Trust. Where's the Line?
Trust. It’s so important in relationships. It seems like an essential element (need) when considering a healthy, enjoyable and satisfying relationship of any kind. I think, talk and teach about trust often. It is personally one of my pain points, meaning I‘ve had the opportunity to wrestle with trust a good bit over the years.
Trust (or lack of trust) has a super wide variety of ways of showing up in relationships. The important thing you can do to begin to navigate having the experience of trust in your life is to distinguish trust as a verb (or a strategy) from trust as a need (or experience itself). I personally found this quite challenging in my own life. They are very different. One leads us to running around trying to control other people while the other —trust as a need, allows us to make empowered choices that serve us well.
Trust is most often thought about in the context of trusting someone else. In this case, trust is used as a verb and it is a strategy to meet needs —likely to meet the experience or need of trust. Which is an abstract noun.
Trusting another person is wonderful. I certainly value it, and enjoy relating to those who do the things they say they will. I also value trusting that others will take responsibility for their experience. This means that when they are upset about something that I said or did, they will communicate to me in a way that doesn’t blame me for what they are feeling. Certainly I have contributed to their feelings and absolutely want to have a conversation about the impact of my actions for those I care about. It is much easier when I am not being asked to defend myself because I have done them wrong. Relationships are so sweet and easy when these things are in place.
Yet, trusting another person is only part of the story. My life changed almost in an instant when a beloved teacher asked me if I was willing to get my needs met by trusting myself. This question was posed to me after a few years of studying the work of Nonviolent Communication. In the moment she asked me this, it was like my life passed before my eyes and I saw all the ways that I suffered because I didn’t trust myself.
Mind you, I had been told this once or twice in the past. Said it in a different way. A combination of the delivery, the words and my capacity allowed me to just not consider this as true. It was kind of forced on me. You must trust yourself. At the time, I suppose I just didn’t know what this meant, let alone believed it was true. I thought I did trust myself. It was a few years before I learned that what that meant. It meant I was (and am) responsible to meet my needs. Not the other person. Others keep their agreements is one way that I can enjoy the experience of trust.
If a friend of yours or your partner consistently doesn’t do the things they have agreed to, or keep their word, you can ask in all the NVC ways or demand over and over that they do. You can yell at them, possibly name call and try and shame them into being different —untrustworthy. Ultimately, it is up to you to call it. Are you willing to choose a new strategy to meet your need for trust? Are you trustworthy to yourself? Will you make a new plan, or hang on to the plan that isn’t working?
One more check in before you give up on someone. Are you certain you are asking specifically for what you want? Or have you just been hoping? Or possibly remembering something that happened in your past that you are connected to and don’t actually ask? Are you willing to acknowledge the hurt(s) of the past and see that things are different now? Are you willing to show up fully, consider your needs, and out loud say to yourself, your people and broadcast to the world what’s important to you?
Do you trust yourself enough to say no thank you to those who aren’t all that interested?