Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships. ~ Stephen R. Covey
All the pretty, powerful, kind, sparkly words you can imagine will not change our world for good without the glue to hold them all together.
Trust.
With trust, a nation will follow your words anywhere you lead. You can speak softly, or with exuberant charm, you can sway them with persuasive argument, or dazzle them with promises of change. It matters not. You have one task at hand.
You must make them believe.
When we relate to each other, we do the dance of relationship, exchanging words and energy, flaming the fans of friendship all in the hope of expanding trust.
Without trust, it’s hard to make friends. It’s hard to create successful relationships, express honest communication, have a close-knit family, kids who tell you anything, clients who come back to you or a booming business.
Without trust, it’s hard to love.
But where do you begin? If you have no trust, if life has not proven to you to be trustworthy, if over and over and over again, you feel let down, unheard, abandoned and unloved, where do you go to find the trust you need to glue your life back together?
It might not be where you think.
Because it isn’t out there.
It’s inside of you.
And me. And all of us.
Undoubtedly, it is one of the most tricky paradoxes. We wait to be validated, loved and deemed worthy of trust and capable by our peers. They wait for us to deem ourselves capable, confident, trustworthy and lovable.
Until we fill that hole inside ourselves, we will never truly trust anyone else when they tell us that we have those traits that we so very much want and need.
And round and round we go- stuck.
The solution? It’s in your mind, in your heart and in your faith. It is in your intuition, which- if you have a problem with internal trust, chances are you have lost touch with.
And then finally trust is built in your actions, when you are faithful to keep the promises and deadlines you have made to both yourself and to others.
How to Begin to Trust Yourself.
Pay attention to your thoughts. Really listen. So much of our time is spent reacting instead of carefully choosing our thoughts and paying attention to why they are there that we don’t hear our inner narrator anymore. Listen to the inner voice that is running that ongoing commentary on your life. What is happening in there? Those thoughts are your most powerful tool for change. Don’t let that inner dialog run ramshod over your life, get the leash! Take control of what is happening in there and use those powerful thoughts to begin creating the life you want. When you begin to see how much power you actually do have, your trust in your abilities will grow.
Ask yourself what you want. And DON’T LIE. Listen to what you REALLY want. Don’t just do something because you are going through the motions, telling yourself it’s fine. If it’s not fine, you are telling yourself a lie and breaking down your personal trust and internal communication. Be specific and then begin the work toward changing things, one teeny tiny step at a time to create the change you want to have.
Be faithful. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. Keep the promises you make. Have integrity with your commitments. If you do just this one thing, you will be well on your way to living in the land of trust.
Be Honest. To the best of your ability, be honest with yourself, and be honest with others in your relationships and communication. Honesty builds trust. It seems like that should go without saying. Sadly- it doesn’t, and nowhere worse than when we are dealing with ourselves. We lie to ourselves more than anyone else. Learn to tell yourself the truth. Your Self will love you for it.
Live Kind. Sometimes we accidentally hurt people. There is no way around that in a world with many interpretations, beliefs and needs.We apologize, do our best to communicate, make amends and move forward. But, to the best of your ability, and within your boundaries, live kind. Live without malicious intent. When you can look yourself in the mirror and know you have done your best to live kind, there is a peacefulness that will protect you. A peace that will hold your hand through thick and thin. Conversely, when you unleash destruction and malicious intent, it stays inside. Your internal spirit does not trust that you aren’t capable of inflicting that kind of evil on yourself and on others. Your internal and external trust takes a huge hit. Love and trust does not grow in darkness. It can’t.
Start Small. Don’t make the common mistake of setting yourself up for failure by trying to create a whole new you at once. Take one small area and work on teeny tiny steps. Expect failures and false starts and be gentle with yourself and start again, over and over. The important thing is that you stick with it. You only lose if you quit on yourself.
Celebrate Your Victories. When you get a win, even a tiny one, in any of these areas, celebrate! Celebrations cause feel good feelings. Feel good feelings tell your brain that you want to do whatever you did to get that feeling again. Your brain will start to work WITH you for positive change instead of against you. Your brain wants you to feel good. Let it know when you do it right. It seems crazy, but you have to train the brain to go after the positive change that you want. Communicate the Victories with Fun! That’s the language of real change.
Build Trust. It is the building block of everything good that you want. It is the glue that can change your life, fill the holes, build the bridges to communication.
It begins inside you.
