I Don’t Trust Him/Her/Them
Is It Trust, Judgment, or Discernment?
The quick answer is all the above. The only time trust, judgment, or discernment becomes a problem is when they stop you from moving forward or cause you to disconnect from others too much.
Let’s focus on trust because it’s your judgment and discernment that are the means by which we decide to trust or not to trust.
The Bigger Picture of Trust
We go out into the world looking for connection and intimacy—good friends, spouses, a tribe of like-minded people. Depending how connection and communication skills were modeled or not modeled in your youth, you may have unconscious messages that get in the way of developing and finding those relationships.
The trouble with how we think of trust is that we are looking to find those who behave in ways that are acceptable to us or don’t threaten our sense of well-being. The reality is everyone will “let us down” at some time or another. We even will let others down. We all come with different life experiences, values, priorities and dreams. We are bound to find conflict just because of that.
Brene’ Brown defines the elements of trust as: boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault (keeping confidences), integrity, nonjudgment, and generosity. (Watch her great video on trust at https://brenebrown.com/videos/anatomy-trust-video/) So any one of those elements that are lacking can cause us to not trust.
Well, that leaves us in a quandary—can anyone be trusted?
True Trust
The way out of this quandary is four-fold:
- Develop a sensitivity to where people are and what might trigger them to do something you would find difficult to deal with.
- Trust yourself to be emotionally strong enough not to take it personally.
- Focus on the qualities of others that you can connect with comfortably.
- Most important, trust yourself to know you can get through whatever *%$# hits the fan because you have already thought out a conflict processing plan (more about that in a future blog).
Bottom-Line About Trust
If you find yourself saying, “I don’t trust him/her/them,” lean into what you have learned from the experience. Next time you try to connect with someone you will be more aware of human nature and feel more confident in trusting yourself.
