Trust - Part 2

If you've been wounded by others in who you put trust or found you have made decisions of a nature where you question yourself you'll know what I mean. How do we know when we're ready to trust again? Ultimately you have to establish your own criteria. To help you along the way here are some possible criteria:- Are you able to be honest with yourself about your emotions or are you still hiding behind some contrived mask?
- Are you able to be honest with someone you believe is in your corner about your emotions?
- Can you ask others for emotional help when needed? If no, why not? Can you get that you are not a rock. Not an island?
- Can others rely on you to be there for them? If not why?
- Are you comfortable with Intimacy (in to me see)? Intimacy involves trusting that our vulnerability won't be violated.
When you fear being intimate you will tend to avoid it. That's a no brainer. It's self-evident that fear of intimacy is a major barrier to creating and accepting any displays of trust. When there is no emotional honesty how can you have an authentic, person to person relationship? When we are with someone where we don't feel safe revealing ourselves or can't share our thoughts and experiences we're not in an authentic or life nurturing relationship.
Staying "safe" by not trusting cuts you off from life. Recovery involves moving from a place of fear and trust to a place of opening to trust and seeking the rewards that come from it. Nothing is guaranteed but there is endless possibilities.
"A ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are for". Unknown
If you believe no one can be trusted then no one will be trusted regardless of the merits of another person. When are trust is violated we become disillusioned. By that I mean we all have an illusion of how we think life should be. We live according to illusion which may or may not be rational or wise. When I was studying with a very eclectic spiritual teacher she once told be that: disillusionment may be a teacher's greatest gift to the student. As long as you have illusions you are not standing in the moment or seeing what is true. What is happening is happening. What is, Is.
What I'm suggesting is not go headlong into trusting anyone until you have experienced them in a number of encounters to measure their character.
As you open to the possibility of trusting and being vulnerable remember that not trusting is fear. Using caution and discernment are not fear based but rather an announcement of a clear choice to avoid outcomes which do not please you, and which do not represent who are or who you choose to be.
Most of my working life has been involved in helping people in crisis and life transitions. I started as a street cop where I learned to deal calmly with difficult and explosive situations. After graduating from college I left the PD and went to the largest independent insurance adjusting company in the world. Along the way I spent 6 years as a shift supervisor with a large crisis center handling suicides, spousal abuse, drug and alcohol issues, rape, incest and people with codependency issues. In 1999 I completed a 2 year program to be a life coach and specialize in crisis issues like divorce.
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