Trusting others

Sure, we can place our trust into the hands of our partner, our government, our boss – but with that we’re handing over the agency over our inner peace. We create an expectation that they won’t hurt us and eventually – that trust gets “broken” resulting in a cascade of trauma and blame.

Often “I cannot trust you‘s” are being thrown around in family therapy rooms, in bedrooms, behind the shut doors often accompanied with tears, pain and heaviness. What we’re really saying is that “I cannot trust that I will be okay if this happens again, and it is up to you to give me this feeling of security“.

Wouldn’t it much more liberating to live with a different narrative: “I trust that regardless of what you do, I will be okay” and not hold the other person hostage to your expectation? Imagine for a moment such space of infinite trust…

And so, the alternative seems to be: just trusting yourself, right? It depends. It can be a very lonely sentiment…

The type of trust I’m advocating for though, is akin to a child-like naïveté where you relate to the others, to the world around you – with an open heart and a sense of awe. In fact, it is our base level. That child-like enthusiasm and open mind comes from full reliance that someone has got your back in case you fall, after all.

However this base level, through the experiences of our childhood and early adolescence, becomes tainted and we develop a shield of painful expectations that leads to a closed heart and constant state of vigilance.

Much like we rely on our caretakers at the very beginning of our lives, we need to learn how to rely on ourselves. How to become our own caretakers and develop trust so once again we can re-engage with the world and people in it with a wide-open eyes of a child.

A parent promises to “always be there for you”… it is nigh time you give yourself this promise.

New question becomes how to maintain this promise, so that your inner child can play, run and maybe fall a few times and be ok after that?

How do you parent yourself? How do you cultivate that sense of trust?…