Do You Trust? – Part 2

(Click here to read part 1 of this article)

If an illness or disaster or betrayal happens and you ignore your truth during and after it unfolds you are bound to feel totally terrified, alone and unable to handle it. Then of course you can’t trust yourself – and you sure can’t trust life or other people! But that’s only because you are not using your amazing tools. You are walking right past your tool box and pretending you can’t manage the task at hand.

Your tool box is within you and, believe me, anytime you turn inwards and ask, “If I loved myself what would I choose now?” you will be handed the precise tool you need in that precise moment – if you listen with your heart, that is, not your head. Our head is a big part of what misleads us.

When the answer you receive is your truth it comes with a boost of hope. You will suddenly feel an easing of the pressure or stress or fear and it will seem more manageable. Chest suddenly opens, mood lightens… That is the identification badge your Truth offers to let you know it’s legitimate. If your head is trying to butt in, you won’t feel any shift in your feelings. It will just be an obvious, expected answer to your question. In contrast to this, the answer from your truth is often surprising to your intellect – not what you expected to hear – but it FEELS so right. Joyfully, relievingly, marvellously right.

We are not taught this skill much as children. Oh, do me and the world a big favour and start teaching your children to LISTEN to their OWN truth. “What feels right to you?” ask them when they are not sure what to do, “What would the big loving part of you say to do now?”

Ask yourself the same thing.

So here comes the tricky part. If what I’m saying is correct it means we are mostly walking around not acting on our truth – and so is everyone else. When we don’t act on our truth – even if we are very well-meaning – we are not trustworthy. Not for us and not for others. Why? Because you are only doing that thing to avoid something else you are scared of. It’s not REALLY what you most want to be doing. Due to this you will often mislead others unintentionally – friends, lovers, bosses… – because they think it’s what you really want, when it isn’t. Then they land up having expectations of you that feel awful for you and one day you can’t do it anymore and they are let down. If you had been honest at the start, that would not have happened. You didn’t mean to do it. You just didn’t want to hurt their feelings, let them down, be judged or rejected… The outcome is your unhappiness and their disappointment. Harsh but true.

If you pretend, it will always fall flat at some point – even if it takes years to emerge. Even if you thought it was your truth and only find out it wasn’t after you did it.

If most of us are walking around pretending – because we were taught to be ‘nice’ and ‘polite’ and put others first, you can’t only think of yourself, etc, etc – then most of us are not trustworthy. How is that for a comment? Truth can be painful but it is also calming. There is something in us that responds deeply to truth of any kind. When someone is truthful, there is something calming and solid about it, something irrefutable. Even if their truth is painfully not what you want it to be, it is somehow easier to accept. It is definitely much easier to accept than if they first do a whole song and dance to try to make it ‘nice’. That is confusing – in the same way as someone who seems friendly but doesn’t feel friendly. It’s disturbing. “Do they like me or don’t they?”

In the midst of this whole mess I’ve laid out, who CAN you trust? If everyone is walking around lying – intentionally or unintentionally – what is one to do? Well let’s go back to the beginning. If you trust yourself you can relax and know that whatever happens, you will be able to handle it somehow. If you don’t trust yourself, you don’t have that reassurance and that is very scary. Then you have to constantly be on the lookout for others who might hurt you and life that might do something bad to you.

How do you learn to trust yourself? Like any trust, it needs to be earned. Start by deciding that you will do your best to listen to yourself – just as you would a child that you are responsible for. You will check in regularly and consult with your truth at every single decision point. You do this by asking the question, “If I loved myself, what would I choose now?”

When you consistently listen to yourself and honour and act on the truth you receive, you can trust – because you will always know and do what is best for you in any scenario. You know you will be ok.

If you don’t, you can’t trust.

See how complex yet simple it is?