Sallie (not her real name) sat down, and she cried. Through her tears she told me she just couldn’t trust anyone any more, and didn’t think she could depend on anyone.
Trust me, we need to trust!
Sallie had been badly let down by a boyfriend, and had felt betrayed by a close friend over an issue of confidentiality. Furthermore, she felt she had been lied to all her life.
We all need people, and we need to be needed. We also need to trust others. We are social creatures who need to ‘strengthen our own arm’ by working in groups and coming to depend on others. Actually, you can depend on most people. You can depend on the shopkeeper to serve you, on the newsreader to read you the news, I can always depend on my mother to point out when she thinks I haven’t shaved close enough, and so forth. I pointed out to Sallie that in fact the vast majority of her life was spent trusting others. She had been globalising a negative experience (a common trait in people who are feeling depressed). She admitted that she really meant that it was in regard to areas of emotionality specifically that she now found it hard to trust.
But what is ‘trust’?
Betrayed and let down
When we trust someone, we have faith that their actions will mirror their words and that they will behave in the way we expect them to. We expect them to behave honestly and decently to us and show themselves generally ‘trust worthy’. If they behave in ways contrary to our expectations, then we feel betrayed and let down.
We may feel so hurt by this that we fall into the classic emotional mistake of tarring every one with the same brush. “He (or she) let me down! How can I trust anyone again?” This is like saying: “That meal wasn’t what I expected! How can I ever eat again?”
If we never trust anyone we can never hold decent relationships. But what do people really fear when it comes to trust and relationships?
Don’t make a fool of me!
Of course, people fear being hurt, but a common complaint is ‘being made a fool of’. We feel as if we have been a dope for believing whatever it was we believed. But, of course, no one makes a fool of you – only of themselves. If your friend doesn’t tidy her room when she told you she would, has she really made a fool of you? Or of herself?
Sallie did learn to trust again. I know this because she invited me to her wedding a couple of years later. In the new download ‘Trust again’ from hypnosisdownloads.com I have sought to create a session that will dispel automatic mistrust of other people’s intentions, paving the way for better relationships.
Mark
