Building Blocks Of Trust.
Do you trust yourself?
Trust for me is not something that I grew up into. It is something I have had to work towards throughout my life in order to fully grasp what it means not only as a word in and of itself, but as an entire emotion separate from any other.
Mistrust was more my area of expertise growing into adulthood. It was the way I saw the world for the majority of my existence. The go to teachings engraved in me from an early age. I went through life never fully opening myself up for fear of disappointment within myself, and especially towards others around me.
Abandonment played a huge role in how I viewed trust as a whole. Those I expected to be there for me in my forever moments all vanished like a thief in the night; I carried my issues of abandonment around like a sparkling accessory for a significant amount of time.
Somewhere along in my mid 20’s I began to name abandonment for what it was; even though I didn’t intimately understand the disease it had created in my soul until much later. It was quite literally etched into my blood and those withing my bloodline as a badge to be carried around on our chests for the world to see.
I can admittedly confess there really wasn’t anyone I trusted enough to allow myself to be vulnerable with. I had learned at an early age that it was best to keep my thoughts to myself, especially if they did not meet the requirements of topics that were open for discussion. Even then, there was a need to tread lightly. As a result, trusting myself was a foreign concept for me.
It is important to allow children their voice to speak in order to learn that it is okay to not only trust others, but most importantly to be able to trust themselves. Creating a balance of teaching the importance of speaking up against wrongdoings as well as learning to express their own truths.
Let me just tell you, the combination of mistrust + abandonment issues made for an entire heap of hot mess when in came to the internal turmoil I endured. Let’s take a moment and give thanks to growth in life…
The realization of the importance of trust being vital to creating, building, and sustaining solid relationships that are rich with depth; combined with the knowledge of it also being mandatory for growing within myself, is what pushed me to start questioning the dysfunctional patterns I was creating out of fear. Fear of allowing myself to trust my own judgement for the things that are best for me in my life. It was a tug of war so to speak between good and evil; the yin and yang + everything else in between.
If we don’t trust ourselves, we tend to make decisions that go against our true capacity to move forward in life.
What I thought was me trusting, was actually me allowing dysfunctional behavior to cloud my judgement. I was attempting to trust other people to make the decisions I needed to trust myself to make; ultimately passing on the responsibility of my happiness onto them. I was confusing obedience for trust, mistrusting my own voice for those around me. Have you ever felt like you’re speaking to an audience of one? How well did doing so contribute to your overall happiness?
[ctt template=”8″ link=”dBve1″ via=”no” ]Placing your happiness wholly in the hands of other people will leave you feeling depleted.[/ctt]
While also further creating mistrust for the person who is actually responsible for your happiness, YOU. Each day, we walk a path alone with no one else responsible for the decisions we choose to make. Sure, we are able to take into account those we love and cherish; doesn’t change the very real fact the decisions we make in life always belong to us.
I had gotten so used to listening to other people tell me what was best for me, that I was having a very difficult time allowing myself to trust the voice inside myself that told me something entirely different. Intuition/discernment.
Coming to a defining place of understanding + acknowledgement that my voice needed to be heard and desperately needed me to trust it was the starting point for me building trust within myself. You could say, I had reached a crossroads. Trust myself or in the long run lose myself entirely. The latter wasn’t an option based on many factors; most importantly for me was the legacy of lineage, where will this lead the generations following after me? How will they learn to trust their own inner voices?
Easier said than done in many ways. It takes work, it takes falling + hitting the pavement, getting back up bruised and tired, dusting off with what you have left, and trying again consistently. It takes disappointing or even hurting others who may not fully understand the decisions you’re choosing to make, which may in turn trigger an inner turmoil they’ve not yet been ready to face. It takes trust in and of itself, at the core of your entire being. It takes ripping everything you’ve ever known down to tiny pieces and rebuilding from scratch. It is a lifetime commitment.
The hardest part for me has been the knowledge that I have been in a position to hurt those I love the most with the irony being that I wasn’t including myself in that equation for a long time. I made a choice, that I was going to make myself a priority in my life. Not with the intention of dismissing anyone’s trust in me, but with the intention of honoring the trust within myself, for myself. In doing so I would be allowing others to make that choice for themselves.
Life will test us in ways that question who we are at our core vs. who we are for the people around us. I believe it is important to work towards a balance if possible. Ultimately, without trust in yourself, you’re taking away others ability to trust you to make choices that align with the person they also deserve to know. The person who trusts themselves enough to make the best possible decisions that will allow for happiness within.
Do you trust yourself?
