How Can Trust Help you Grow?

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

Charles Feltman, author of “The Thin Book of Trust,” has described this virtue as “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.” Whereas having a lack of trust is us deciding that “what is important to me is not safe with this person in this situation."

How many people do you really trust?

Let me challenge you to do a thought experiment. Write down something you personally value. It could be your car, a project or an object associated dearly with you. Then think of someone. Now answer this question. When did you entrust that project or item to that person? Or would you ever? Would you risk that thing you value with that person?

It’s hard isn’t it? We find lots of excuses – she’s a bad driver, she’s too passive for that project…the list goes on. It is not that we don’t trust him or her. We just don’t trust them with that thing. But isn't that what trust is all about?  Trusting what is important to me with that person.

As we get older it is easier to lose trust. We can build up resentments and create a layer of self-protection instead of believing in people. “Once bitten twice shy” is a phrase we are all familiar with.  We lose naivety and we build up life experiences that validate our position on trust. We put it down to maturity and never wanting to be “bailed on,” “left in the lurch” or “holding the baby.” We have lots of phrases to explain the feeling of trust not being reciprocated.  

Added to that, our imagination can compound negative experiences. And what was intended as an innocent passing comment or a mistake, can become like a nail in someone’s coffin. How often we have had that experience.  Someone says something innocently, casually and we second guess them; “what did that mean?” The danger of second guessing is that it can replace a heretofore transparent and open relationship. It was not for nothing that St Teresa of Avila coined the imagination “the madwoman of the house.” It can leave wreckage in its wake!

Admitting mistakes can actually build trust 

The good news is, trust and mistakes can co-exist. So long as we make amends (say sorry, admit we were wrong and try better) we can stay aligned with our values and confront blame head-on. There is a health warning however; self-justification can sneak in. Like blood to the wound it can make short shrift of trust and transparency. And instead we end up finding excuses and reasons for why we did what we did instead of owning up. Self-justification can put off the honest truth telling we need to do with ourselves about our motivations, faults and failings. Not easy? True. 

But what cannot co-exist with trust is double standards – one for me and one for you. Lack of personal accountability, lack of integrity (choosing courage over comfort), lack of generosity (where the “I” comes first, calculation, meanness in thought word and deed). Our loved ones need to see we are not afraid to choose to be vulnerable with them and for them to earn their trust. 

In other words, if we want them to trust us we need to be trustworthy. We can only earn others trust if we trust them in the first place. Trusting others means we share personal things, things that matter to us, with them. We give of our time to them, we waste time with them. Our relationships are not transactional - I need something or you need something from me – but valuable and meaningful.  

Can we find a reason to trust?

We know that the gold standard of trusting others means we trust them with our lives – we believe in them more than we believe in ourselves. It sounds rather romantic and possibly undoable! Frankly it is beyond us and a definite leap of faith at times. But if we give as we are…are others allowed to give as they are? As they can in a given moment? Even with their limitations, tiredness and personal shortcomings and baggage? To trust someone, perhaps we need to look for the reason to do so.  

What is her gift? Her ability to remember, his desire to be better, her sense of humour. Each person has been created with a gift; our job is to find it and celebrate it. And depending on how trusting our relationships have been beforehand, we will find it easier or more difficult to let go in this area – and it is ultimately about “letting go.”

Mother Teresa was once asked by an Irish priest what really motivated her in doing what she did in the slums of India. She took his hand, spread his fingers out on the table in the room and one by one touched his five fingers saying “You. Did. It. To. Me.” Her secret? She saw Christ in each person she served. Perhaps trust is just that. Time and again recovering that image of those we want to trust – because that is the truth. That energises us in our efforts. Trust is ultimately an act of faith. There is no growth without risk and facing up to fears.

Trusting others is a way to grow

When there is no trust there can be no growth. Trust is not something we can force and sometimes people find it hard to see a way forward. Their take on reality is foggy or perhaps they are hurting in some way and feel compromised. St Josemaría used to encourage people to get down on their hunkers with and for someone.That’s where trust is learned. We might ask ourselves, what does that feel like? It is uncomfortable… but it’s the space of growth. That is where we can repeat the words of St Mother Teresa, “You. Did. It. To. Me.”