How to know, Whom to Trust?

Mind – I can not trust people anymore. Why should I trust them? I always suffer by letting my guards down.

Essence – Trust at its core is never wrong; by trusting others, you widen your horizon and always learn something new and so, you never lose.

Mind – How come there is no loss? I have to suffer endless pain and emotional trauma. I feel like a fool for wasting my precious time and energy on someone who was not even worth it.

Essence –  You are not a fool. How can you be one? You trusted them based on the circumstances that prevailed back then. You didn’t know at that time what will be the fated destiny of your relationship. God plans everything for you; nothing is a waste. 

Mind – Will you please elaborate; How I am not in loss?

Essence – We always gain something by trusting others. If our trust wins, we earn a soul connection, a genuine friend for a lifetime. And If the results are otherwise, we learn a lesson from that whole experience. Lessons that will make us more mature and wiser in future. 

God never sends anyone without a purpose. Some people are there to support us, and some are for our learning and evolution. So, what may seem to us like a painful experience, in reality, is teaching us something about ourselves.

Trust is the virtue of our soul and the foundation of all relationships.
We all have experienced the pain and hurt of broken trust at some point in our lives. Such experiences are hard to digest and make us blockaded, thereby affecting our future dealings with others.

Humans have experienced and evolved a lot in years. Our survival instincts often restrict us from trusting others blindly. How difficult do you think it would be to let down the guards that kept you safe and in some cases, alive, for so long? But, it is not the deceit of strangers that hurt us. It is often the faith in our dear ones that if broken, breaks us. I understand recovering from past hurt and, trusting all over again is hard, but, it is vital for our learning and expansion.

All we have to learn is, Whom to Trust? Because we can not afford to commit the same mistake again and again by trusting the wrong ones. As in that case, I do not think we have learned anything from our past encounters.

In this whole scenario; to trust or not to, I found myself like a pendulum, unable to strike that balance. I could see that the debate between my higher self and practical self is genuine. While my essence always wants to trust people, my mind thinks otherwise. It wants to protect me by setting some definite standards, thereby saving my precious time or energies on worthless people.

While I was struggling to set some definite standards for my trust; I came across a Youtube video of Oprah’s Super Soul Conversation where Brene Brown beautifully explained the issue of trust.

Basically, “When we trust, we are braving connection with someone. So what is trust?” Brene Brown’s anatomy of trust gives us the acronym BRAVING, which is :

• B = Boundaries – I trust you if you are clear about your boundaries, and you hold them and clear about mine and respect them.
• R = Reliability – I can only trust you if you do what you say you are going to do over and over again.
• A = Accountability – I can only trust you if when you make a mistake, you’re willing to own it, apologize for it and make amends. And when I make a mistake, I am allowed to own it, apologize and make amends.
• V = Vault – What I share with you, you will hold in confidence. What you share with me, I will keep safe. You and I will maintain confidentiality.
• I = Integrity – I can not trust you and be in a trusting relationship with you if you do not act from a place of honesty and encourage me to do the same. (Brown’s definition of integrity: “Choosing courage over comfort, choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast or easy, and practising your values not just professing your values.”)
• N = Non-judgement – I can fall apart, ask for help and be in struggle without being judged by you and you can fall apart, and ask for help without being judged by me.
• G = Generosity – Our relationship is only a trusting relationship if you can assume generosity for my words, intentions and behaviours. And then check in with me.

The bottom line:

Trusting someone is a real commitment that requires efforts from both ends. Evaluate what terms you share with the person and whether you know the person before braving connection with him/her.

Also, as per Brown, “If you struggle with trust, the thing to examine first is whether you trust yourself. Because we can’t ask people to give us something that we do not believe we’re worthy of receiving. And you will know you are worthy of receiving it when you trust yourself above everyone else.”

CAN YOU RELATE? 

Let us know! Share your views in the COMMENTS below↓.

SHARING IS CARING ♥

Please, SHARE this post with someone who is in need.