Trust, in a practical sense, means that you place
confidence in someone to be honest with you, faithful to
you, keep promises, vows and confidences and not abandon
you. Trusting another person requires a realistic
perspective about people and an expectation of failure.
Trust needs to be combined with a willingness to forgive
and grows best in an environment of acceptance and love.
Trusting grows in relationships over time because as you
spend time together with someone you build knowledge,
understanding and authenticity. You gain insight into
another person's character, needs, motivations and
fears.
Trust is the foundation for intimate, secure and
successful relationships. It must be earned and
maintained with consistent actions. But building trust
and feeling like your family, friend or partner is
trustworthy is not always easy for those who have had
their trust betrayed. Once your trust has been violated,
it's difficult to make it viable in any
relationship again. Trust has to be a living, breathing
entity in order for a relationship to survive. This
applies to romantic relationships, family relationships
and friendships. So when your trust is violated, how do
you overcome that and restore trust in a relationship?
Sometimes you can't tell if you truly trust
someone, trust isn't an emotion. It's a
learned behavior that we gain from past experiences. It
is hope and dependability, and putting confidence in
someone. Trust is a risk and it's the one quality
that any relationship simply can't survive without.
The components of love, forgiveness and commitment are
as necessary to trust in a relationship as is honesty.
Forgiveness gives you the chance to start over and trust
another fallible human being again. Love helps to
nourish trust. Commitment and honesty provide
accountability to one another.
People are human, frail, and sinful and sometimes
people simply can't trust anymore ? they've
been too badly hurt and they can't bear to be that
vulnerable again. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression
and acceptance are the five stages that can occur when
you lose trust in someone. Don't fight any of these
stages. You will get through all of them ? with time.
Forgiveness can even be added as a sixth stage in
regards to trust. If you can find it in your heart to
forgive, then you'll be able to release anger and
hurt. When someone has broken their vows and been
unfaithful, has lied or been dishonest in the
relationship, we say "they need to change".
But we also need to take a look at ourself as well. We
will never be perfect and therefore, we will probably
disappoint our loved ones as well at one point or time.
If you don't trust yourself, meaning your ability
to have good judgment and to make good choices, how can
you trust someone else? Having confidence in yourself
will help you make better choices because you feel more
capable and can discern what the best outcome would be
for your well-being. Pay closer attention to your
instincts and keep working on building trust in
yourself. Stop labeling yourself as the victim because
at some point in all of our lives, we all will have our
trust tested or violated. Avoid situations that share
the same pattern of circumstance where your trust was
violated. examining your own thoughts, feelings and
issues from the past that have yet to be healed first
before looking outward to blame someone else, for the
foundation of any relationship is emotional safety and
trust. This means that physical safety is a given and
you feel emotionally safe enough to be who you really
are and be able to express yourself freely.
If you don't heal the trust issues, they eat away
at the very core of your relationship and then sucks the
life out of what could have been a good or even great
relationship. It takes a willingness to work on both
yourself and your betrayer, but trust can be won back.
And when trust in a relationship is regained, it is
truly healing. Losing trust in someone can have a
devastating effect on your relationship, as well as your
sense of self-worth, but building trust in a
relationship again.
Unconditional love is patient and kind, it is not
self-seeking. It does not keep a record of wrongs. When
love is not patient or enduring; when love is
unforgiving and always disappointed or looking for
something to go wrong, it generates fear and looks for
imperfections in the other person. Fear-based love is
conditional creating an atmosphere of distrust,
dishonesty and instability. Seeing the positive side of
things doesn't mean you're ignoring what
happened. Instead, it's a healthy way to work
through the experience to allow room for positive growth
and forgiveness. The ability to forgive is rooted in
being forgiven ourselves.
We as people have the capacity and the ability to
change and to grow in trust and truthfulness. We can
rebuild trust in broken relationships when we make a
choice to do so. Remember that when you give someone the
best, you deserve the best in return.
Don't settle for anything or anyone less than you
deserve!
