Trust is an Engine

When I say the basis of all relationship is trust what I mean is this: can you trust yourself?

Trust is earned. It is built over time brick by brick, each choice and each action leading to the next. It takes time to get to know someone enough to trust them at all, even a little bit. Trust is earned by observation and consistency.

As a younger person I wasn’t really sure what I might do in a given situation. I used to scare myself. Without rules or external structures controlling me what might I be capable of? I myself did not know. I sought out safety in guardrails that looked like people.

Other people’s expectations formed the safety net for me to explore. Ope, you’re not allowed to do that! No getting wild. Gotta keep it under wraps. Stay within the parameters. Watch out for falling objects. Stay safe, don’t play around. Hush hush, keep it down down.

I surrounded myself with people who had a sense of decorum I seemed to lack. This is why I cannot stand to be shushed. Like I realize it’s my shit but if it even seems like someone is thinking of squashing down my enthusiasm I bristle and get louder. This is because I purposely or subconsciously chose people who weren’t like me, I sensed they might rub off on me somehow. Like I could balance out my over abundance of energy by osmosis. Spoiler alert, this does not work.

Ok it works at first. I body doubled my way into seeming chill before there was a word for that. Instinctively gravitating towards people who kept me socially accountable for acting normal. Mask much, prolly would! Smoking a shit ton of weed, wearing myself out with physical activity, anything to show up in the narrow bandwidth everyone else seemed to deem acceptable.

Well after a while this got tedious and then the poor person I co-opted into this unholy combination irritated the living shit out of me and I found a way to push them away. Without meaning to I’d say some awful thing or just go full volume and whoosh. Gone daddy gone, love was gone.

As I wasn’t aware of what I was doing this whole thing was then very sad for me and I felt rejected. Rinse and repeat, I could not figure out what was wrong. Now it’s clear I was looking for something they could not give, and indeed I didn’t really want it. I just wanted to fit in and damping myself down to an acceptable level was the only way I could think of to do that.

Later in life I put myself in several different scenarios where the rules were suspended and let myself off the chain. Turns out I was scared for nothing. Left to my own devices I’m still me. It was enlightening to say the least. Like I don’t know what I thought I was gonna do but if I was going to do it I definitely would’ve done it by now. It’s not rules or anything external I needed to keep me in check. I have an internal compass and that works just fine.

Having said that my rules might not be your rules but absent a religion or other construct telling me what is right and wrong I still manage to show up in ways that allow myself to respect me in the morning. Will I defend myself when attacked? Yes I will. But I don’t go around hurting people or causing mayhem. It’s simply not in my nature.

Commandments and principles are all well and good but I need it to come from within. I need to know I’m doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Not because someone told me to, or due to a rule or restriction, or even a strong recommendation. None of that matters. In order to trust myself I need to both know who I am and what I’m capable of and also what I value.

I prefer to think of it as boundaries. Rather than having a fence around me I have an internal scaffolding built of reasons. I don’t do some things because I don’t want to hurt people. I’ve been hurt and it sucks so I’d prefer to avoid inflicting that on others. Does it happen anyways by mistake at times? Yes. Yes it does. But I will avoid it if I can, and I do my best to pay attention and course correct when I see problems on the horizon.

Other things I avoid because I know it will knock me off my axis. Keeping an even keel is more important and I will choose that when I can, avoiding known pitfalls and navigating around it instead. Younger me had no idea how to do that, or what they looked like. Younger me felt like things were happening really quickly and she didn’t have enough time to react.

Someone told me at one point to imagine myself in a wide open field inside my head. Rather than staying at the front window, like if I was a submarine, I moved the steering wheel way back to the center of a huge space. Now things were happening far enough away so I could have time to decide. Time to steer myself away from it, or turn around and flee. Time to concoct a response. Time to decide how I feel. This helped a lot.

Experience has taught me many things. I have seen some of the sights before, and I know what to expect. No longer wowed by the novelty, I can deduce from prior sightings what kind of fish this is, and if I want to engage. This allows me to relax a bit, and take my time. It’s no longer a fire sale. There is no rush. Anyone who says there is one is probably selling something.

I may not know everything but I know who I am. That counts for a lot. I am centered in that knowing and it feeds me. I am not starving for attention, I have mine. My own full and focused attention is on me and that is a powerful feeling. I’m not as susceptible as I once was, I’ve got my own admiration and it fills my cup.

For these many reasons and more I can’t easily articulate I have come to trust me on a very deep level. So when a lack of trust is present I perceive it, it is palpable and it hangs in the air. All I can do is keep showing up. I will do my best to earn that trust if it is possible. When it is important and valuable it is worth the work.

Having said all that I am no longer willing to accept conditional inclusion. I need to be in a fully trusted position if the relationship is real. To be seen and witnessed on a deep level, to have true community, trust must be present. Not blind trust. Informed trust. This takes work, and it takes time. It takes observation in varied circumstances and continued investigation.

This is the work. I am willing to do it, and to be it, and without it I cannot stay. Time grows short as we grow older and not everything is worth the effort. We need to conserve our energies and select what feeds us, but also stay open to serendipity. Let whimsy and playful curiosity be our guide.

Wishing you all deep trust in yourselves and your close community! May we find it. May we be it. May we foster its growth. Aaarrrroooooooooooo