What does trust do for you?

“Matt, what does trust mean to you?”

A question posed to me by my coach and mentor this week. Well placed as I wrestle with points of contention within me, and my way forward from here.

As you move forward reading this recount of my own reflections, don’t read it about me.

Take a pause right here, and consider…

- What trust means to you

- What you do when trust exists

- What happens when it does not

Read this about you, not about me.

Listen for insight, not for what is agreed or disagreed with. Keep what’s useful for now. Toss what isn’t.

As I reflect on this, it seems now is as relevant a time as any, for many of us to consider this in more depth. And how it impacts the ways with which we navigate our days, aware of it, or not.

My initial response to this, before a long breakdown of expectations I may hold by saying I ‘trust’ someone or something, was this…

“If I am convinced that trust is necessary, what is more important to look at is the fear that says I need it to begin with.”

I will begin here.

I have experienced my life as if a series of tests.

And most often in the testing, trust may emerge. It may be trust in another, an idea, or an entity that emerges.

Or, through testing, what I once experienced as trust eroded. And the ease I once felt for this external ‘thing’, is now replaced with angst.

I have spent many years asking…

“Can I trust this?”

“Can I trust you?”

“Can I trust this entity?”

On and on….. yet, often, it was being done without my knowing.

Through some order of decision making, a mix of past experiences, and new data, a choice occurred. Whether I realized it or not.

Going deeper, I begin to look at how the distrust I experience is often not what I thought it was. It becomes clearer that the missing trust outside of me, is missing in me, about me.

This has been a barrier for me, and a trap I have fallen into time and again. This conditioned perception that I need to expect something from you, this or that, to remove the discomfort of being in my mind and body.

And yet, no one can offer me ease.

No one can give me something I can’t give myself.

If I do not trust myself, I will never trust you, the media, mainstream narrative, and the like.

That’s one layer of depth beyond the need to trust something outside of myself.

Going a step deeper.

The belief that I need to trust myself, is still a mask for fear. And when I am afraid (anxious, tense, etc), I make decisions from parts of my brain not meant for the job.

Life looks and feels narrow and limited. Only one possibility seems to exist when I am activated in this way.

I make decisions based on a perception that continues me in the binding loop of fear. Even when I may avoid greater discomfort or perceived risk in the moment, under the surface the angst still exists.

The problem is, nothing has changed by collapsing.

At this moment, experiencing my own discomfort has been delayed, for now. Be assured life will offer me another opportunity to face what has been present within me all along.

It always has. It always does.

My life has continued to mirror for me what I have been avoiding. It’s always a question of whether I am ready to listen this time, or continue to run and distract.

The belief I need to trust being rationalized away as ‘just plain logic’. More often than not, that scapegoat I have used called ‘logic’, is bull shit. It creates barriers from entering into new levels of awareness and freedom.

More and more I see trust as a means to suspend looking at deeper existential fears. About impermanence. About being out of control. About personal authority. And a deep distrust for the nature of life itself.

I’ve found myself before saying, ‘but if I don’t have trust, I will do something stupid and die’.

That’s possible. And I have almost died many times. Yet, none of those were due to not having enough trust.

If I remove the concept or idea of trust…

If I face the fears behind the necessitation of trust…

What remains?

I have an expanded view of what is and what isn’t.

What I do. What I don’t do. What happens. And what does not.

Trust has its time. It has its place. It also has its limitations.

When I left my corporate work and began traveling three years ago, I wanted trust. I wanted to trust that everything I desired would come to fruition.

What’s funny to me in hindsight, is seeing how I leveraged self created trust, to step into new levels of living.

Yet, there was nothing tangible or objective that said anything of the sort would happen. I could have died in the first two weeks of my trip, when I was in Ireland. Trust would have meant nothing.

Trust was a handy tool that I used to write myself a permission slip to step outside of my box. Yet, behind that trust, the fears of impermanence, stewed. There still remained my fears of being out of control. There still remained my fears of not having complete autonomy.

It seems to me the only thing worth trusting is that I will never know what is going to happen when I step out.

And to stay in a cycle of needing trust first, further inhibits me from living at ease with the fact I am going to die one day.

If I have trust, I’m still going to die.

If I don’t have trust, I’m still going to die.

If I do, I’m still going to die.

If I don’t do, I’m still going to die.

Am I willing to embrace that now, so I can stop this soap opera happening inside of me day in and out?

Trust is a futile attempt to shove down the deeper fears for me to look at, that prevent me from being all in, in life. The more I have embraced that I will die, the extra noise falls away.

Then, living with discernment becomes evermore the norm. Discerning what is, is not, what I can or can not know, and what I will do from here, given what is available in the moment.

Fighting, freezing, and running begins to fall away, as I embrace the impermanence of life.

Of course, there are certain things I would like to not occur. Though, me trusting whether they will or won’t seems to have little effect on what actually occurs.

In summation, I did this reflection as assigned by my coach and mentor. And what I see is how creating our own experience of trust can be of value. Especially when we may not be ready to look at the fears being muted by the perceived need for trust.

I see trust as one tool that allows us to move forward, where we were once stuck. It allows us to step into greater levels of internal freedom.

Yet, there are levels of growth that exist, waiting for us, behind the need for trust. The primary fears of existence that keep me separate from the essence of who and what I really am lie ready to be explored.

When I can move through the fear behind the perceived need, deeper transformation occurs.

This is where the source of our real power lies. Behind the tension that I says ‘I need trust first’.

Lean in….

To yourself.

To life.

Listen beyond logic.

Feel everything.

Let the new emerge.

“The only way we can come together and experience peace is if we find it in ourselves, first.” — Anonymous