Trusting Others and Ourselves

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We all enjoy trusting others and being trusted by them. Our nervous systems tend to be more regulated in a trusting relationship. We have less of a need to be vigilant and guarded. We simply don’t worry about how we will care for ourselves in the presence of someone we trust.

If we've experienced betrayal, it may be challenging to trust again. As we heal a previous betrayal, we can learn how someone can earn our trust and decide when we’re ready to take the risk to trust again.

Earned not Entitled

Thomas Merton, a Christian mystic, suggested we imagine loving a person approaching us around the next street corner whom we don’t know. Loving that person might mean wishing them well or helping if they are seeking directions or just experienced an accident. Merton urged us to consider love as not needing to be earned. But the same is not true for trust. We’re not entitled to be trusted. Trust is earned. Therefore, it calls for discernment to decide, in an informed way, that someone has earned our trust. Nothing compromises our ability to trust in a discerning way more than a high need to be loved. It is advisable to pay attention to such a need honestly.

Two Beliefs

Too often we are okay with trust amounting to a good feeling about someone. Then we're devastated when the feeling is violated. It helps to clearly understand what it means to trust and when someone has earned it. Without such clarity, it is almost impossible to hold others and ourselves accountable for trustworthiness. The operational definition of trust used in the early experiments on trust was holding two beliefs. If I trust you, then I believe you will tell me the truth, and you will treat me kindly. Having these two beliefs means being honest with ourselves about what we are told and how we are treated. It’s all too easy to be hurt and quickly decide someone is untrustworthy. Before making such a decision, I recommend a conversation in which you express your hurt and how much duplicity and lack of kindness you’ve endured.

Building Trustworthiness

It’s common to focus on the trustworthiness of others while ignoring our own. I recommend focusing on your own trustworthiness before taking the inventory of others. Choose a particular relationship and explore how honest and kind you are with that specific person. Choose a person you trust and ask them how honest they experience you to be and whether they feel treated kindly by you. Such an exchange efficiently contributes to building more trust and emotional intimacy.

Self-Trust

Trust is commonly treated as a dynamic occurring between two or more people. But self-trust is at least as necessary or more critical than relational trust. I suggest using the exact definition of trust for yourself as well as others: I trust myself if I believe I will allow myself to know my own truth and believe I will treat myself kindly. It’s not always easy to allow yourself to know your own truth. Challenges can arise in several areas. It can be difficult to know emotions, which you typically deny. Or to let yourself know how you really feel about someone. It can be challenging to be honest about your limitations, either denying them or prefabricating many of them. It is common to fall prey to rationalizing some action rather than facing an honest account of what you did.

Furthermore, we can be very unkind to ourselves, so it may feel normal to treat yourself badly. A lack of kindness includes excessive self-criticism, a lack of self-forgiveness, not eating or resting appropriately, not appreciating a job well done, ignoring a need for companionship, or not asking for help when needed. It is essential to refrain from berating yourself or acting with self-cruelty. It is essential to refrain from abusing or neglecting yourself. To change, you need only to notice and recommit.

Trusting with discretion and being trusted free us up to love more deeply, know where we belong, hold a collective vision, and co-create. Of course, trust isn’t lived perfectly. There will be bumps in the road with broken agreements, unkept promises, and unmet expectations. It means growing a resilience to manage the hard times and the capacity to forgive. (See my blogs on forgiveness and resiliency.)