smiled back. But after they left, I sat there thinking. The truth is…I wasn’t always like this. In fact, I was far from it—a total control freak, nervous wreck, perfectionist, high functioning (to a certain extent I still am!). There was a time when I wanted answers to everything. I wanted certainty. I wanted to know why things happened the way they did. I wanted to know the “why” of everything possible and would sit and blame myself for everything that didn’t happen the way it should have. I wanted life to make sense while I was still living it. And if it didn’t, I struggled.
Like most of us, I tried to predict outcomes, to control what came next, to hold on to people, opportunities, and plans that I believed were meant for me, and it has taken me years of turbulence, disappointments, plans not unfolding the way I had imagined, of learning that life rarely follows the timeline we create for it, to arrive at a place where I can take life as it comes and somehow find my way through it. It’s not that uncertainty no longer scares me at all; it does, but I can handle the fear because I have fully embraced the fact that I am, after all, human and no matter how hard I try, how perfect I become, life is like sand: it will slip through my fingers no matter how tightly I try to grip it. And when you open your palm, you will have something else in your hand. Life does magic tricks like that!
As I was sitting with these thoughts, I came across a quote that has often been attributed to a Japanese proverb.
“If you miss the bus, maybe you avoided the accident.”
“If you got rejected, maybe you were saved from the wrong place.”
“If they left, maybe they made room for who is coming.”
“The universe protects you in ways that look like bad luck at first.”
Whether those exact words are truly from an old Japanese proverb or not almost doesn’t matter because the idea stayed with me and perhaps because I have seen it play out over and over again.
There have been opportunities that didn’t work out despite trying my best, projects that fizzled out at the last moment, people who chose someone else, clients who decided to work with another therapist, collaborations that quietly disappeared. At the time, they all felt like disappointments that could end my life. But when I look back today, I realise something interesting. Most of those opportunities wouldn’t have been the right fit for me anyway.
Some would have pulled me away from the work I truly wanted to do, some would have demanded versions of me that weren’t authentic, and some simply weren’t meant to last, and somehow, every closed door created space for another one I hadn’t even noticed before.
I see this with my clients all the time too. Someone doesn’t get the job they desperately wanted, only to later find a workplace where they finally feel seen even though the pay might be less. Someone experiences heartbreak and eventually realises that what they lost was not the relationship they deserved, but the relationship they had settled for.
Someone’s carefully crafted life plan falls apart, only to discover a version of life they never knew they wanted. Now, does this mean every painful experience is secretly a blessing?
No.
Does it mean you have to go through unhealthy relationships, heartbreak, or failure in order to grow?
Absolutely not.
While pain is not a prerequisite for growth, you can’t ignore the fact that some of our greatest learnings and growth comes from pain.
Sometimes life doesn’t unfold the way we had imagined because it is quietly creating space for something we couldn’t yet imagine. Perhaps that’s why I’ve come to believe that while the universe certainly challenges us, it also protects us in ways we don’t always recognise.
The difficult part is that protection rarely feels like protection while we’re living through it.
It feels like rejection, delay, loss, confusion, and uncertainty, and only much later does it begin to look like direction. Of course, trusting the process doesn’t mean becoming passive or believing that everything happens for a reason. Nor does it mean ignoring red flags or continuing to stay in situations that are harming you.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard
There are times when life asks us to surrender and there are times when life asks us to take responsibility, make difficult decisions, and change direction, and true wisdom lies in knowing the difference.
If you’re someone who struggles to loosen your grip on outcomes and trust that life is unfolding in ways you cannot yet see, here are a few things that have helped me over the years.
1. Accept that you don’t need all the answers today. We often postpone peace until we have certainty. But clarity rarely comes before the journey. More often than not, it arrives because we had the courage to keep walking despite not knowing.
2. Focus on what you can control and make peace with what you can’t. You can prepare, you can show up, you can put in your best effort. But you cannot control timing, outcomes, or another person’s choices. Peace often begins where control ends.
3. Instead of asking “Why is this happening to me?” ask “What is this experience asking me to learn?” That one shift changes everything. It gently moves you from feeling powerless to becoming an active participant in your own growth.
4. Look back at your own life. Think about three situations that once felt like disappointments but eventually made sense. Chances are, you’ve already lived through moments where what felt like a setback quietly became a redirection. Let those memories become evidence that life has carried you through before.
5. Trust yourself as much as you trust life. Trusting the process isn’t about believing that life will always give you what you want. It’s about believing that whatever life brings, you will find a way to meet it, learn from it, and grow through it.
6. Practise patience. We live in a world that celebrates instant results, but life unfolds in seasons, not deadlines. Some answers take months. Some take years. That doesn’t mean nothing is happening. It simply means some things need time before they reveal their purpose.
Perhaps that’s what trusting the process really means. It’s not believing that everything will happen exactly the way you imagined, but believing that even when it doesn’t, life is still capable of leading you somewhere meaningful. While we often speak about the universe testing us, I wonder if we speak enough about the ways it quietly protects us.
The opportunities that slipped away, the people who left, the plans that never worked out, the doors that closed before we had the chance to walk through them.
Perhaps not every closed door was a punishment. Maybe some were protection and redirection.
And perhaps one day, just like my client, you’ll look back at a season that once made no sense and realise that what you needed most wasn’t another answer. It was a little more patience, a little more courage, and a little more trust—in the process, in the flow of life, and trust that even if you cannot see where this path is taking you today, one day you’ll look back and realise that life wasn’t working against you.
It was quietly guiding you toward a destination you couldn’t yet see. Something that was truly aligned and meant for you.
I hope you find it in yourself to surrender and flow when life truly needs you to as it works in the background to rearrange things for you—quietly and meaningfully.
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