Trust
Definitely a huge part of any loving relationship…I would even go so far to say that without trust, there really can’t be much love. Who would ever give their heart over to someone who they believe will betray them, hurt them or refuse to care for them? Well, a lot of us actually…
Trust is a funny thing. I think that I have mostly trusting relationship but then seem to find myself in a place where I am in close relation with people that I do not trust at all…like not even a little bit. I wind it all back and see that my past is very operative in me being willing to participate in things that feel loving but are really not all that loving.
When I think of the people I trust, it is really a very short list. And then when I think of all the people I have in my life that I really don’t trust, it makes me wonder what the fuck I am doing…and that begets a need to do some things differently.
2022 is going to be a year of re-evaluation. I do not think that I can go on any longer allowing people to pay lip service to friendship and love when their actions are not loving, I do not trust them and generally their presence in my life makes me feel like shit about me, about them, about whatever it is that we are fucking doing being in relation with each other.
While I am not going to name names, I feel very sad about knowing that I have to move on, that I need to let go. But I know that I cannot do my life like this anymore. I have done this way too long with way too many people, and for me to do whatever it is I am supposed to do next, I have to leave some people behind and it will be painful, hard and likely really not understood by others.
But this is where trust makes a most important resurgence in my life…I have to trust me. After a life time of betraying myself all in the name of love and like, I am no longer willing to do that. I do not want to live like this anymore. And I trust that what I am seeing is factual, even if the people I am eschewing don’t think so, I am the only one, in the final analysis, that really needs to know. And I trust my gut today. I trust that I am not that immature person who cut people off because I was too afraid to allow them to get closer. Today, I welcome in those who are really interested in loving me and showing up for me. I am not willing to allow people to be close and be anything but loving, really.
Trust is a hard thing because it is really faith in action. When you have love ethic you can trust yourself to make good decisions about your life. You can trust that when things go awry, you know. And you can trust that you are being cared for and growing and that not everyone has to understand or even deserves an explanation.
I think the hardest thing I have ever done is learned to trust myself. Trust that what I feel is valid, trust that what I do is ok, trust that who I love can change, and that I can and will have my own back no longer at my own expense. And instead allow others to take the fall, because it is theirs after all.
Seems to me, the older I get, the more life is really about letting go of those who enter our world but do not love us enough, in the right way, hard, true love. I know that I have accepted way less in my life which has resulted in both me and the other person being pretty miserable. How much harder but better would it be to walk, than to stay and try to make something that is never going to be love, some fucked up, toxic destined to never be love, love?
I have always had this habit of believing others over my own gut and intuition. That has changed over the past few years and I am proving that by letting go and allowing my own internal structure to guide me.
Trust is hard but what I have found is that trust is only hard when you have none for yourself. When you betray yourself, how can you ever trust anyone else? It has been a hard lesson for me, and codependence has kicked my ass in this area. Often times I was too codependent and that overrode my gut level feeling that trusting this person was a bad idea. I just wanted them to love me, like me, care about me and so I cut worse and worse deals until I had nothing left. I know I am not alone here, seems we all have this lesson in our lives. Some of us it just takes longer to find any worth inside ourselves to stop the madness of allowing people we don’t trust into our interior.
It is not going to be fun or easy to walk away from people I deeply care for but see that I can no longer participate with and maintain my own integrity. I so wish it could be different but it isn’t. And today I trust my feeling about that more than I am codependent which is growth no matter how you look at it.
Today I see that without trust, there can never be love, not really. There can only be some fucked up one off version of something that looks like love but is so not even close. What I am learning, painfully, is that to vibrate higher on love’s frequency, you have to stop calling things that do not encompass all of the love’s ethic, love. Which means a lot of letting go and hard conversations and pain. Which has historically meant that it was easier just to remain and call something that was way less than loving, love. I can’t do that anymore and maintain a good opinion of myself. And it hurts.
But if I cannot trust myself to have my own back and to speak the truth, I lack all of the ethics required to love. And if there is one thing I am absolutely sure about it is this: My life is about loving. Myself. All the time. It may not ever be a completely attainable goal, but I know that I want to live my life trying. Because the only way I can love others, is to put into daily practice all of love’s ethical requirements: Care, Commitment, Trust, Responsibility, Respect and Knowledge. Thank you Bell Hooks, for teaching me something I needed to know and practice, again.
