Pathwalking 83
Trust is a multi-faceted concept many of us find difficult at best. When a breach of trust is an external issue you are faced with, what to do with the person/entity that did this? Do you keep them in your life, let them go, move them from inner circles to outer circles? But when it comes to the self you don’t have the same option.
Of course, one could argue, you DO have that option. You can take on an alternate persona. You can try to be someone other than who you are. You can put on that fake smile and move forward like it was another person in another life who did this.
This is the equivalent of putting a bandaid on the remains of an arm that was torn off. You might slow the bleeding, but you are not in any way actually treating the wound. And if you do not treat the wound, you will die.
Yes, that is a harsh view, perhaps. But that death may be as metaphorical as it could be physical. And the phrase I died a little inside is frequently associated with a violation of trust. And it is very likely a part of you DOES die when you violate your own trust.
I can’t believe I took that money. How could I have been fooled by him? Why did I sleep with her? Why didn’t I realize how much I was hurting them? If you have ever found yourself asking one of these questions, or another like it, I think what you were really wondering was – How can I ever trust myself again? And that is what I’ve been on about for the past couple of weeks now. Because when you get right down to it, this is one of the hardest questions we will ever ask ourselves.
Last week we talked about forgiveness. It is vitally important that I forgive myself the breach of trust, because otherwise I will be incapable of moving forward. I have to move on, because otherwise I will be overwhelmed by the negative emotions that broken trust generated, and I will lose my joy, my hope, my will to choose. In other words, it will become impossible for me to walk this, or any other Path.
Analyze the trust issue for the why. Examine that once you understand it. Accept that trust was affected. Forgive yourself for the transgression, choose not to let the negativity and hurt and pain latch a hold of your psyche, and then move on.
While I suggest you need to forgive, you cannot forget. If you forget, if you deny the terrible negative emotions you have felt, you will not learn from the experience. If you do not learn from this experience, it can and probably WILL happen again. And then you have to go through the whole process all over again.
I think a lot of people live their lives in this way. They are constantly struggling with exactly this. They build trust, they lose trust, they feel the pain and let it rule them a while…and then they start the cycle ALL OVER AGAIN. I also think that a lot of this is because rather than learning how to build that trust in YOURSELF, you are constantly seeking outside validation, and putting your trust in other entities.
As I have been working on this idea these past couple weeks, I have begun to develop a new appreciation for this tenet of life. I also am finding myself starting to believe that it is because we often do not learn to trust ourselves that many of the ills of our world dominate as they do.
Who teaches you to trust yourself? In theory, this is your parents, this is your teachers, your family, your friends. But I think it is often much easier to learn from these experiences not trust in yourself, but trust in others. A transference occurs, and we place the trust we should be learning in the self on other entities, other people and groups and so on.
Trust me is all too often said as a humorous quip, an ironic statement, a sarcastic jibe. I think we also take almost more comfort in others trusting US than in trusting ourselves. I don’t have to trust myself, because they trust me. Trouble is, when that trust gets broken – and I am pretty sure if you do not trust yourself even if others trust you, it will – it becomes harder to rebuild. This also takes you further from being able to know yourself.
I have, in writing these out, become keenly fascinated by how deeply trust is rooted in Pathwalking. I am also rather amazed by how multi-faceted and complex a topic trust really is. As I continue on with this theme, I am realizing that I do not trust myself as much as I need to, and that is part of why my own attempts to walk my path have been fraught with mixed results.
In many respects, I am asking you, my reader, to trust me. I am asking you to look at what I am telling you, and to trust that I know what I am talking about. What’s funny about that, to me, is that I accept there are people who will look at this philosophy I share and consider it laughable. I know some people do not read these because they think it’s all hippy new-age hooky-spooky bullshit. I trust that you will get something out of these ideas I put forward, and accept that that is not going to be for everyone.
Do you have trust in yourself?
This is the eighty-third entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
The first year of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
Follow me here!
