Trust – Believing in others begins with believing in yourself

Each and every person has their own relationship with the word TRUST. Do we generally trust others? Do others trust us? What does it mean to have trust in someone?

How easy it is for us to trust others is based heavily on our individual past experiences. Like many aspects of the self, our tendencies to trust and distrust are molded into our psyche from a young age. A single poignant moment in our life can dramatically alter these propensities. Whatever the case may be, we all have our own unique understanding of trust and an individual aptitude toward trust or distrust.

Many of us find ourselves questioning the trustworthiness of others. “Are they lying to me?” we may ask ourselves. “Are they not telling me everything?” These and countless other questions fill our minds, clutter our thoughts, and drain our kupuri (life-force).

So, how do we keep our own sanity in a world that sometimes seems full of dishonesty?

Obviously, simply trusting everyone and everything blindly is not a recipe for success. It is important, however, that we continually hone our ability to both trust and discern truth from fiction. The path to finding this balance starts within ourselves. If we are unable to trust our self, how can we ever fully trust somebody else?

Now another question arises: how do we trust our self? And what does that even mean?

By remembering that we are a mirror of our environment, of the natural world that surrounds us, we can start by reminding ourselves of our faith in nature. We can focus on believing the truths of nature: that the sun will rise again tomorrow, that the seasons will continue, and that the universe will consistently rebalance itself. Finding even this trust can be difficult amidst the apparent chaos of the world today, and like many things in life, that first step is sometimes the hardest.

When we reaffirm our faith in nature everything else becomes clearer. By focusing on the sunrise, for example, we support our natural circadian rhythm, which innately helps us to be more in balance, both hormonally and spiritually. When we watch a sunrise, our problems fade away, time seems to slow down, and we inherently retune our bodies to the natural rhythm of Mother Earth. A byproduct of such daily rebalancing is that we maintain and enhance our internal equilibrium. Over time, we can maintain peace and tranquility amidst external chaos. This alone empowers trust in ourselves; a trust that we can face the obstacles in our life with self-confidence.

Through a process of trusting nature, we thus learn to trust ourselves. By building that sustainable trust within our heart, we learn to trust others and, most importantly, trust in life itself.