Learning to trust other people in this world is a critical skill to learn for building healthy relationships. As well as for managing mental health.

But even more important is to learn to be trusting of ourselves. Let’s talk more about self-trust to find the difficulties and tips for a healthy path to doing so.

Trust and Vulnerability.

I found an interesting definition of trust which is to “give credit to a customer.” This definition is speaking of a transaction that of course would generally be for money, goods, or services. But this definition leads us to an interesting question. What are we giving away when we give our own trust in the non-business relationship sense, or even in that sense? The best answer that comes to mind is that to give our trust is to be vulnerable, it is to give of ourselves.

To trust someone or something takes a decision. So, essentially a decision to be vulnerable by offering up ourselves or property to the needs of the moment. This decision could be the very thing that allows someone to save us from great pain or death one day. Now being vulnerable is not a popular concept for most individuals, it is an even more unpopular feeling. But to have healthy relationships with the people around us, as well as ourselves it is something we must risk. Our lives and our livelihoods do actually depend on it.

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is in a sense to surrender ourselves to the unknown. We have a need to be filled and so we rely on others to take care of what we cannot. For us to trust we are allowing something or someone we cannot control to take care of their personal part of that unknown. The risk in this is, of course, being betrayed. Having an individual whom we have given our trust to, take advantage of our vulnerability.

There can be great risk in trusting, this is for sure. But in learning to trust ourselves we can find a better monitoring system for putting our trust in more trustworthy places.

More to Ourselves than We can Control.

We must learn to trust others, yes. The people around us may recognize certain problem areas that we may not see on our own. Though being able to give ourselves some of that very same trust is an absolute must. It is a must if we desire not just to live out a life, but to live our a life we can truly call our own.

It is an interesting thing to say we need to trust ourselves. Because the description seems to cut our selves, into multiple pieces. There is now the self we should be trusting, and there is now the self that gives trust. It makes sense though, there are an incredible amount of physical processes going on in each of our bodies at this very moment, that we don’t really have control over. We generally don’t have to think about our breathing, our hearts beating, or the blood rushing through our bodies.

Much like those processes “we” are also doing all sorts of other things behind our own backs. Such as the formulating and retrieving of knowledge and wisdom in our brains and the rest of our bodies. In fact, I have come to find many of my best ideas without even attempting to think about them. Many times ideas and moments of insight come completely out of the blue.

But in order to enlist the fullness of information of our own bodies, it needs our vulnerability. We need to ask the unknown in ourselves to help guide us.

To Trust the Unknown in Ourselves.

To trust ourselves is to be vulnerable to the unknown within ourselves to take care of ourselves. It is to trust our own internal processes, our intelligence, our ability to surprise ourselves.

The relationship that we develop with ourselves is the most important relationship we have. Nobody knows us better than ourselves. Or at least the information is here within ourselves, we just need to be open and willing to find it. Here are some ideas for allowing this process of coaxing out and trust the wisdom that is within us.

1. Trust in Healthy Relationships.

I feel that with the topic of learning to trust ourselves, we must not overlook the importance of having sufficient healthy relationships. Without these relationships, trusting ourselves too much may not be the best idea. The love from our relationships is life energy that should not be lived without. It is these connections with others that helps to ignite our own creative natures.

Now although having healthy relationships helps to fuel our own creativity, these relationships are no way more important than the one we have with ourselves. It is important to trust the information about our healthy relationships. But if the guidance of these relationships goes against our own healthy desires, we may have to blaze our own trails.

2. Surrendering to Ourselves.

In order to allow the pieces of ourselves we cannot control to work in our favor, we need to give them an entrance into our conscious awareness. Constantly stuffing our senses with information will make it difficult for the wisdom of our bodies to get through to us. A healthy relationship doesn’t happen with ourselves when obsessing about this thing and the next. Space needs to be created for new impulses from our bodies to speak to us.

We need to slow down, take breaks, and practice relaxation in some manner. Surrendering can be a difficult thing to do since some impulses may fight to maintain our attention. But trusting that the process of our bodies will work better by practicing surrender makes it easier. We may get the fear of missing out on something which makes it difficult to let go. But what is coming next in our lives will be much more enjoyable and fruitful with the healthy relationship we develop with ourselves.

3. Regularly Communicate with Self.

Communication is at the core of any healthy relationship. The relationship we have with our own bodies is no different.

To communicate with ourselves means both talking and listening. If there are impulses that we don’t understand asking for our awareness, we can ask what they are seeking. That isn’t to say these impulses will give us an immediate and definitive answer. But over time our openness and willingness to listen will foster a healthy relationship with them. They begin to learn that we are a safe place to become known.

We can communicate with that which we cannot control ourselves to gain understanding and guidance for living life as well. Asking ourselves questions can help coax our subconscious minds to seek the answers to our questions. Even after we have forgotten that we have asked them. Often times making these requests for help comes in times of distress. A willingness to trust and be vulnerable might be easier in desperate times. But we need not wait until times of great stress to have the support of this relationship. Regular respectful and sincere communication with ourselves ensures that a trusting relationship will develop over time.

In this relationship we develop with ourselves, we can find ourselves, as well as the most important guidance we may ever know.

Well, that is all we have for today and thank you so much for stopping in to My Life Experiment. What is written here has come from struggle and growth. We wish you growth on your path of learning to trust yourselves more deeply.