This week, I have been reflecting on, and discussing, the journey we go through to gain trust. I’m going to first speak to it with my people and then expand it into life. The starting point for trust seems to have two different options. The first option is we trust people up front (though I think often this is still a guarded trust). Anyone who knows me, knows that one of the first conversations I have with someone is that I don’t expect that they do trust me…why would they? When our experiences have taught us that trusting people can be dangerous, it makes little sense to immediately trust somebody. Sure…”I’m here to help” and I’m “supposed” to be a safe person but as I tell my people, if we trust everyone who said that, that would be really dangerous. Not everyone has good intentions and some people have great intentions but aren’t good at what they do. I have found that those that trust up front, inevitably hit a point down the road in which they doubt whether that was a good choice. They end up with disclosure remorse (regret for what they’ve shared and an extreme feeling of vulnerability) and this can be really hard to push through. For me, this is way harder to overcome than lack of trust from the start. People who trust up front, share openly and allow themselves to be vulnerable, often ignoring the voice inside that says to slow down. Because the trust isn’t earned, if it is perceived that it is betrayed or could be, there is a lot of fear and hurt.
On the other hand, we are guarded and we don’t easily trust, we are skeptical and cautious. Let’s be honest, if you know me, you know I say a lot of things that seem too good to be true or like something people just say…I have hope and confidence in healing, belief in the good in people, that most feel couldn’t be real. I give everyone the right to feel it’s BS, until they don’t. In the case of minimal up front trust, I find that there seems to be a natural progression. The first stage is, as I said full of skepticism. I often use say that people are dropping bread crumbs for me. They give little bits of information to see how I handle it, to determine if I am safe or if I will judge them, share or use it against them. As people get to know me, then they begin to see that I am genuine and open up more and it feels good. They realize that they can trust me and that it is safe. However, inevitably, they start to realize that they have a safety with me that is scary…either because they’re afraid they’ve misjudged me or start to become afraid of losing it somehow. At this point, people often pull back again, monitoring what they say because they don’t want to “screw it up”. This is usually the point at which I make a challenge (that at times feels unfair because I know how scary it is) that the only to know if we truly have something is to test it; if we are trying so hard to protect it, we never actually know if we have it. As they start to test it, a really cool thing happens and they start to trust in a way they haven’t trusted. Sometimes, people will cycle through these stages a few times as they enter different areas of their life (ever noticed you go to certain people in your life with certain things and not with others?) Once they reach this point though, this is where they realize that they have it; a safe place to fall, a place that they can put anything and everything down and it feels good. This is a hard place to get to and can take a long time in some cases but it is beautiful when they reach it.
As I reflected on the journey my people take, I started to realize that this really does apply to all relationships I think. Trust is a process, not a one time choice and we are constantly evaluating whether we’ve made the right choice. As I reflected, I found that the first one is often how I function. I am very trusting, I assume the best in everyone I meat and have a hard time seeing mal-intention. This has unfortunately meant that I have put myself into dangerous situations and it has also lead to me getting hurt when the trust I’ve given is betrayed. I expect that others will function like I do, which isn’t fair.
It’s interesting because I think about how much I prefer the second for my people because I want them to feel safe and to protect them…and yet often don’t practice that because I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. A couple years ago, I was driving down the road and this man walked in front of my car and stopped in the road, so I stopped my vehicle. I felt scared, he wasn’t smiling, he didn’t seem safe and yet I wanted to believe that he did not have bad intentions…I thought about locking my doors but was afraid he’d hear the lock and if he wasn’t a bad person, he may feel judged. I thought about driving around him but stopped for the same reason. He began to walk around the front of my car to my door and instead of acting, I kept worrying about him having his feelings hurt if I was wrong. It seemed that when he could see the car seat in the back seat is when he quit approaching my door and I drove away, panicked. I still wonder what he would have done that day and it was a moment for me that I had to really begin to reflect on the trust I give others and the impact it has on my safety…while balancing my care and concern for others.
Since then, I have done a lot of my own work but still, at times, find it a challenge to land somewhere in the middle. We need not trust everyone because not everyone is safe but feeling that we can’t trust anyone is a lonely place to be and robs us of opportunities for connection and support.
I guess one hope I have, is as my people learn that they can trust me, they start to realize (as I have) that we can choose who to trust and we can given some up front trust while also being cautious, curious and evaluating whether that person deserves more or less. Trust is a fluid process and exists on a spectrum. Just because we’ve been hurt by others, doesn’t mean that everyone will hurt us or that all hurts are the same or with the same intentions. We need to learn how to repair trust and how to test it, in ways that strengthen our connections not hurt them. It is also a challenge to be someone that can be trusted; someone that can hold space for others, be real, genuine, and vulnerable.
This is also a challenge to give others a chance to earn our trust, to not judge them based off of others. If you never allow yourself to trust anyone, you will never know if you can trust others and you will feel perpetually alone. Yes, you may get hurt, but you are also hurting if you don’t let anyone in and you may find, like I hope my people do, that there are people worth trusting and our lives are better for it.