How I Allowed Myself to Trust People Again (The RIGHT Way)

Have you ever been hurt by the people you once trusted dearly, only to be proven how wrong you were? Again, and again it happens, you started to find yourself being afraid to let others getting close to you, only to get hurt later on again by betrayal. You are afraid to give faith another chance, finding harder and harder to trust people.

As one relationship ends, another starts with doubt doubled in the fold, not because of the person from the other end, but from the doubts you hold against better judgments. Regardless of whether how good the first impression was or how long you have known the person, you are always cautious, waiting for the other shoe to drop, knowing deep down that it’s only a matter of time where you will be hurt again. The intensity of fear in trust layered up, one after another, building thicker walls whenever a relationship started to blossom.

Don’t let them get too close to you! The inevitable truth is going to unfold itself soon!

How sad the situation was, come to think of it, how I have spent so much energy in distrusting others, guarding myself with blades of self-misguided truth against the purity of trust between people. Not knowing if people truly had the best of intentions for me, I shielded myself from them, because I was too afraid to find out if it’s too good to be true.

What a fragile thing, trust is. Trust exists at every beginning, where it lays its foundation on all relationships, as they said, where trust walls are built. Without the proper bricks and stones, the trust walls disintegrate easily which then leads to the failures in relationships, and hence this is where parties involved starting to have insecurities. Without trust, you often find it difficult for the survival of your relationships, let it be friendships, romantic ones, family connections, or even work connections.

“Trust is the glue of life.

It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication.

It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”

Stephen Covey

Not knowing how many connections I have ruined subconsciously, if I have given myself a chance to give trust another shot back then, there would be deeper and fulfilling relationships to be built and experienced.

1. Trust begins with ourselves.

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ask yourself this question, imagine yourself as a different person, would you trust the person you were before? Do you trust yourself? Would you want to give yourself another chance in trust? We longed for changes in our lives, but how many of us dare to give it a shot for the change to be real?

Acknowledging the wrongs in ourselves is the first step in accepting ourselves. Recognizing our flaws, let them all out, understand that we all have flaws, but also know that we too have our strengths. We are often feared to be wrongfully treated by others, but the thing is, the more we start accepting and loving parts of ourselves, the beauty and the ugly, the more others will also start to accept and love those aspects. Like many people, we are afraid of trust mainly because deep down, we are all afraid of the negative judgments we have on ourselves to be used by others in real situations. Hence, this is why you kept them at arms-length, not trusting them, and mostly not trusting yourself. Give yourself the chance you want in life, and in return, allow others to have a chance too. You will then be able to see your life magically changed for the better as the relationships in your life start to unravel. Be sure of what you want, the promises you ensure yourself, once you started to hold on to your promises, it will be easier to trust others.

“Keep your promises and be consistent.

Be the kind of person others can trust.”

Roy T. Bennett

2. The willingness to let trust starts its magic.

The truth is, there is no fast forward button for you to have a peek on your relationships. We wouldn’t know what’s real or not, but if we spend most of our time debating on the black and white of our relationships, we lost track of what’s truly important. The beauty of life is that everything is a mystery, one for us to unfold in the future. It’s a learning process for us throughout our lives, a complicated curve but one that we all must have faith in ourselves to climb up, again and again. Have faith in the magic of trust between people, let us be willing participants, allow ourselves to build long term relationships with our loved ones. Be open and transparent in the beginning, set yourself in a better view, have consistency, and take on responsibility when things don’t work out quite well how you planned. There might be heartbreaks along the way, but know this, if there are no strong walls of trust built in your relationships, it wouldn’t stay put no matter how hard you tried to make it work, it wouldn’t be real in any sense. Still, if you give trust a shot, you might find yourself a handful of people that are real, people that you could count on in the future.

“Sometimes you don’t know who you can and cannot trust.

I still learn that over and over again.”

Demi Lovato

3. The bitter past and unrealistic expectations.

The person who has been withholding trust is the same person who has trapped themselves as a victim in their self-created mental cage. This was all influenced by highly unrealistic expectations we unknowingly have of others, and the low self-esteem we have due to our past experiences. Don’t let unrealistic expectations cloud the reality in front of you, be truthful when it arrives with new relationships. Built the foundations with truth instead of false facts to prevent any fallouts, it is much better than to have any breach of trust in the future, by then it would be too late to salvage any broken relationships.

“Trust starts with truth and ends with truth.”

Santosh Kalwar

Broken trusts shouldn’t be reflected in our present and future relationships. They blind us from reality and pull us away from giving chances of developing healthy relationships with others. The past is not the one in control, we are the ones who are in control of our present. Instead of being succumbed to the past, let yourself move beyond and towards the path where a new possibility awaits.

“If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives.”

Heraclitus