Working Through Trust Issues

“Trust is letting go of needing to know all the details before you open your heart.”
~ wisdomquotes.com

“Do you trust me?”

In action movies with romantic subplots, quite often one of the lead characters will ask the other that question during a pivotal scene. If we’re invested in the storyline, this is the point where we lean forward in our seats, silently nudging the character to accept the extended hand and say, “Yes!”

Instinctively we know that trust is central to connection. If the leads can’t connect on a trust level, their future together is doomed.

Trust is the glue that binds us together in our close relationships.

As social beings, we need each other. Much as we like to believe we are independent, we rely on each other for the warmth, love, and affection that are central to our well-being.

The degree to which we’re able to trust depends on our childhood experiences with parents, teachers, and caregivers, and our early adult experiences with friends and lovers.

If we’re fortunate, we learn as infants that our parents will be there for us and keep us safe from harm. From that secure base we’re able to explore, learn, and grow. By and large, children are trusting and are sometimes comically open with strangers. When we’re the recipients of their openness, we find it enchanting, while at the same time we may sense their parents’ discomfort. (When our daughter was three, she had a habit of introducing me to people in the grocery store checkout line. She’d explained that while she called me “Mommy,” they could call me “Elaine.”)

Faith in others, starting with our parents, is built over time, step by step, through their consistent responses to our needs.

If you grew up in an unstable or unsafe environment, however, you may find yourself explaining to potential friends or partners that you have “trust issues.” Or perhaps your childhood was good but in your early romantic relationships you were overly trusting, and encountered betrayals which left deep scars.

Because trust can sometimes be critical to our survival, we are wired to pick up on deception, although some of us are more attuned to it than others. We become more discerning over time as we learn that some people are to be relied upon, and others are not.

Our faith in others can be broken in many ways, from small infractions such as being stood up by a friend, to devastating ones such as being lied to by an unfaithful spouse.

Sometimes what we believe to be a deceit turns out to be a simple misunderstanding. (As in what my hubby and I like to call the “misinformation” part of every Hallmark movie, where one lead mistakenly believes their love interest is involved with someone else.) Typically these types of rifts can be repaired with clear communication. But actual breaches, even small ones, can impact not only all future interactions with that person, but can also carry over into other relationships.

We learn from our experiences, for good or for bad. If we’ve been hurt by others, we proceed much more carefully so that we don’t get hurt again. When a loved one betrays our trust, we feel hurt, angry, and disappointed. Our perception of them, and of our own judgment, changes in an instant. Embarrassed, we instinctively retreat into ourselves to lick our wounds. For a time, all of our relationships are impacted as we question who else might have betrayed us. These natural, protective emotions are intense, and it can take some time to work through them.

Too many insecure or unreliable relationships early in our lives can make us overly wary of everyone we meet.

If this describes you, and you want to make a change, it’s not too late. Deciding to be openhearted and trusting requires some bravery, as it is not without risk. It involves making ourselves vulnerable based on the belief that the resulting increase in closeness, whether it’s with a family member, a friend, or a partner, will be worth it.

Part of living optimistically, with hope, is to believe that although some people are capable of hurting us deeply, most people are kind and true to their word.

If we shut down too tightly, or for too long, we prevent ourselves from enjoying the love that may be available to us. But if we’re able to remain open, the likelihood is far greater that we will forge rich connections in our lives that will offer us much joy.

We’ve talked a lot in this past year about how feelings come and go, much like the clouds. If we keep this in mind, we can learn to tolerate upsetting feelings as they move through us, knowing they will pass. We can comfort and reassure ourselves in the moment by remembering that we’re going to be okay in time.

When we learn to process our emotions in this way, we no longer have to be afraid of them.

As with other types of growth, it takes intention, and practice, to learn how to weather the storms of life without shutting down. In the end, the most important person for us to trust is ourselves, and our ability to handle what comes our way, so that we can remain open to love.

Affectionately,

Elaine