Self -Trust

“Self-trust is the essence of heroism.”
 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Many of my clients have struggled with trust: abuses, disappointments and hurts have lead them to doubt the sincerity and the ability of others to respect and safeguard the vulnerability they have placed in their possession. They have stopped committing to their lives: quit dating, taking risks or connecting, citing, “you cannot trust others” as their reason. At this point in human evolution, it is unlikely that you will never meet a trust-breaker or a heart-disappointer or experience a life shaking event at some point in your encounters, however trust is not about others – it is about you.

 

BROKEN TRUST

 

The person you need to trust first is yourself. Self-trust can wax and wane and does so in response to the outcome of your choices. Make a good choice, get an expected and wanted result – BAM, trust. Get a result that is miles away from your expectations and self-trust diminishes. But it does not have to. Self-trust is not built from perfection and getting it all right, all the time; just the opposite actually. It is the confidence born out of triumphing over mis-takes and failures; the ability to pick yourself up and brush yourself off and go on. Self-trust is unabashed kindness, compassion and ultimately self-care. It means that you believe in yourself and your ability to honor your needs, your safety and your well-being, no matter what life throws at you. When you doubt your own ability to pick yourself up, when you have denied your own feelings, when you are fearful of failure, when you harbor shame for your mis-takes, self-trust and ultimately trust for others erodes.

 

 “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

TRUST ME…

 

Achieving a state of consistent self-trust is not easy for many and the way you determine whether you are worthy of your own trust is often invalid. False confidence arises when everything goes your way. I was an above average student and in grade nine, I was placed in a high-achieving algebra class with aggressive whiz kids and a teacher, who for the most part, had a way of explaining things that I just did not understand. Up until this point, I would have said that I trusted myself to do well, get good grades and excel, but, BAM - I almost failed the first exam. At this stage, I trusted myself, as long as I did well. The methods I had applied in the past had failed and my experience with this adversity made me doubt if I was as smart as I thought and if I belonged with these kids. I do not remember the exact moment, but I recall thinking that I needed to change the approach, get help and ask more questions. It did not happen easily or quickly, as to me this was failing and my ego did not like to like to look silly or stupid. Eventually, rather than buying into that perception, I  got the help I needed and learned that I could trust myself to take care of me and what I needed to do. This was a helpful lesson and it has been repeated in varying degrees many times throughout my life. What I know is that I have learned greater self-trust through adversity, then I ever have when things were going well. 
 

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” ~ Michel de Montaigne

 

You can reliably build self-trust by the willingness to learn from your experiences, improve decision making and create greater self-awareness. When circumstances show up in opposition of your beliefs or expectations, how you interpret these events and mange them will either increase self-trust or erode it. It is the ability and then the choice to see these experiences as feedback and information, rather than a defining statement of who you are and what you deserve. The degree you trust yourself is the degree to which you will trust others and will determine how mightily you are willing to take steps in order to maximize your life. Self-trust is knowing that you have a parachute you can count on and a back-up should you need it. In order to build self-trust: keep your promises, honor your needs, speak to yourself with compassion and be open to learning in each moment and over time you will know that no matter what, you can always rely on you. 

 Self-trust is unabashed kindness, compassion and ultimately self-care.