Trust

The word Trust usually makes me think of a quote from Risky Business. I don’t remember the context, but one of the characters says, “Seems to me if there were any logic to our language, Trust would be a four-letter word.”

This comment made me laugh the first time I heard it because I realized right then that I agreed with him. I’d say every curse word in the book to my Grandma before I would tell anyone I knew what I really thought and felt back then. I wouldn’t have been able to stomach any feedback on the vulnerable stuff, so I kept it hidden. It didn’t feel safe.

Safety is what trust is all about. When we truly trust someone, we can let them see our true selves–the parts of us that we doubt, feel insecure about, the parts we don’t like about ourselves. If we truly trust someone, they get to know us completely.

And in my experience, that is a rare thing these days for most of us. How many people can say that they have a single person, anyone, that they let all the way in? Many of us have friends, family, partners who see a lot of us, but how many have anyone who knows it all? That they feel truly safe with to tell and show everything?

We spin this in our heads (and this is supported culturally) to think that it is all on the other people in our lives to earn our trust. And isn’t that a set up? How do people earn our trust? By not hurting us? By never failing to be consistent and true?

What a set up! Who is perfect at anything in life? People mess up. To be fair, most people do not mean to hurt those they care about, but they still do hurt them. As one of my Mentors says: “Every person burps, farts, and is a general pain in the ass.” We are ALL hard to live with because of our imperfections and the hurts that result from them.

So how do you ever learn to trust anyone, if everyone is imperfect and will cause you pain sometimes? I’ve found that the key is to learn to trust myself. It is best if I can trust my ability to cope. To be okay with the kinds of mistakes that other people make. That’s my side of the street.

To learn to deal with my feelings, to handle my reactions, to take care of myself in the face of other people’s mistakes. I can not be in a relationship with an imperfect person and expect them to be perfect. Any more than I can expect myself to be a perfect person. If I do, reality will pop me out of that fantasy again and again.

That’s not to say that we need to trust in our ability to deal with everyone’s mistakes. We all have our own strengths and challenges. Some people’s imperfections are easier for us to deal with than others. The way I see it is that when you run into people in your life whose way of coping puts you into overwhelm, or brings undue stress, there is no shame in protecting yourself with a bit of distance. It is about finding those people who tend to make the kind of mistakes you can trust yourself to deal with.

I would love to say that I have this down and that I completely trust myself with others, but I guess I’m still a work in progress. I expect that this will always be the case. I can say that I am better at this today than I was in the past and hope to continue to improve going forward.