Do you trust the people around you? Are you often let down by others? If so, is it because you have exceptional standards or is it because you are surrounded by idiots? Are you being fair? Or are you being a little arrogant, feeling entitled, expecting that the world should revolve around you? Read on if you would like to find answers to all these questions.
Vyara
Trust is a leap of faith
“Trust is a leap of faith. It’s the ability to live with what we don’t know.” (EstherPerel)
Generally we choose our friends and our partners based on one very important criterion: trustworthiness. And when trust is broken we have the perfect excuse to remain miserable for a long time afterwards. We choose resentment and bitterness over joy and happiness as if that were the normal thing to do given the circumstances. God forbid someone suggests that we get over ourselves and move on. How dare they support “the other side” and not understand what we are going through!
Well, do you want to be right or do you want to be smart? If you want to deal with your trust issues successfully, you must depersonalize trust. Get this: No one owes you anything. Not your parents, not your spouse, not your children, not your friends. Projecting expectations onto others is based on your own fears and has little to do with trust. True trust is never personalised and cannot be a source of disappointment or bitterness.
True trust and fear simply don’t co-exist. You either trust or you fear. The more insecure you feel, the more you tend to personalize trust: you need to “trust” people and you try to control them. What a paradox, right? On the other hand, the less fearful, the less needy and the less insecure you are, the more you depersonalize trust: you trust that everything works out for everyone’s best without your control.
The road from fear to true trust may seem like a bumpy one but it isn’t. Good old Gratitude is what shifts us from a state of neediness (which often looks like “I can / can’t trust this or that person”) to a state of trust that we are safe in the universe (which brings freedom and happiness). And you know what? Once you have managed to depersonalize trust, you will end up attracting less “betrayal” and you will find yourself surrounded by more “trustworthy” people, simply because you radiate trust (not fear) and therefore you attract that very thing to yourself.
So if you have trust issues, leave people alone and start working on being grateful. It’s not about what people do (you can’t control that); it’s about how you feel about what they do (which is entirely in your control).
