Trust???!!!
Photo by: Jerome Bon
Trust???!!!
Has this ever happened to you? You share something very personal with a “trusted” friend…A month later you get a call from an acquaintance, not necessarily a friend, who says, Hey, I heard you went through something like this. Let me tell you what’s going on. Maybe you can help me. What’s your reaction? Where did she hear that? Did my friend betray me? That wasn’t his story to tell to anyone…
If you’ve experienced anything of this sort, you know what it is to experience broken trust.
Trust is fragile.
Can it be rebuilt? YES! Will it be rebuilt? Only time will tell. Trust can shatter in an instant. For trust to be rebuilt, two things are required: TIME – often lots of it; and CONSISTENCY – show me!
Rebuilding trust is like rock climbing.
Care must be taken throughout the climb. And one slip can have devastating, I daresay life-threatening, consequences.
Let’s not confuse forgiveness with trust.
If you wrong me, I can forgive you. That doesn’t mean I trust myself to you immediately, if ever... We all need healthy boundaries. Having said that, I believe strongly that a “healthy version of me” longs to trust someone or two…
Trust: Webster defines it as assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; dependence on something future or contingent.
Trust carries with it a hopeful feel.
Trust wants to believe the best…
about a situation or a person. BELIEVE…What does that mean?
To really believe IN someone is to put weight on the relationship. It’s sort of asking, Will that “branch” hold me if I put my weight on it? And to trust/believe, I go out on the branch not knowing ahead of time whether it will or won’t hold me. I can have evidence that it will hold. I may have even watched someone else go out on the branch, but I don’t KNOW for SURE because I’ve never been there before…
To trust is to give up control…
So, if to trust is to believe, then, when I trust someone, I give something of myself to someone. I don’t know what the other person will do with that gift…In this vein, trust is kind of like a free-fall. I don’t know where the bottom is. I become vulnerable. Brene Brown, Patrick Lencioni and others speak of
VULNERABILITY-based TRUST.
When you experience it, something profound takes place... You/we don’t experience it frequently or with a whole bunch of people. This is described as, in the words of that philosopher Robert DeNiro’s character in Meet the Parents (tongue firmly planted in cheek),
The Circle of Trust.
Who’s in yours? Find one or two people at least, and give it a try. I bet you’ll be glad you did! And if trust has been broken, particularly by someone you thought was in your circle, ponder what it might look like should that trust ever be rebuilt. Can it be rebuilt? When trust is truly rebuilt, all win!
