Trust is a funny thing, isn't it? As soon as someone is emotionally wounded, one of the first sentences they cry is: I don't know how I will ever trust anyone ever again. Get wounded often enough - especially in childhood, when those wounds become all-defining - and you have trust issues. I don't buy those 'trust no one' quotes myself. They speak to me of deeply wounded people putting up huge boundaries between themselves and others to protect themselves from harm. Whilst I get the need to do this, I think it's dangerous to accept such as advice as gospel.
When I was little, I had this funny little habit of attaching myself to strangers. You know those little koala toy grabbers that cutely cling on to pencils? I was a little like that - clinging on to people's legs as they tried to walk out the door. This might have been okay if it was a family member, but I'm not sure the local plumber appreciated a cling-on as he went about his local business. Kinda makes putting your foot on the accelator a little difficult. I have no memory of this, of course, but it's an oft told story which says something a little about who I am. I'm a clinger - you only have to be nice to me, and I will wrap my arms around you and love you to bits. Even if you're not nice, I'll spend my time figuring out why and probably forgiving you for it. Life is too short to put up boundaries between yourself and the universe.
I'm lucky that a combination of my personality, beliefs and life experiences has allowed me to find it fairly easy to trust. Whilst it was a little hard to give my heart wholly to someone, because it had been broken a few times (both by others, and my own self), I always trusted my heart to know the right thing to do and the right person to be with. It allowed my marriage to get off to a good start, that's for sure. I leapt into that with my heart open, taking a real risk to travel to the other side of the world to a man I barely knew. It was a little tough at first, because we had to trust we were doing the right thing, but we held out our hands and believed. Trust is a nice thing to have, in a marriage. It doesn't come easily, especially if one's life experience suggests you need to be on the look out for betrayal coz damn it hurts. I think of the photograph of my man as a kid - the little boy at the window, the diffused light seeping through yellow curtains, waiting for Dad to come home, not fully understanding he'd left for another woman, and another family. No wonder my honey worries sometimes - the little boy in him sometimes thinks I might just disappear. Yet he knows that - knew that - trust was a necessity for what we were going to take on with this relationship. We had to practice trusting so our relationship could deepen and bloom. And despite what the quotes say online, trust does and can come back - I've seen many a couple repair their relationships after one had an affair, because they chose to work at it together.
We have to choose to trust, and see what grows from that. More often than not, we are proven wrong. One untrustworthy relationship does not make everyone and everything untrustworthy. One moment of dishonesty does not define the future.
We need to keep an open mind.
Thus trust becomes a tool to find freedom from the wounds of the past or any wariness about what is coming at us - whether it is within our interpersonal relationships, or the relationship we have with ourselves. This is how we trust. We stop being controlled by our memories, our expectations, or thought patterns. Sure, we have to listen to the warning signs - this is base survival instinct. I am never going to trust a tiger with my chickens. But I can reflect, be curious, trust as a practice in my life.
Whilst I'm fine trusting people and I'm open hearted and loving in that way, I don't always trust myself.
Self doubt and a sense of unworthiness can really prevent us moving forward to where we want to be, or to interact with those we deeply want to connect with. Those little buggy demons come at us thick and fast. Hell, I'm using inclusive language rather than own it, that's how bad they can be. I can feel unworthy. I can feel that I'm not good enough. I can expect the worst from people and situations. All that sucks the marrow out of me. Has sucked the marrow out of me. Even to think about it makes me a little sad - the lost potential in those times where I haven't been head up, heart open, ready to koala cling on to life because I don't quite trust that things will be just right.
So I practice trust. There's a lot of vulnerability involved in that, and a lot of fear, but it does let the light in. The more baby steps I take, the more trust grows - that I am where I need to be, with who I need to be, and I'm going where I need to go.
The more I trust in that, the more I am okay with how things are.
And the more beautiful life becomes.
“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.” - Dalai Llama XIV
