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Trust Issues

How Many of Us Have Them

By Meg Thee TigerPublished 2 years ago 22 min read
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Trust Issues
Photo by Omer Salom on Unsplash

Trust has always been thought to be an invaluable commodity one person must gradually earn from another person over time.

While typically generous and abundant in its initial stages, if trust is ever mishandled, enjoying the sweet fruit of this endangered tree will become but a tainted and distant memory for the mishandler.

But why is trust such a big deal. Why is trust so difficult for some, while being a breeze for others?

More importantly, why is it so goddamn hard to redeem yourself once you’ve fucked up someone’s trust, or worse, when someone fucks up the trust you had in them?

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“Common sense isn’t a flower that grows in every garden,” is a well-known cheeky idiom of Western culture describing a person who behaves in a way that’s contrary to common logic.

Over time, this concept of “common sense” has evolved and is widely used by a large majority of people across a multitude of subjects to drive a single point home: “the majority thinks alike on this subject and if you don’t think like us, you’re an idiot.”

A person who behaves in a way that’s perceived as inconvenient to or inconsiderate of another is typically thought of as one who has no logic or common sense.

For instance, a person who squeezes between you and the vehicle in front of you in traffic when there’s no one behind you is dubbed as one who has no common sense.

By Michal Matlon on Unsplash

Many of us have learned to listen to that little nudge from within. This sensation – felt only in the solar plexus, and always preceded by thought – triggers our deductive reasoning, aka common sense.

Those who seem to ignore this nudge or who appear to have no nudge at all can be a mild irritation.

But haven’t there also been occasions where you nearly miss your turn and suddenly swerve into a line of traffic wherever you could fit without thinking, even if it upset the person you cut off?

Haven’t you unintentionally bumped into someone and instantly felt the embarrassment of your oversight?

Haven’t you done stupid or illogical things in your life that no one else knows except you?

Chances are, you answered in the affirmative. This is because, depending on how you choose to perceive it, we all lack “common sense” from time to time. Some more often than others. But none are exempt.

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And if it’s common knowledge that all of us are prone to err at some point or another as we move along our journey, why is it so difficult to be compassionate and trusting toward others after they’ve done something we decide is untrustworthy?

That’s a slippery slope. Perhaps we should start with the definition of ‘trust’.

Trust — defined plainly — is the confidence or belief you have in someone’s ability to please you with the intent behind their words and actions.

In other words, trusting what someone says to you means you believe that their words come from a place of truth.

For instance, trusting that someone will behave in a specific way (like being faithful to you) is a demonstration of your reliance on their intentions to never permit their words or actions to contradict that belief.

When a person says, “I trust you,” it means they’ve chosen to believe that the things you say and do are a true representation of your character and moral convictions.

When these things are consistent, a person may come to rely on them, expect them — and it should be noted here that there’s a thinner line between trust and codependency than there is between love and hate.

That means if, at any point, said person finds inconsistencies with what they’ve come to expect of your speech and behavioral patterns, they’ll begin to feel disappointment, anger, or irritation with you.

This is generally followed by the dreaded ultimatum to either change your ways or prepare to be single again. See? Slippery ass slope.

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When the average person says, “I don’t trust you anymore,” what they’re essentially saying is, “I no longer have confidence (or believe) that you won’t do or say something that I’ll perceive as hurtful,” which is a pretty silly notion considering we already know everyone is prone to doing something silly at many points throughout their lifetime.

What they mean to say is, “I decided to rely on your words and actions to feel good and if you do or say something that I choose to not feel good about, I’ll no longer believe I can rely on you for that feeling.”

In essence, it’s their perception of your intentions that needs to change, and not your actions.

And this is an incredibly stifling amount of unfair pressure to put onto one person, especially considering, as you’ll see, no one else has control over your feelings apart from you.

The human Life experience as I’ve come to know it has taught me that losing trust in a person has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with me. Here’s how.

A person who is unfaithful to another person is instantly thought to be untrustworthy. But in that situation, before judging the action, I would ask myself, “what is this person’s actions teaching me about what I want?”

By Ben Allan on Unsplash

This question, I’ve found, is the essential tool for sharpening my awareness and fine-tuning my clarity so I know which decision will produce the most favorable outcome for me.

The truth is, sometimes I’m never more clear about what I want than when what is unwanted is all I can see.

For instance, when my partner of almost five years pushed her face between another woman’s legs while I wasn’t around, I was incensed.

“How could she do this to me? I was good to her. What did I do to deserve this?”

“I may not know everything I want forevermore at this point in Life, but I’m certain I definitely don’t want this.”

In those moments — they feel more like hours — the fog of anger clouds rational judgment, veiling the truth, but only for a while.

Eventually, clarity reveals itself to those who are privy. And, if I’m honest with myself, the truth is, I had it coming.

You see, in the relationship preceding her, I cheated on my partner.

He didn’t satisfy me sexually and though I felt emotionally connected to him (through a trauma bond — another story for another time), the future I envisioned for myself didn’t include him.

At the age of 17, I had no idea what I wanted. I knew how I wanted to feel but I certainly didn’t know how to properly convey that to him. I only knew I wasn’t getting something I preferred from this relationship. And that fucked with my head for a while.

By Carolina Heza on Unsplash

So, when the tall chocolate-skinned brotha dripping with Brooklyn swagger and oozing charisma enough to make Denzel Washington cream in his pants visited my high school Home Ec class one day, I instantly felt drawn to his energy.

It hadn’t crossed my mind that my partner would find out because nothing had happened at that point apart from a feeling of excitement and exhilaration for this wonderful sense of ‘newness’.

It wasn’t even a thought in my head that I’d cheat with him. All I knew is he was an example, a clear sign of how I preferred to feel toward my man. And in that moment I made it my personal goal to have him.

Sparing you the lengthy (but very juicy) details of my love life, his fateful visit to my class turned into many more visits. And those classroom visits soon turned to home visits, which naturally evolved into the most consistent string of sexcapades I’ve had in my entire 38 years of life.

By Kaysha on Unsplash

For the next several years, I would fuck this man repeatedly, in secret. I was addicted to him. He never let me down. Every time I wanted sex, he came through with it, back-to-back, and I loved every minute of it.

Until my man found out.

And it’s only in retrospect that I realized the correlation between those two different relationships.

I cheated on a man who grew to love me enough that he bought a ring and proposed marriage to me (which I agreed to accept initially, but later rescinded).

In my very next relationship (where I promised myself I’d do right and love for real), having believed I’d learned my lesson, my lover cheated on me. Classic Karma.

What’s even crazier is, I felt it coming.

The lesson in that is whatever I do, whatever I say, however I choose to behave, that same energy is what will come back to me someday, and I’ll know it.

This knowledge – though complex and painful to work through alone at times – has served me surprisingly well.

It taught me that before I allow my mind or body to have a knee-jerk reaction based on a past event or trauma, I must tap into my Inner Consciousness and ask myself, “What is this teaching me? What’s the most favorable way to respond to this?”

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Practicing this daily has helped me make better decisions, which are always accompanied by better Karmic outcomes for me (thankful for that).

My understanding of the Law of Cause & Effect (aka Karma) is, where there’s a Cause, there’s always an Effect. In other words, for every Action, there’s an equal (what is wanted) and opposite (what’s unwanted) Reaction.

Choosing not to stay with my cheating ex girlfriend was not because I couldn’t trust her anymore. It was because — though I wrestled with it at the time — once the fog of anger had dissipated, I later understood the clarity (what is wanted) that situation was intended to reveal to me.

But I was ignoring my intuition, my Divine Guidance, nudging me, telling me it’s time to move forward — a decision that spawned progressively more forceful “nudges”.

Before long, I became ill with bleeding peptic ulcers and would vomit repeatedly just being near her. Ultimately, I got the hint and left her for good. You got that, didn’t you.

I said that to say this, once a situation or person acts as the contrasting conduit to bring clarity of what’s preferred, it’s safe to move forward into that clarity.

Sometimes – not always – this requires leaving that person or situation behind, especially if it’s toxic, no matter how difficult it may be.

Once that vessel has set a course to sail into troubling waters, if it never changes course, there’s a chance it will sink. And if you choose to remain onboard, despite feeling that nudge to move on, everyone goes down with the ship.

By Austin Neill on Unsplash

Trust is easy for me now.

I’ve accepted that humans are fickle. We change constantly. We have to. In order to evolve and know what we prefer, we must encounter things we do not like. I trust that.

Emotions are consistent. I know I’ll always have a feeling about something. And I can trust how I feel. My Emotional Guidance System that gently nudges me from within, guiding me along my path in life, is always on and always accurate.

Good emotions are my indication that I’m moving in the best direction. Disconcerting emotions are indicators that moving in a different direction — one that’s accompanied by positive emotions — will have a more favorable outcome for me.

When I learned to trust my intuition just a tiny bit, it became far easier to trust others, especially potential partners.

This takes practice, and I’m no pro, but I’m no longer afraid to be hurt or ghosted or left on ‘read’ because I know my truth: other people, circumstances, and situations do not control how I feel. I do.

By MARK ADRIANE on Unsplash

Character traits or patterns of behavior I dislike or don’t want in the company I keep or persons I date are revealed to me for two primary reasons: to heal a part of my trauma and to fine-tune my perception of this person.

In other words, if the potential partners I meet keep disappointing me, it’s an indicator that there’s trauma in me that requires healing. It’s not a sign that this person is toxic (although that’s what society would have us all believe).

Only once this trauma is healed in me can my response to these people become more humane while still allowing me to maintain my peace. That’s compassion.

So, if the person I’m talking to keeps ghosting me or only hitting me up for sex, it’s up to me to figure out how I contributed to attracting this behavior, heal that part of myself, and offer a more compassionate response in light of that clarity.

Think about it. Someone who cheats on you enrages you, yes, but it also clarifies for you that you want a partner who loves you, values you, honors you, and is honest with you before they consider behaving in a way that may cause you discomfort.

By Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Someone who love bomb’s you in the beginning and pulls back later on frustrates you, but also clarifies for you that you want someone whose actions match their words, who naturally speaks your Love Languages, and whose intentions for you are pure.

If you leave a person because you feel you can no longer trust them, before you heal, you still take yourself (someone who feels they can’t trust anyone) with you and, without exception, you’ll continue to encounter people and situations you cannot trust until you choose a new perspective. A new response.

In other words, if you do not set aside time to heal yourself from whatever past trauma is the cause of unwanted effects in your life, prior to seeking out a new partner, it will invariably rear its ugly head again in someone or something else until you finally do.

I’ll be honest, it takes time. It takes practice. And when you stop to consider the fact that we’re all working through similar bouts of healing at some point or another along our paths in Life, it becomes easy to offer grace instead of judgment.

This powerful Knowing can help in your decision to be more compassionate toward others who behave in ways that trigger you because you‘ll know it’s all to promote healing of unwanted trauma. I like knowing that.

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No one else can feel my emotions for me. So I learned the purpose of my emotions. I learned to trust how I feel. And now I trust my Higher Power to work in harmony with me as my Intuitive Emotional Guidance System, guiding me along my own path in life.

It’s a moment-by-moment thing and will vary from day-to-day but as long as I have breath I can try again. The more consistently I try, the higher my chances of success, and that’s good enough for me. Practice makes permanent.

So when guy after guy ghosts me repeatedly, I can look inside myself and say, “what is this clarifying for me? What’s the most favorable way for me to respond to this?”

Now, the inner work can begin.

By Umar ben on Unsplash

With this new contrasting person or experience (anything that causes me to feel negative emotion) offering regurgitated traumatic information from my past, I can check myself and determine when I began expecting or fearing that men would let me down – because I did that, whether I’m ready to admit it or not.

What Caused this Effect to come into my personal experience?

What made me perceive his decision to take time and space away from me (toward himself/his life) as ‘ghosting’ me?

How often have I unintentionally caused others to feel this same way?

What happened to me in Life that’s caused me to believe the men I’m attracted to only see me as a sex object they can fuck and leave?

What event or person from my past is the reason I feel men don’t value my time, my mind, my spirit, or my body?

Once these things have been uncovered, acceptance must occur. And after acceptance, forgiveness. Next, I ask, “how can I heal from this trauma and move forward as a better woman?”

By Jernej Graj on Unsplash

While doing this work, more potential suitors will enter my life and some will show me the very things I’m healing from. This isn’t the time to get angry, aggravated, or give up.

This is an opportunity to practice making a new decision and offering a new more compassionate response.

Whether this means offering silence for a while, asking new questions, or simply finding humor in the revelation that the momentum of this unwanted energy will eventually peter out, a different better-feeling decision is the only way to get different results.

Now, if I’m truly healed, any person who stops talking to me for days or weeks at a time after expressing interest in me will be met with my new response: compassion.

Do not mistake compassion as something to be ashamed of. Compassion, in the sense that I mean it here, is knowing that someone who’s behaving in a way you dislike is an opportunity to heal trauma within yourself, trauma you wouldn’t have acknowledged without them.

That means it’s time to take a step back from everything, from everyone you can, and follow up with a hyperfocus on intensive self-care, healing that trauma, with little to no focus on anything else at all.

After all, there are people I hold dear to my heart that I go days or weeks without talking to and it usually has nothing to do with them at all.

It has everything to do with me hyperfocusing on figuring things out in my own life because something or someone else has shown me a piece of my unhealed trauma. This takes courage. Which is why so many avoid it, but we all eventually must do it.

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The truth is, shit happens. Each one of us moves through situations and circumstances in life that require all (and I do mean all) of our focus, most times to the exclusion of others we’d love to share our time with.

If those folks aren’t in our immediate vicinity, however, they can wind up feeling neglected, or worse, outright abandoned.

Was that the intention? No, not in the least. That’s just how they chose to perceive it because they don’t have each intimate detail of your life to fill in the gaps in their assumptions so they can make a better, more compassionate decision.

How often have you made assumptions about a person’s intent when they do something you dislike without having all the tiny details?

Knowing how this feels makes offering compassion to others easier. What if we could normalize stents of time where we all take time and space away from one another to heal our traumas.

I don’t know about you, but anyone who can show me compassion when I suddenly go off-grid for a while to take care of Me is someone I perceive as a true friend.

That’s someone I will appreciate and a friendship I will value because they’re showing me that they get it.

Me taking time to find my peace and balance while hedging my mental health from toxicity is imperative to my survival.

Anyone who celebrates and supports my freedom to make that choice is a friend of mine.

And to be brutally honest, you never know who’s healing a part of themselves through interactions with you or through your absence.

We’re all doing it with some person or situation in life. So you should be taking advantage of that time for healing too.

I mean, without knowing all the details of their entire Life experience, how can you accurately stand as judge of their behavior and take it personally anyway? It’s hypocritical and downright selfish, really.

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I know from experience that not having all of the information can be frustrating. If they’d just let you know what’s going on you’d be happy to show compassion and give them the space they need to do what they gotta do. So what’s the best way to respond when you’re healing from trauma and you keep seeing it in others?

By extending compassion to them anyway! Any time you’re ghosted, whenever you’re left on ‘read’, if ever you feel lonely, it’s an indication that you can choose to take this period of time as a reason to cater more to yourself.

For me, that means daily meditation to start and end my day, being outdoors connecting with nature no matter the weather, reading self-improvement books that edify my Spirit, writing my thoughts and feelings (aka journaling), content creation for social media, and connecting with other people I haven’t spoken to in a little while, or making new connections.

There’s an endless stream of activities I can occupy my time with that benefit and add value to Me while also taking my focus away from something that would otherwise have interrupted my alignment.

This way, if a person doesn’t hit me up ever again, I’ve lost nothing because while my focus included them, it wasn’t centric to them. I can lovingly pack my knickknacks and move on.

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Letting go becomes easy when I know I made the most of the time we spoke and I also made the most of the time we didn’t speak by gaining skills, knowledge, self-confidence, and self-love that I can take to the next potential relationship.

On the off-chance this person does hit me up again, if they haven’t also used that time and space to grow or evolve or are still reminding me of past trauma (Causes that produced unfavorable Effects), I can quickly recognize this energy and cordially decline to continue being a participant in their life.

And, yeah, this process can be tedious for some. It’s tough to let go of what’s familiar and step into the unknown. If it gets overwhelming for you, do what I did, ponder the following questions:

What trauma within you did this person help unearth? Have you healed from your trauma? Are you still in the process of healing? Have you decided on a new more compassionate response to those who remind you of your trauma?

For me, it’s become a fun game. My new responses when a man ghosts me or objectifies me (aka reminds me of past trauma) includes removing my focus from them while instead choosing to engage more fully in activities I enjoy on my own, honing my skills, sharpening my mind, learning new things, doing new things, connecting with other people I care about, and enriching my own Spirit.

Even while single, these things benefit Me, and that’s more important than trying to figure out why someone is behaving in a way that I can’t control anyway.

By Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

Let’s be real, when I’m focused on my self-care, I don’t have time to ask why I’m not getting a text back because I’m relaxing on a private beach.

I don’t have time to wonder why they haven’t come to see me because I went on a day trip with my three closest friends.

I don’t have time to ask why they haven’t decided to commit to me because I was reading a self-help book while in the bath with a glass of my favorite wine.

I don’t have time (or energy) to chase down someone who’s naturally putting distance or space between us. My natural instinct is to go right back to edifying, enriching, and enhancing Me — as I should.

This is about me and what I’m attracting into my life because I’m the one living my Life experience. It’s not their fault. They just happen to be the most aligned option to show me my trauma and bring about my healing, and there’s value in that.

After all, if they behaved the same way and I chose a different response, it wouldn’t change how they behaved. It’s only my perception of their behavior that has changed. Let that sync.

That means choosing my perception of and my response to them is the real key here. I know they’re not responsible for how I feel. I am. They’re only a byproduct; a physical representation of residual energy from a frequency of traumatic thought patterns I no longer resonate with, because someone has already shown me that, and I’m healing it.

Just because I’m healing doesn’t mean I’m healed. It’s an ongoing process as we move through Life. Don’t let anyone convince you that you must first be totally healed in order to be unconditionally loved. That’s utter bullshit, and you can tell them I said it.

By Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Healing means the negative energy that’s been flowing for years has gained tremendous momentum. It won’t suddenly cease to exist because I changed my response. Situations and people won’t stop reminding me of it until the momentum has shifted.

After a little while of practicing my new compassionate response toward others (space/time apart) and self-care, a new more positive energy for what is preferred will gain momentum.

This type of pure positive energy cannot be imitated. It illumnates you from the inside out. People will say, “you’re glowing.” Momentum gained consistently in this positive direction naturally decreases negative momentum. Let that sync.

Having learned this, I sometimes ask myself, “where am I now along my journey?” Truthfully, I’m happy to say that I trust with my whole heart now because I know my trust only needs to be in my Higher Power, my Inner Being. I can always trust how I feel. I can always trust my intuition.

I also trust that everyone will be who they are whether I like it or not and regardless of how I choose to perceive it, and that’s ok. I trust my ability to choose my best perception of them, as well as my response to them, no matter what, bearing in mind that my choice will return that same energy to me at some point, which always makes compassion the logical choice.

By Sergio Otoya on Unsplash

No matter how often I have and will lack common sense in my Life experience, every day is a new opportunity to practice my new responses. I trust that my positive focus on being a better woman, feeling better in the moment, and living better will always bear fruit I can harvest. And that’s just one reason Life’s worth living.

If you trust nothing else, trust the process.. and trust yourself.

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About the Creator

Meg Thee Tiger

Self-published erotica short story author, blogger, and professional writer proficient in technical, creative, transcription, content, copywriting, and more.

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