I am not an easy truster. That being said I have historically trusted those that were not trustworthy and failed to trust those who were. As it turns out, trust is very delicate but quite tenacious.
I find myself recently in a relationship that is full of feeling, emotion, love and adoration. My first instinct is to not trust it. And I could (I have done so before) spent all of my time waiting for that day when my trust will show itself to be misplaced...
Luckily for me, I don’t listen to my first thought anymore...
Life is weird. If there is one fundamental principle that has vexed me more than any other it would be this one. Trust. When I first got sober - I spent all my time listening carefully to people sharing, just so that I could see or hear their lie. I couldn’t believe that anyone was actually not drinking. So I could not trust their words. Over time it was their actions that showed me that which I could not trust. Words are cheap and easy thrown about. But actions, now that is something.
Except, I have been in situations in my life where the person’s actions shored up their words and still I was betrayed. So that has left me with the vexing problem that I laid at trust’s doorstep. However, recently it has been revealed to me that, in fact, trust is not the guilty culprit...no. Alas, it is belief where my trouble lies.
Without belief, trust is impossible. And as I remember back to once upon a time when I was getting a much needed do-over in my life, it was defiant disbelief that almost killed me. Trust is what comes later, after belief really seeps into your soul.
So lately I have been suffering again from a crisis of belief. Mostly in myself. The other person is so far beyond my control that any time spent on him is really wasted effort. What I have learned though is that it is still me that I have trouble believing in. I am still battling the odds against myself and losing...still. Again.
I could not get sober until I believed that others could and did. I could not stay sober until I trusted those about me had solutions to my Erin centered problems. Same issue recently...I lack faith in myself. Long standing thoughts and some very believable old ideas dog my tentative moves forward in this relationship. Not so much lack of belief in him...no, it is me that I do not believe in and so me that I do not trust. And I will wholly admit that there is a lot of evidence to support this conclusion.
But most (not all sadly) of this conduct exists in my very distant past. Not today. Certainly not yesterday. And of course not even last week or month.
How can I be living right in this moment, for a lot of the past few decades and still have this fundamental lack of belief still undercut me so swiftly?
Why is it so easy to believe the shit but not the good things?
Why am I so apt to look for the negative signs as I push through the very many positive ones?
Sometimes I think that I enjoy being unhappy. And sometimes that is likely true. This darkness still exists inside me and even though I feel so much more friendly towards it than I ever have, I am still plagued by the shakiness of my own lack of faith in myself. And therefore, the lack of trust as well.
It is the trust double bind. I lack belief which means that I also will lack faith. And so long as I lack belief and faith I will always, forever lack trust.
So the answer, the seemingly ever illusive answer, is the same as it was back in the day. I have to be wiling to be believe in what I cannot see, touch or sometimes even hear. And doing this believing crap day in and day out creates in me a faith that works. And once I have the foundational belief and faith, the trust in myself and in every one else comes much easier.
A wise person once said, “If I am not the problem, then there is no solution.” And even though I would much rather point the finger elsewhere, I know that as has always been the case, I am my own worst enemy and at the end of everything, it is always me that is in my way. Never God. Rarely Him or you. One would think that after all this time, this lesson over all the others would stop needing to be revisited in my life. However...as you can clearly see, that is just not the case.
So I move forward in trepidatious trust that I am better than I think I am and so is everyone else, freed once more from the trust's double bind...
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