When You Trust Yourself, Everything Changes
What is Self Trust
Self-trust is something most people misunderstand. It is more than just a cognitive belief that you trust your thoughts, actions, and decisions, but that is where general understanding of the concept ends. Have you ever felt stagnant? Stuck in the same cycles? Avoiding hard conversations, or the reverse and blowing up when things get too close to home? In these examples, we can start to see the truth of where our trust lies with ourselves and how our unconscious begins to sabotage us.
True self trust is a visceral alignment where we intuitively act in alignment to our goals and values. It is where our spirit, our mind, and our body are all-in, showing up and taking action. This is crucial for our mental health, because we shift from needing external events and people to validate our choices to an internal locus of control, where all actions we take and decisions we make are aligned with our own purpose and well-being.
The science behind self-trust lies within our nervous systems. When we are deeply out of alignment with our values or our direction in life, our nervous system is on high alert. Whenever we do anything outside of our comfort zone it gets activated and begins to turn on our trauma responses. When these responses are engaged it begins to taint our thoughts with emotions and feelings of things like anger, running away, or shutting down. It is our body screaming at us that we are not safe. Have you ever gone to a party and were the quiet one in the corner. Or went on that first date and your brain was rehearsing every way it was going to go wrong?
How Self-Trust Differs from Self-Esteem and Confidence
So, what separates self-trust from things like self-esteem and self-confidence? Self-trust is something that boosts these things, it is the thing that lies deeper under the roots of our self-image. If you are wondering if this is something that you struggle with, ask yourself some probing questions. Do I struggle with indecisiveness? If so in, what scenarios do I feel the most uncertain? Do I struggle with self-doubt or avoid difficult situations and people? Are you able to validate and celebrate your own wins? Or do you need to get that validation from others? One thing I would like to add is this is not something to judge or shame yourself for, but more something to gain awareness of, to deepen your understanding of what makes you. You are not flawed you are just someone who has learned to stay safe and avoid things that once threatened that safety.
Why We Loose Self Trust
What causes us to lose this self-trust? Often it is in past experiences where we were not able to be the best versions of ourselves, or worse the idealized versions of ourselves. Maybe we got angry at something we shouldn't have or didn't follow through on something we said we would. These moments generate a deep feeling of same and incompetence that follows us, and when thrust into another situation like this we get triggered and those feelings of guilt, anger and insecurity come to the surface and magnify. Another area we lose self-trust is when we act out of alignment with our needs whether we are adhering to social norms or not making choices that are aimed at our long-term best interests like addiction or spending.
These little things and moments of not acting in alignment with our own best interests slowly wear away at our self-respect and drive to do better. It is like the critical voice in our mind is determined to avoid any discomfort or change in approach to life. We start cultivating anxiety and depression. We start seeing struggles in relationships and in career. It is a slow deterioration of drive and our ability to manage discomfort.
Practical Steps to Cultivating Self-Trust
Some practical steps to cultivating a stronger and deeper since of self-trust? First and foremost, you must get real with yourself and see where you truly stand with your self-trust. Do you follow through on commitments? Do you struggle with completing your goals? Do you find it hard to make important decisions? All these things are intuitively tied to your levels of self-trust.
Next is to meet yourself where you're at. If you struggle with any or all of the above you need to meet yourself where you are at. What small promise can you make to yourself to start showing up for yourself and teach your nervous system is safe? Don't make the goal to hit the gym every day, make it a goal to go for a walk once or twice a week. If you struggle keeping in touch with people and berede yourself for it, make a call to someone you care about just once a week. These little steps are what slowly teach you that you're taking control of your life. If you find yourself alone and without many friends or people in your life, go out and meet people. There are some amazing apps like Eventbrite and Meetup that allow you to find people meeting up over shared interests. This is one of the most powerful things you can do. If you are worried you will be quiet and awkward, you probably will be and THAT’S OKAY. The more you go the more you will work through that discomfort and start being able to cross that proverbial threshold and start connecting. And the best news, most people there felt the same way the first time they wanted. I highly recommend if you are reading this and it resonates: stop reading download and app and sign up for a group NOW.
Next it's important to learn how the mind works. There is an area of our brain known as the aMCC or the anterior midcingulate cortex. This is what many neuroscientists believe is the seat of willpower. Whenever we do things that are uncomfortable or that we don't want to do this area expands, but also if you avoid these types of things it will atrophy. You need to evaluate where you lie so that you can make a realistic action plan like mentioned above.
Next it is important to set healthy boundaries with yourself and others. If people are talking down to you or are taking advantage of you, you may brush it off, but the unconscious catalogs this and references to your worth. The unconscious mind does not know good from bad only information, and whatever information we give it slowly becomes our identity.
Conclusion
Self-trust isn't just about trusting that you know what's best. It is showing up for yourself with compassion and understanding and meeting yourself where you're at. To start taking those little steps to teach your nervous system that you got this from here and that you're safe no matter where you're at in life. Remember to be gentle with yourself and to approach this with non-judgment. We need to become our own best friend and not our own worst enemy. We were all conditioned to think and behave in certain ways, and this is one of the first steps to breaking the habit of being ourselves.
With love and gratitude, Michael Perry. Ad Lucem!
