Trust is a Common Good

Tell me in what areas of your life you don’t trust yourself, Dave, a friend, asked me through the camera on his computer. I played with my fingers underneath my desk in silence while I thought about this question. My response was clunky and not fleshed out; it came out sounding something like, well, I do not trust that I will always listen to what my body is telling me, and will deny myself what I need.

In typical Dave fashion, he forged my jumbled response into a meaningful tool - a nugget of wisdom that will serve a purpose for me indefinitely. He explained that when someone does not trust themself, this means that they are acting out of fear and compulsion. For me, this means that I deny myself what I need - usually rest - because I fear wasting time given my perception of rest generally excludes productivity. I fear not being productive will prevent me from leading a life of meaning. In these moments, I do not trust that I will choose to act out of ease and preference over fear and compulsion.

You’re telling me that every time someone experiences mistrust that it is actually fear dressed up in a fancy guise?

💡Light bulb moment💡

My conversation with Dave stuck with me for the rest of the week. Day in and day out since I began to notice the omnipresence of trust and its consequences no matter where I went, no matter who I was with. Our constantly changing environment, the familiar faces, and the new faces we encounter ask of our trust in ranging magnitudes persistently - and what an immense ask it is, the ask to be trusted when trust touches the depths of our fears, both conscious and unconscious.

I learned that trust shows up in two distinct ways that look, feel, and affect us differently - the human side of trust (trusting yourself and others) and the surrendering side of trust (trust for life).

The Human Side of Trust:

Trust is a human perception that has multiple layers associated with it. Depending on who you ask, the number of layers varies in count and complexity, but the best version I have heard comes from no other than Brene Brown. She breaks trust into 7 elements that form the acronym BRAVING:

I found this acronym to be a resounding definition of trust - it captures the complexity of not only the human perception but the difficulty that is forming and keeping trust. It demonstrates the essence of both self-trust and trust for others and their dependence on one another. How can one be trusted by others who do not trust themself?

I’m not sure it is possible for any human, without fail, to uphold each of these elements day in and out. We tell our friends secrets that aren’t ours to share, we pass judgment no matter how open-minded we strive to be, and some days we fall through on something we said we were going to do. We will break elements of trust, and in doing so, we will hurt others by washing ashore a fear that lives in the depths of their ocean.

The acronym B-R-A-V-I-N-G provides a framework to name the elements of trust that need to be present within ourselves and others; however, the framework implies that trusting is done in the mind. I think that this is exactly where the acronym falls short: the acronym denies the importance of trusting with both our minds and our hearts. If I relied exclusively on my mind to trust, I would fall victim to my deepest fears by counting on rationale more than I count on emotion. I depend on my head to decipher the elements of trust but depend on my heart to choose the path forward. It is in my heart, not in my head, that points me in the right direction when trust is cracked or broken. To me, trusting someone sometimes feels like walking around with my eyes closed; I need both my head and my heart to guide me.

The Surrendering Side of Trust:

I haven’t found a framework that explains the surrendering side of trust quite the same way that B-R-A-V-I-N-G explains the human side of trust. Life is everything, everywhere, happening all at once - it is unpredictable on a macro scale but even more so on a micro scale. Some may venture to say that the only thing about life that is predictable is its unpredictability.

While the human side of trust is the perceived relationship between you and your passersby, acquaintances, and loved ones, the surrendering side of trust is the perceived relationship between you and the world around you. Surrendering to life looks like trusting that you are always exactly where you need to be; you trust that every moment, good or bad, serves its purpose and happens for you, not to you; your mind is in a constant state of acceptance that your life is deeply integrated into the world around you - your achievements will happen when they are meant to happen, your life will unfold the way it is meant to unfold, and you will become the person you are intended to become.

I often see that people struggle to trust both life and humans equally - usually, one side of trust surpasses the other - and if they’re anything like me, my abundance of trust for life far surpasses my trust for humans. Why I have chosen the most unpredictable of them all makes me laugh to myself but through my experiences, history, and the teachings of others, I’ve found calmness in knowing that life on earth is gracious and giving. Life gives us what we need: the air we breathe, the soil beneath our feet, and the most powerful tool on earth that lives between our ears. Life gives us what we need in order to not only survive, but thrive, and make something of ourselves. Although I struggle to trust humans as much as I do life, trusting humans provides the same opportunities - the opportunities to be loved, to have psychological safety, and to achieve more as a collective.

The world asks of us to trust life and humans the same; without one there would not be the other. Trust is a common good that lives in abundance all around us and when we neglect to use it, our society regresses into fear; in a world that runs on fear, we have to construct elaborate systems and contracts to ensure we don’t get hurt.

I’ve always wondered if trust is inherent or if it is something that must be built over time. I think the answer is yes and yes - let me explain. When we are born into the world, we only have two innate fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud sounds. The good news is that we don’t have to trust cliff lines and screamo bands to live a life of abundance. As it pertains to fear, we are essentially blank slates. So if Dave is right that mistrust is fear dressed up in a stick-on mustache and a top hat, then babies must have a certain level of inherent trust for their surroundings. However, babies are impressionable and malleable, meaning that any inherent trust they are born with can easily be built and broken as they develop fears and experience trust bonding or breaking.

As a baby, we depend on our caretakers - we trust that when we send bursts of tears into the sky that our mother and father will swaddle us in loving arms and that when we are hungry that our spoon of mushy peas will make airplane noises before it hits our lips. As we age, we slowly become our own caretakers - we must trust that when we need help we will ask for it and that when we are tired we will allow ourselves to rest. An intrinsic level of trust for life and others may no longer exist in the adult versions of us, replacing it will be trust that is dependent on a multitude of factors: cognitive, psychological, situational, and contextual.

One thing remains true, there is more clarity and ease on the other side of trusting yourself; if you are only going to trust one person in this life, let it be you.

Thank you Dave for the conversation that led to this piece and thank you, as always, to the readers that take a few minutes each week to spend some time with me. If you think a friend would enjoy this week’s blog, please pass it along, and as always, see you next Friday!