Trust has been on my mind a lot lately.
You might think after so many years of personal development and almost a decade of coaching I’d be a very trusting person.
Not so much.
My lil’ lizard brain is suspicious and cynical, and you’d be amazed at the skepticism that rears its head almost every time I read or try something new. Why do you think it took me so long to start a blog and get on Twitter?
I’ve been lied to and cheated on in the game of love.
I’ve been burned by business agreements gone wrong, promises broken.
I’ve been hard done by, strung along and…
I know. This is starting to sound like a dramatic, movie-of-the-week. The result is this,
Not. So. Trusting.
You’ve got your own story of disillusionment and disappointment, so, we’re in this together.
trust: ability to rely on another person’s integrity, strength, sureness etc. i.e. You can trust someone to do the right thing.
Read that again (this time with 3 more words):
Ability to rely on another person’s (and your own) integrity, strength, sureness.
I can say I’m not trusting, but the truth is more like I haven’t been trusting myself lately. I know you can relate to that; I hear it often from my clients:
“If only I had trusted my intuition.”
“I knew it was a bad idea and then did it anyway.”
“I had a feeling…should have trusted it.”
All familiar refrains.
Perhaps you’ve made decisions that didn’t turn out. Or you went after a dream and “failed.” And for sure those heartbreaks along the way? Serious impact on trusting yourself.
Life has been doing its thing and at some point, you decided not to trust yourself.
Except you’re not honest about it. You put it out there like this,
“I don’t trust you/others/life” because that’s less uncomfortable than looking at the Source.
You.
Not trusting yourself creates a lot of discomfort and you’ll avoid that at all costs.
Look at the language around trust. You talk about it as thought it’s out there, disconnected from you.
“That person lost my trust.” (Really? Where did it go?)
“I can’t trust that person.” (like something’s literally stopping you)
“They’ve got to earn my trust.” (and just exactly how does one go about doing that?)
All circumstances beyond your control. All external. Leaving you hopeless, an innocent victim of all those bad, untrustworthy people!
What if that’s not the way it works at all?
“There’s never any reason to trust someone. If there’s a reason, then it’s not trust.” – Gerald Morris
What if trust is something you give?
Freely, without reservation, a gift that creates a space, an extraordinary foundation for relationship.
This the kind of question that comes up for me when I’m away on retreat; when I give myself time to rest, quiet my mind and create space.
What if you gave that trust to yourself? What if I did?
I remember clearly after I said yes to getting married, I began having old, familiar feelings of uncertainty and discomfort. After so many years of being single, could I trust myself to make such an important decision?
Our marriage commissioner shared her wisdom, that what works is to wake up every morning and choose your mate. And then the next day, choose again.
Every day, a new choice.
Could it be the same with trust?
I don’t have the answer. What I do have is curiousity, a public pondering of something I’ve been privately thinking the past week.
I’m curious…
- to hear your thoughts on trust.
- about what stops you from trusting yourself.
- about what it might take for you to choose trust. Day after day.
Goethe said, “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
Really?
It’s time for an experiment.
For one week – 168 hours of your precious time – practice trusting yourself. Notice when you don’t and then?
Trust yourself again.
Day after day. For seven days and then let’s meet back here next Monday to debrief.
Try it. Share it. Step into the laboratory that is your life.
What have you got to lose?
Hi SandiD!
What it took for me to choose trust? You probably already know. Geneen Roth and the presuppositions of NLP. One of the best days of my life was when I stopped looking for examples of how I could be trusted in just *the obvious* (oh, look, I did what I said I was going to do) and started gathering information about how I could be trusted from the not so obvious of places…what I was doing that I thought *proved* I couldn’t be.
Trust – no trust…a slippery slope my friend. xoS
Really like this idea Sandi.
Trusting yourself is as important if not more important than trusting others
Ben! Are you the same Ben who has the TV show with El Edwards?! If you are, and now you’re here at Sandidearest’s site, I’ll have to go check out this man who knows how to surround himself with great women!
Trusting myself feels so damn good, makes me wonder why I don’t do it all the time!?
I’m in! Eager to see what happens. ~Jeanine
Awesome Jeanine! Let’s see how it goes.
I’m in! I’ve been thinking about this lately, too. Specifically, looking at where I trust myself and where I repeatedly don’t. Interestingly, when I read the definition of trust you posted, the first person I thought of was my husband, and it made me think that re: your FB comment, trust is what makes a good marriage.
I trust our relationship, I trust that people are generally good, and I trust lots of other things external. On the other hand, I constantly doubt my own abilities, careerwise, as a mom, as a cook, you name it. What would life look like if I trusted myself. I’d like to find out!
Veronica,
I’m so looking forward to watching as you find out! I’m also curious about all the areas in life where you DO trust yourself. ‘Cause you know they’re there right?
I trust myself to eat chocolate every day 🙂 I’m actually amazed how hard it is to think of anything else that’s not a sarcastic remark. Or that sounds trivial. “I trust myself to keep my kids alive” comes to mind, for example, but isn’t that too obvious?
“I trust myself to keep secrets I am told” – but isn’t that about other people?
“I trust myself to pick up and move with my family across the world, and make it work for all of us.” – This might be getting somewhere worth exploring.
“What if, trust is something you give?
Freely, without reservation, a gift that creates a space, an extraordinary foundation for relationship.”
I love this…and you are so right, we have to trust ourselves first.
Thanks for starting a great conversation 🙂
Kate
Kate,
Thanks for joining the conversation! I love that you call yourself a Communications Genius, so clearly, you trust yourself “without reservation” there! And that’s a gift to us all 🙂
At the start of the experiment I didn’t think I trusted myself very much. Now? After just four days of paying attention, noticed how much I do trust myself in so many areas and how good that feels. I love experiments 🙂
I’m noticing the degree to which I trust is related to integrity. Looking at other people, trusting seems to be easier than for myself, because:
1. I do not know all the places another person’s integrity is out.
2. I am quite forgiving of others when their integrity is out.
3. I know exactly where my own integrity is out.
4. I am not very forgiving of myself when my integrity is out.
For example, I promise myself I will spend less time surfing the internet, find myself back online five minutes later, then think to myself “If I can’t even keep that little promise to myself, how can I trust myself to keep the big promises.” If I were to observe someone else making and breaking the same promise, I would probably laugh and, depending on who it was, maybe be a little annoyed, but it wouldn’t have the same significance as it does for me.
Thanks for sharing this in my Speaking of Trust party. It is perfect! I love your assignment! How did it go for you when you did it? I’ going to suggest folks try it out over at Bliss Habits!!
@blisshabits What happened during that week was awesome! I realized while there were areas in my life where trust was definitely missing, there were also areas where I was very trusting and that was great to realize.
Thanks for sharing this in my Speaking of Trust party. It is perfect! I love your assignment! How did it go for you when you did it? I’ going to suggest folks try it out over at Bliss Habits!!