Our internal struggle with trust. How do we learn to trust again?

Once trust is lost how to we learn to trust again?

It keeps coming up with my clients. I have issues with trust. I struggle with trust. Trust isn’t easy for me.  It takes a long time for me to trust someone.

For the most part we feel quite strongly about not trusting someone and we know for sure when trust is an issue for us. But what exactly does trust look like? Most of us can’t break it down; it’s often more of an intuition thing, “I can’t explain why I don’t trust that person but I just feel it in my gut.”

Intuition is great, it’s a skill we actually work on honing in coaching sessions. But I know that if I have a client who comes to coaching with issues around trust that I need to be able to help them learn what trust looks like.

Enter Brené Brown, Phd. MSW.

You may know Brené from her books Daring Greatly and Rising Strong. She presented a short course on her COURAGEworks website that I took entitled, “The Anatomy of Trust.” In it she showed one of her TEDTalks that broke down what trust actually is for people, based on her research. What she also shared, that she was surprised to learn, is that trust is built on small moments with someone. Such things as, did you remember my mother’s name. Did you remember what my son’s favorite sport is. Did you remember today was the anniversary of my dad’s passing away. These little moments that touch us, over time begin to build trust with another person.

BRAVING

To help us understand what trust actually is, Brené created an acronym that shows the anatomy of a trusting relationship, any type of relationship, and that if these things are present we feel that we can trust someone.

B – Boundaries

R – Reliability

A – Accountability

V – Vault

I – Integrity

N – Non-judgement

G – Generosity

As you think about situations in your life where the trust in a relationship was broken, where exactly did it break for you? Did that person break The Vault by sharing information about you that wasn’t their’s to share? Did you feel that there was always judgment present on their part? Were they not reliable for you because they never did what they said they were going to do?

Take a moment to think about a specific person and what your relationship was or is like, then go over the acronym again. Do any of these components of trust apply to how you were feeling? Do they make it easier to put the finger on what was not working in the relationship for you?

Are you ready to do some work around trust? Are you finding it’s preventing you from having the deeply connected relationships that you are wanting? Does your partner say you don’t trust them but you don’t know why you don’t? Consider spending some time coaching around the issue, set up a time for us to talk so that you can get to that place of understanding in your life that you have been searching for.

Learning how to trust again will help to bring about some of the changes you’ve been wanting.