Let’s have a little chat about trust. I’ll try to avoid making a short story long but connections thrive and blossom into intimate, fulfilling relationships when we trust one another. Trust is that pesky thing that we ought to manage with other people, sometimes we do it well and sometimes not so well. Without relative trust connections can’t happen. Since connection is one of our main needs in life it’s probably important to master the intricacies and complexities of it.
Very often making connections is in direct competition with our need for significance (to be special, important, etc. etc.) and when imbalanced we make ourselves significant by making others insignificant. When we make others insignificant we don’t do very well at maintaining connections.
In Jungian terms we even have a specific archetype that manages our connections and that archetype is called the “lover”. When we get hurt in life early on we become trained to avoid or make connections in dysfunctional ways. This was me for a lot of my life.
Trust isn’t an easily quantifiable quality. It takes time, patience, and a track record of doing what you say you will, owning it when you don’t, and being transparent and real. It can take years to build and be destroyed in moments. It’s fleeting and moody because you can feel trusting in one moment and then depending on what you allow into your thoughts you can feel doubtful and fearful the next. And to make matters even more complicated, for some people trust can never be achieved under any circumstances.
Trust also requires commitment. You’ve got to want it and work for it. The reality is that trust is broken and earned all the time. It’s like money-we earn it and spend it all the time. If we’re constantly losing it and spending it frivolously we can’t amass enough to invest it in the things we really want.
Trust is a long game, a marathon so start a savings account and manage those investments.