The Underbelly of Cultivating Trust

It's not comfortable.

Sometimes a certain word or concept keeps coming up, and I wonder if it’s Spirit hinting at something. Such is the case when it comes to understanding trust.

We talk about it often in regards to trusting the Universe, trusting yourself, trusting your intuition…so on and so forth. Trust, and truth, may seem to have a solid, generalized definition, but the older I get, the more nuanced it seems to be.

However, there is some sort of common ground I’ve noticed, and I’m going to use some personal anecdotes to try and illustrate that.

Building trust, in whatever capacity, takes time. It takes consistency, understanding, effort, vulnerability and for me, personally, uncomfortable conversations. As someone who’s experienced a lot of secrecy and deception in my life—whether that’s through seemingly well-intentioned witholding of information or bold-faced lies—the idea of trust felt very unsafe for a very long time.

I’m often told by many people, even strangers, that they feel they can trust me, and I don’t think the two are unrelated.

People trust me, because they know I won’t bullshit them. At the same time, I’ve found that my value of truth, and my willingness to practice it, can repel people. As my therapist said, it can feel like a blessing and a curse, because “not many people can truly hold and practice the truth, so imagine being faced with it constantly through someone who stands for it.”

It’s not their fault. It’s very difficult and oftentimes unconscious. Think of how many of us lie to ourselves daily.

In turn, I find that my trust in people solidifies when they tell me the things that might hurt to hear. That’s not to say I’m a sadist who prefers relationships with people who hurt me, but that is to say that there is an exchange of deep respect when someone shares something with me that I know was difficult for them to say.

So, with all that said, when I zoomed out on this thought, I realized that the same is true when it comes to trusting the Universe.

I get so mad sometimes at the way things unfold. Like, truly, WTF? But if the Universe was a physical person who was a friend of mine, chances are they’d be the person I’d trust the most, because even when it’s hard, they give it to me straight.

Think about times when you saw something that led to a breakup with a partner or friend. It was devastating, and yet, chances are there was always a part of you that knew this was probably for the best. And I hope that over time, that sentiment was confirmed.

To me, that’s the same as the friend who will give you that no BS answer you’re seeking, and because they don’t manipulate the truth, you know you can trust them.

I know I did a gymnastics floor routine in trying to convey this message, and it’s unlike my usual posts, but I hope whatever nugget was needed to be received, landed.

At the end of the day, this is just a reminder to be the very thing that you desire. If you desire honesty, be honest. If you desire vulnerability, be vulnerable. If you desire love, be loving.

And if you desire trust, be trustworthy, even if that means being uncomfortable.