“It doesn’t matter if the egg breaks.”
I had to remind myself of that several times on the walk back.
“The egg doesn’t matter. It’s not about the egg.”
What matters is trust.
My 18-month-old nephew and I had gone to collect eggs. And because I am the slightly irresponsible aunt, I had lifted him onto the huge hay bale, hauled myself up after him, and then supported his little body so he could reach out his hand and grab the eggs from the current laying place.
He reached out his little hand to grasp the first egg. And passed it to me. Then the second. Before we reversed the process and returned to the ground.
We had no bowl or bucket, so I had planned to carry both eggs back. But the kid was having none of it.
So we compromised. He would carry one. I would carry one.
Now the house is 100 metres away and I have no idea if my nephew can carry the egg that far. Will he drop it? Will he squish it? Throw it? Smash it into the ground?
In this moment I am worried about my breakfast. No eggs, no breakfast. And I like breakfast.
I am filled with worry about this egg.
But as I look down at the kid fiercely holding this egg, I realise, the egg doesn’t matter.
So what if the egg drops? So what? We lose an egg. Yes, it would be a waste, but a waste of what? A few cents.
Right now he doesn’t need me to worry about the cost of the egg. He needs me to believe in him. To trust that he can walk the egg back to the house. To believe in him and his abilities. To trust his judgment.
He needs me to practise trust. To practise trusting him. Trusting myself. And trusting that we’ll be okay, whatever happens to the egg.
So side by side we walk back to the house. Where he proudly shows his Dad (Dad! Dad! Dad!) the egg he’d carried.
The next day, he wants to carry the bucket of three eggs back to the house.
Was I nervous? Sure. Was I really hoping to have enough eggs for breakfast AND to bake banana bread?
Definitely.
But that didn’t matter. Not really.
So side by side we walk back to the house. Every time the eggs clinked I winced a little. But he proudly showed his Dad (Dad! Dad! Dad!) the bucket of eggs he’d carried.
(And the time when he wasn’t trusted to carry the egg, there was a struggle of wills, and well, apparently the kid threw the egg at the wall.)
What does trust have to do with the Enneagram?
One of the spiritual teachings of the Enneagram is that each of us has a particular way of losing trust in life.
As a Seven, mine is planning.
Somewhere deep in my personality structure is a belief that I have to anticipate what might happen and organise things so everything turns out okay. Otherwise, I might miss out, become trapped, or end up suffering.
The corresponding Holy Ideas, Holy Plan and Holy Work, invite me to experience something quite different.
That life is unfolding in ways I can’t fully predict or control. And that I don’t have to be responsible for managing every possible outcome.
Which is all very lovely in theory.
But apparently, my spiritual practice sometimes involves handing an egg to an 18-month-old.
Trust sounds like such a simple concept.
But as adults, we get caught up in things that don’t matter nearly as much as we think they do.
We try to control outcomes, control other people, follow the rules, or insist that our expectations are met. And we react badly when things don’t go according to plan.
Often these reactions are connected to much older experiences.
Times when we weren’t trusted, when our judgment wasn’t respected, or when making a mistake meant being criticised or punished.
And without realising it, we can pass those experiences on to the next generation.
I could have gotten angry with my nephew for dropping an egg. Not because the egg really mattered, but because somewhere inside me is a memory of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of someone else’s anger.
Pain that may have been passed down from my mother, who inherited it from hers. And so it goes.
But in that moment, I had a choice.
I could follow the old pattern, or I could practise something different.
Trust isn’t certainty
I think this is what makes spiritual development so challenging.
It’s one thing to understand a Holy Idea intellectually. It’s quite another to live it when our unconscious patterns are telling us to do something else.
I didn’t know whether my nephew would make it back to the house with the egg intact.
And I didn’t need to know.
I could trust him to try. Trust myself to deal with whatever happened. And trust that we didn’t need to control the outcome for this to be a worthwhile experience.
When I do that, I stop trying to manage every possible variable.
I stop worrying about breakfast. I stop anticipating being yelled at by my mother, who isn’t even there.
And I make room for something else.
My nephew’s delight in being trusted. His growing confidence. The experience of doing something together, rather than me managing him.
The spiritual practice isn’t about knowing that everything will turn out the way we want. It’s about learning to trust even when we don’t know what will happen.
And that takes practice.
Finding spiritual practice in ordinary life
I wonder how often we miss opportunities to practise trust because we’re so busy trying to make sure everything turns out the way we expect.
And whether some of the most meaningful spiritual work we can do happens in these tiny, ordinary moments.
Not in trying to become more trusting, but in noticing where we’re holding on, what we’re afraid might happen, and discovering what becomes possible when we loosen our grip.
For me, that meant letting an 18-month-old carry an egg.
For you, it might be allowing someone to do something their own way, leaving a decision unresolved, or letting go of a plan you’ve been carefully managing.
Whatever it is, perhaps the invitation is to notice where your personality is trying to protect you by controlling the outcome.
And to experiment with trusting that you can meet whatever happens next.
Even if the egg breaks.
And as it turned out, my nephew was first in line when my excessively chocolatey banana bread came out of the oven.