A Crucial Part in Our Relationship With Ourselves: Self-Trust

Today's meditation dealing with Relationship with Self was talking about Self-Trust; the subject couldn't have been more fitting. It was fitting because it explained a lot about what I've been going through lately and it was also in great conflict with an agreement I made with myself a few years ago.

I believe that we are born with every single thing that we would ever need in order to live a loved filled, balanced, joy filled, productive life, what most of us would call success. Success lies in us as individuals get to know who we truly are. There are a few things that get in the way of us discovering who we are like experiences, family, parental guidance, and time. We are slightly altered with every event or relationship. If we're not careful we will wake up one day and not even recognize the woman in the mirror or the soul in the skin. It happens to all of us. There are a few special ones who knew who they were early on and maintain their original copy.

I am not a special one. But what I do find special is the awareness I have of it and how it all unfolded. I won't tell the details in this post but I will give you a little background. One day while hanging out with a friend, I decided to drink. I didn't drink very much but I drank it too fast. So to get straight to it, I was drunk when I was going for tipsy. I was too drunk to drive and I didn't.

But what I did do was start a dialogue with myself. The dominant side of me, which is called the Judge, I later discovered in book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, was talking at the part of me that decided to have a drink, which is called the victim, I later discovered in that same book. Which makes me wonder, what came first, the chicken or the egg... the book or the revelation?

This conversation was not a positive one. It actually got a little heated which caused me to attempt to take control. At that moment I realized what I was doing, what I was seeing, what I was feeling, and what needed to be done to fix it. I called a Broad Meeting for every aspect of me because we needed to talk. Without giving away the whole story, I will tell you what the verdict was, I decided to be my own best friend. Which included but wasn't limited to, love all of me, respect all of me, and trust that the part of me that feels the need to run the show we collectively support and trust she is the right one for the job. I agreed to Trust Myself.

Which brings us to today's meditation, how it clarified some things for me. Now that I'm aware... what am I going to do about it? I've known for some time that I was having issues on this topic, Self-Trust—that is why I made the agreement a few years ago. If I truly believe that all you need is within you then why wouldn't I trust myself? Life is constantly testing my beliefs. I find that to be good though because it lets me know how I really feel about something which helps me get to know who I actually am. It is a tricky relationship and challenge relationship, the one we have with ourselves. Naturally since we're talking about self-trust, it is obviously an important part of this relationship. The problem, as the #DailyCalm pointed out, is that self-trust is easy to damage. When we make decisions in our lives that don't produce the result we wanted we tend to lose trust in ourselves. We continue to lose self-trust throughout all the mistakes, failures, lack of follow through or dropping the ball.

The loss of this trust began to affect us in multiple areas of our lives, our judgment, abilities and even our dreams. That is what was happening to me gradually. I started telling myself that we were ready to achieve the goals I set for myself. I started excusing myself from the grind and the hustle. I was doing all of this while trying to do it in a loving way. So I could still hold up some part of the agreement I had made with myself. But the cat was out of the bag... I was having trust issues.

How can self-trust be repaired?

Now that I know what the problem is... and has been for a while like I previously mentioned. I have to rebuild my self-trust. I need to step back and look at the story of my life and be aware of the things that I have accomplished, circumstances that I have overcome and ways I have contributed.

Through mindfulness we can rebuild self-trust by cultivate a trusting heart, according to Jon Kabat-Zinn. By looking inward and search for what is trust worthy within ourselves.

I need to look for the wisdom, restraint, and love that I have used at it's appointed time. I can start by trusting this moment and the moments that lead me on the path of self awareness, self acceptance and self discovery. I practice mindfulness to make this important effort. That is cause for trust worthiness. Trust starts within.

'As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.'