Trust is the balm of fear.
If it is properly applied. Misplaced, it becomes a weapon we wield against ourselves.
Did I place my trust where it was not deserved? And if so, why?
As I’ve wrestled with what it means to return to “normal” civil interaction, when such exchange involves agreements that feel betrayed, I keep returning to the question of what it means to trust another. It is true that no one promised me that they valued civil freedom, and understood it. In fact, it should have been evident to me that, based on many declarations and demonstrations, most of these people held the opposite ideals dear, in practice, if not in thought.
And so, lying awake at night, I ask myself, “Have I been a fool?”
When I was a young teen, all I wanted was approval. And like the little kid in the video who keeps kicking the ball he’s trying to pick up, the harder I chased it, the further it receded. I used to help the most popular girl in the school with her math homework. She liked me, and it earned me the privilege of going to her house after school. But when the weekend drew near, she was frank, “You’re not invited to the party. You’re just...you know...there’s a certain crowd. You understand, right?”
And I did, and I accepted my place in that hierarchy, and so I kept tolerating it, kept going back, kept accepting and even inviting this treatment. And when Monday rolled around and the stories flitted around the hallways and lunchrooms, I would cradle that internal devastation like a ball of frozen lead in my solar plexus, and sometimes I would get mad, or lash out, but I continued to place my trust in people that neither deserved it nor promised to honor it. In reality, they both explicitly and implicitly promised otherwise.
There are two poles of dysfunctional response to being pushed outside. One is to beg to be allowed in, if only at the periphery, conditionally, and to diminish ourselves and our worth for table scraps of attention. The other is to be hostile, reactive, hardened; to pull away into ourselves and seek justification in the victimhood of having been treated unfairly by those we can righteously demean and despise. So we can either get too small, or too grandiose.
The inner circle of trust is sacred, and I must define it, cultivate it, establish the bounds of it, and take responsibility for it. To live eternally as a victim of betrayal is as much a failure of self-agency as to submit to it repeatedly.
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But there is also a wider circle, and a different trust.
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Well into 2023, the local natural food store had a “masks required” sign on the door; they were early and aggressive with Covid crisis virtuosity, and maintained their absurd masking policy and silly plastic barriers well past the point where the narrative supporting such conduct was running on fumes - for all I know, they maintain it still.
Walking into an establishment festooned with the trappings of an ideology I do not share, I ask myself, what is my intention here? Have I come for a rally, or a latte? What level of trust am I bestowing upon this environment? Are my expectations reasonable?
But maybe I just stopped in to use the bathroom. It’s a toilet, not a ballot box (although I consider the former to be of much higher value, to be honest). In this outer circle of trust, I must also be clear on the boundaries. Can I reconcile my intention and expectations with the actions I am planning to take in this environment? If so, then I am free to conduct the appropriate business, but no more. There are no promises beyond this agreement – I exchange coffee for money. Full stop. Not allegiance or obedience or any further investment of my time or energy. If there is an insistence that I commit to more, the deal is off.
When I was living on the Outer Banks for a couple of winters with very young children, I found a group of religious homeschoolers with whom to socialize. They were evangelicals and Bible-believers, while my relationship to Christian faith is much more amorphous. I knew where they stood and they knew I wasn’t one of their inside circle, but they were kind to me and we could spend time sharing activities with the children. They protected their borders well and I was never going to be allowed in to make deep connections, but that was okay; I wasn’t there for new best friends, just Christmas cookies and coloring pages. We knew where our circles overlapped, and there was ease in that understanding.
A friend was talking about the town drunk. He’s a member of the community, and everyone knows where he fits. He’s going to be on the bench in front of the general store, and he’s going to say hello. I can greet him with friendly intention without giving him my car keys. Not everyone is allowed all the way in.
The betrayal we’ve experienced in the past three years is one of believing that we shared certain values, and discovering that we don’t. I’m only a fool if I fall for that one again.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t trust at all. It means I take responsibility for my expectations. Do you think your doctor prioritizes your security over her own? Would you prioritize hers? I know I wouldn’t. This kind of vulnerability is foolish; don’t expose yourself to harm by giving away responsibility for your own domain.
The source for this guidance must be your inner compass. When you can trust yourself, then you can determine the limits of the trust to extend in any given situation. When a once-familiar landscape turns hostile, it is profoundly disorienting. We react, withdraw, adjust. And then, perhaps, when we’ve made these adaptations, the ground shifts again.
What do you do?
You’ve been given an opportunity to get real. By calling attention to your unconscious expectations, the shifting framework of what you thought was reality is inviting you to a new level of awareness of what you thought you knew, that isn’t true.
Does this sound exhausting? For me, right now, it is both tiresome and relieving. Having been blindsided by the disconnect between my beliefs and reality, I became paralyzed. I couldn’t trust anyone or anything outside that well-defined inner circle of commitment. Even old friendships felt thin and suspect. But as I’ve turned the work inward, and gotten clear on the strategy to deal with this landscape, I feel relief and ease. My job is to calibrate that inner compass, and obey its directives, and not overthink it. Can I make the agreement to walk into this interaction? If yes, then yes. If no, then no. Full stop.
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I knew that I was participating in a self-destructive dynamic by allowing myself to be treated as an inferior when I was a kid. I knew, but I overrode it, because I was so desperate to belong. And, because of that desperation, I learned to silence the inner voice so that I could function in the world I was making for myself. In order to find my way back to what is right for me, I have to undo that programming, and unlearn those habits.
I can look back into the past at all the times I made choices that weren’t honorable, because they didn’t reflect respect for myself. I can study them and say, “why did I choose this, and how did it feel?” And then, in each new moment that arises, I can ask, “what’s my motive for choosing this, and how does it feel?” When I know why I make the decisions that harm me, I can stop making them – I can see them coming, feel them coming, and know that, whatever else I might do, it’s not going to be that.
It takes practice, grace, and a lot of awkward and uncomfortable moments – the old patterns might be destructive, but at least they are familiar. The new ones are rich and rewarding, and open the portal to an abundant and rich life on every level, but they require growth, and that inevitably means growing pains. So start here, right now: identify one time when you know you weren’t honoring yourself. Just go back to that place. What were the circumstances? Who was involved? Can you identify a pattern, times you’ve been there before? What did it feel like it in your body?
Now imagine you had made a different choice. Can you feel that? Whatever comes up, take note of it, without judgment. These are the whispers of your inner guidance. It is there, just waiting for you to allow it to shine. This, you can trust.
And secure in my trust, I need not fear.
This kind of introspection can lead to the grace to coexist with others, whether they choose to be introspective or not, whether they share grace or not.