A subject that comes up regularly when working with clients is around trust.
How do I trust others, how can I trust myself again? I was invited to be a guest on the Happy Chicks Podcast, and trust was our topic.
Here are some of the thoughts I came up with in preparation for the show.
1. For me, trust is when we have faith in someone or something. We strongly believe that an event will turn out as its meant to, someone will respond as they hope we will.
2. The more that we can take tiny steps and build up that evidence, the more proof we are going to get that we are safe, and that in turn helps us to trust more.
3. It comes from an old Norse word, traust, meaning, trust, protection and firmness.
4. Difference between faith and trust is that trust is often based on evidence, the employee has shown that he is reliable etc, we have done a task a number of times so we can trust ourselves to complete it again in the same way. For me, faith is when we don’t always have that evidence, and we are reliant on our intuition and judgement to make a decision.
5. Another difference between trust and faith is that the outcome of the trust isn’t always positive. I trust that the bus will be late, I trust that my friend will cancel our catchup, ie I have enough evidence of this happening before, I see no reason why this time would be any different.
6. There is the thought that you never lose, you either win or learn. That can help us to trust the process because there is no failure.
7. Trust carries more of a certainty with it, more of that belief than hope. I think hope is a great starting point, but when we can build up trust again, it becomes stronger. It is also more than positive or wishful thinking, that can feel a bit fancy-free, putting it out there, but not necessarily doing what we can to influence the result.
8. What happens when we ignore our trust or choose another path, sometimes it may be of no obvious repercussion, but chances are it won’t feel quite right, won’t feel aligned, maybe it will feel clunky, or things won’t flow.
9. I created a model that looks at our false identity, who we are led to believe we are, and on the other side our true self, the person we were put on the planet to be. We have so many opportunities throughout the day to decide am I going to make a choice that will keep me stuck in the loop of my false identity, or am I going to take the option that will keep me coming back to my true self.
The more we can take the latter decision, the one that keeps us coming back to our true self, the more it is going to reconnect us with our true self and help us to build up our trust within ourselves as we see we can start to rely on ourselves to spot and make those kinder, more positive, wholesome, choices.
10. Who role models trust or faith in your world? I contract to a unique suicide prevention initiative here in New Zealand, and the founders are incredible. Jamie in particular is a big vision person, and working alongside him for four years now, just witnessing his trust, trust that the fundraising efforts will happen, trust that people will come to the party, trust that we will get the volunteers that we need. When you are around that regularly and start seeing the evidence, it can’t help but rub off!
