How Can You Trust?
March 24, 2022
In a world that's predictably unpredictable, trust in anything starts with trusting yourself.
Hi there! Come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Hi, how are you? Nice to have you back with me. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm bringing in a topic that we're looking at in Seriouslyourself, the membership, and it is the topic of trust and trustworthiness. And I was laughing because before I started recording it I was feeling like I'm a little leery of what I might say, which is all to say when you start looking at trust, it's easy to stop trusting. And I really was feeling like: oh, I could bring up something, but I'm not even sure what's going to come out. So I guess I'm gonna just take a step back and let you know that. And trust myself to say what you need to hear. And hopefully that's how it lands for you too.
So trust and trustworthiness...you know, no one can tell you that they can make your life something that you can absolutely trust. I don't really care who they are. Which is not to criticize people that are working with trying to help the world be more trustworthy. And I think those that come from a spiritual background or organized religion even, you know, that's certainly sort of a... I don't know if it's an end goal, but part of the process to learn how to trust, right? Trust your higher power, trust God trust the Universe, trust the nature of life, what have you... trust in love. But the world is not predictable. If anything, it's predictable in its unpredictability. And much of what is predictable about it does not sit well with us. Last month in the group, we were talking about really feeling deeply and being able to feel into things like sorrow. Well, one of the things we discovered is that we often feel betrayed by the very life that we love so much and, you know, the experience of change and irony and ultimately of death. You know, you grow to love this world, this life, your people and this place, and you will die. So, yeah, it's hard to trust that stuff, right? It's hard. It's hard stuff. You want to get a puppy. Boy, you love puppies. But guess what? You can't trust that puppy is going to be a puppy. It becomes a dog. And of course, all babies grow up to be people and adults. And that lovely little uh sapling that you have out front will someday have to be chopped down before it takes over the whole house. Yeah. So, uh, without getting too Alanis Morissette on us here, it could be start singing, you know, Isn't it ironic, right?
But how do we trust then? How can we really trust? And when we can't trust, it's a terrible feeling. I have many people who have walked into my office and sat down on the couch and they are struggling with trust. And it is like seeing them torn apart from themselves, like they are blown into a million little bits that they're trying so hard to pull together and not feel as if they're going to just float away. It's really a terrifying feeling. I remember when um watching the news and seeing how the planes had flown into the twin towers that beautiful September morning, and that terror, that feeling of what do I trust? Where do I go? What do I believe? Who do I listen to? What do I have? You know, it's hard. And of course there's that tiny little movement of trust all the time within us. You know, Poly Vagal Theory talks about how you move in and out of these portions of your nervous system; where you are looking and seeking out: Can I trust, or am I in danger? It's an innate quality. And we go up and down from a sense of sort of calm detachment if you will to that sympathetic, you know, heart beating, things are not safe, to a state of relative well-being all day long, up and down.
So it's not strange to have moments all the time when you don't know if you trust what's in front of you. And that's very triggered by our bodies. You can take in a smell that indicates this is not to be trusted or an energy around you. If you can't see someone's eyes, they've discovered that you are much more likely to have a feeling of like danger and you're not going to trust very easily. Um, something to keep in mind if you're walking around with dark glasses on. So what it is important to me to kind of share with you today is this feeling of trust and taking care of yourself... because ultimately, because we cannot control everything around us, and the nature of life is quite unpredictable, we need to be able to trust ourselves. It's an inside job. It's not an easy job to do either. And frankly, it's tough to even be ourselves if we're constantly questioning ourselves.
So by starting to look at trust and if we trust, that can raise its own issues, right? Because we start getting critical inside. So I would say the first thing you want to do is just to breathe in some compassion, because you know, it's hard to be in a world where betrayal and surprise and shock happen. It's just hard. And if you assume you're either above it or so far below it that you can't possibly understand it, then you're never going to trust yourself. And then really looking into yourself as a human being, right? A being of biology, a being that needs. You know, you're not an air fern, and you're not a robot. So you have needs. Now, if I bring anything into my home that is living and I don't feed it or I don't look at what its needs are, give it no water or no love and affection. (I guess I'm thinking more of an animal than a plant, though. People would say it's true of plants also.) That being is not going to trust me, right? And it would take some time. I would say, if I changed my pattern, for it to begin to trust me. You know, if I have a puppy that I neglect, it's not going to turn around and trust me the first time I open a can of Alpo. It's going to take some time.
And yet we behave in the most irresponsible manner biologically toward ourselves. It is crazy. And then we actually expect our nervous systems, our minds, our bodies and our being to trust us and to just go on as if. So for example, we don't give ourselves any sleep. And this is a pretty chronic thing I would say, and no offense to them because I get it. But for college students, like, they'll come into, you know, the office and they're so anxious and feeling like, you know, they just are not functioning well and they can't get things done and they can't think and they're fighting and they're angry and they're upset. And I'm asking, "Well, how, how much sleep are you getting,?"
"Well, maybe four hours of sleep at night?"
Well gee, I mean, what do you want? You can't - you can't help anxiety if your body is so depleted and neglected, you know? Or "what foods are you eating?"
"Well, I I live on pizza and beer. " Well, okay, so that's a that's a sort of an extreme example because you know, in fairness to those college students, probably a lot of us do this, right?
We know we need a little more rest, but we have the extra cup of coffee instead. Or we know we need to meditate, but instead we sit and we play crosswords or Wordle or Words With Friends or whatever is your latest addiction on the phone, or we scroll through Insta, you know? Those things tell our bodies and the parts of us inside that they can't trust us. Why would they? Right? The body could be screaming for fresh air and exercise, and we grab a bag of chips and sit in front of Netflix.
So it's kind of an inside job, right? We have to begin to trust ourselves. And we, in order to do that, [need to be] biologically listening and taking care. And this applies to emotions as well. If you are constantly throwing yourself in harm's way, and you know it's harm's way - say, for example, you have a terrible relationship with a family member and they are cruel to you or they bring up all kinds of protectiveness or pain within you, but you feel very, very obligated or even like you should see them or you're going to be criticized if you don't or what have you, and it never goes well. It's really kind of abusive. I would say we learn not to trust ourselves when we place ourselves intentionally in those situations, in those exact same situations, over and over and over again. And pretty soon it's like our body goes, I don't know what to tell you here. I'm going to stop recognizing all of this, right? We just begin to sort of go through life, um, either in this highly anxious state or in this very numb and shut down state. Because you know, it's like, why, why would the body signal something to you when you're not going to listen anyway?
So you know, I think often it's important to look at the tiny things that you do every day. Did you wake up with a sense of gratitude and sufficiency that you gave yourself the best night's sleep possible, even if it wasn't a great night's sleep? You know, even if your baby woke you up four times or the moon was shining brightly through your window or you had a nightmare or your partner snored or you know, you had a little panic attack - Did you otherwise offer yourself a quiet, warm, comfortable space to lay down? Trust that! Yes, thank you. I did as well as I could do.
You wake up telling yourself all the things that you didn't get done and all the things you don't want to do. Or do you wake up just expressing some happiness and gratitude for food on the table and a cup of coffee in your hand and, uh you know, the air that you're breathing. It seems really a little bit trivial. And I don't mean to be all like gushing positivity, but the messages that you give yourself and the things you notice in the way you handle your emotional life also contribute to a sense of inner trust.
So you can reliably take care of yourself. As you listen to what's going on inside you, you respect it. You consider it. You try new ways. You maybe look for support that you really trust. You breathe into your truth. You get that inner knowing. And you can't do that when you're taking care of nothing or very little, because, like I said, the signals get a little scrambled inside and you learn how not to listen. But as you're taking care of yourself and then you breathe in and you notice, what do I say about this? What do I feel about this? Do I trust myself? You will have a sense of intuition really. I guess is what it is, and a sense of foundation and a sense of reliability. And that reliability can just as easily include the fact that not everything is perfectly reliable in your world. That's okay, right? That perfect standard is not necessary for you to be in a trusting relationship with yourself, with the world, and with others. Yeah.
So that's what I want to say about trust and trustworthiness today. I am sure we'll come back to this one. People always have a lot of questions about it, and it's really super important, isn't it? Take some time to notice what do you trust, and do you trust yourself to go a little deeper, even a little simpler, you know, with eating, sleeping, breathing. Trust those tiny things and begin to re-establish your own sense of you. I'll see you soon. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives.
Hi, how are you? Nice to have you back with me. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm bringing in a topic that we're looking at in Seriouslyourself, the membership, and it is the topic of trust and trustworthiness. And I was laughing because before I started recording it I was feeling like I'm a little leery of what I might say, which is all to say when you start looking at trust, it's easy to stop trusting. And I really was feeling like: oh, I could bring up something, but I'm not even sure what's going to come out. So I guess I'm gonna just take a step back and let you know that. And trust myself to say what you need to hear. And hopefully that's how it lands for you too.
So trust and trustworthiness...you know, no one can tell you that they can make your life something that you can absolutely trust. I don't really care who they are. Which is not to criticize people that are working with trying to help the world be more trustworthy. And I think those that come from a spiritual background or organized religion even, you know, that's certainly sort of a... I don't know if it's an end goal, but part of the process to learn how to trust, right? Trust your higher power, trust God trust the Universe, trust the nature of life, what have you... trust in love. But the world is not predictable. If anything, it's predictable in its unpredictability. And much of what is predictable about it does not sit well with us. Last month in the group, we were talking about really feeling deeply and being able to feel into things like sorrow. Well, one of the things we discovered is that we often feel betrayed by the very life that we love so much and, you know, the experience of change and irony and ultimately of death. You know, you grow to love this world, this life, your people and this place, and you will die. So, yeah, it's hard to trust that stuff, right? It's hard. It's hard stuff. You want to get a puppy. Boy, you love puppies. But guess what? You can't trust that puppy is going to be a puppy. It becomes a dog. And of course, all babies grow up to be people and adults. And that lovely little uh sapling that you have out front will someday have to be chopped down before it takes over the whole house. Yeah. So, uh, without getting too Alanis Morissette on us here, it could be start singing, you know, Isn't it ironic, right?
But how do we trust then? How can we really trust? And when we can't trust, it's a terrible feeling. I have many people who have walked into my office and sat down on the couch and they are struggling with trust. And it is like seeing them torn apart from themselves, like they are blown into a million little bits that they're trying so hard to pull together and not feel as if they're going to just float away. It's really a terrifying feeling. I remember when um watching the news and seeing how the planes had flown into the twin towers that beautiful September morning, and that terror, that feeling of what do I trust? Where do I go? What do I believe? Who do I listen to? What do I have? You know, it's hard. And of course there's that tiny little movement of trust all the time within us. You know, Poly Vagal Theory talks about how you move in and out of these portions of your nervous system; where you are looking and seeking out: Can I trust, or am I in danger? It's an innate quality. And we go up and down from a sense of sort of calm detachment if you will to that sympathetic, you know, heart beating, things are not safe, to a state of relative well-being all day long, up and down.
So it's not strange to have moments all the time when you don't know if you trust what's in front of you. And that's very triggered by our bodies. You can take in a smell that indicates this is not to be trusted or an energy around you. If you can't see someone's eyes, they've discovered that you are much more likely to have a feeling of like danger and you're not going to trust very easily. Um, something to keep in mind if you're walking around with dark glasses on. So what it is important to me to kind of share with you today is this feeling of trust and taking care of yourself... because ultimately, because we cannot control everything around us, and the nature of life is quite unpredictable, we need to be able to trust ourselves. It's an inside job. It's not an easy job to do either. And frankly, it's tough to even be ourselves if we're constantly questioning ourselves.
So by starting to look at trust and if we trust, that can raise its own issues, right? Because we start getting critical inside. So I would say the first thing you want to do is just to breathe in some compassion, because you know, it's hard to be in a world where betrayal and surprise and shock happen. It's just hard. And if you assume you're either above it or so far below it that you can't possibly understand it, then you're never going to trust yourself. And then really looking into yourself as a human being, right? A being of biology, a being that needs. You know, you're not an air fern, and you're not a robot. So you have needs. Now, if I bring anything into my home that is living and I don't feed it or I don't look at what its needs are, give it no water or no love and affection. (I guess I'm thinking more of an animal than a plant, though. People would say it's true of plants also.) That being is not going to trust me, right? And it would take some time. I would say, if I changed my pattern, for it to begin to trust me. You know, if I have a puppy that I neglect, it's not going to turn around and trust me the first time I open a can of Alpo. It's going to take some time.
And yet we behave in the most irresponsible manner biologically toward ourselves. It is crazy. And then we actually expect our nervous systems, our minds, our bodies and our being to trust us and to just go on as if. So for example, we don't give ourselves any sleep. And this is a pretty chronic thing I would say, and no offense to them because I get it. But for college students, like, they'll come into, you know, the office and they're so anxious and feeling like, you know, they just are not functioning well and they can't get things done and they can't think and they're fighting and they're angry and they're upset. And I'm asking, "Well, how, how much sleep are you getting,?"
"Well, maybe four hours of sleep at night?"
Well gee, I mean, what do you want? You can't - you can't help anxiety if your body is so depleted and neglected, you know? Or "what foods are you eating?"
"Well, I I live on pizza and beer. " Well, okay, so that's a that's a sort of an extreme example because you know, in fairness to those college students, probably a lot of us do this, right?
We know we need a little more rest, but we have the extra cup of coffee instead. Or we know we need to meditate, but instead we sit and we play crosswords or Wordle or Words With Friends or whatever is your latest addiction on the phone, or we scroll through Insta, you know? Those things tell our bodies and the parts of us inside that they can't trust us. Why would they? Right? The body could be screaming for fresh air and exercise, and we grab a bag of chips and sit in front of Netflix.
So it's kind of an inside job, right? We have to begin to trust ourselves. And we, in order to do that, [need to be] biologically listening and taking care. And this applies to emotions as well. If you are constantly throwing yourself in harm's way, and you know it's harm's way - say, for example, you have a terrible relationship with a family member and they are cruel to you or they bring up all kinds of protectiveness or pain within you, but you feel very, very obligated or even like you should see them or you're going to be criticized if you don't or what have you, and it never goes well. It's really kind of abusive. I would say we learn not to trust ourselves when we place ourselves intentionally in those situations, in those exact same situations, over and over and over again. And pretty soon it's like our body goes, I don't know what to tell you here. I'm going to stop recognizing all of this, right? We just begin to sort of go through life, um, either in this highly anxious state or in this very numb and shut down state. Because you know, it's like, why, why would the body signal something to you when you're not going to listen anyway?
So you know, I think often it's important to look at the tiny things that you do every day. Did you wake up with a sense of gratitude and sufficiency that you gave yourself the best night's sleep possible, even if it wasn't a great night's sleep? You know, even if your baby woke you up four times or the moon was shining brightly through your window or you had a nightmare or your partner snored or you know, you had a little panic attack - Did you otherwise offer yourself a quiet, warm, comfortable space to lay down? Trust that! Yes, thank you. I did as well as I could do.
You wake up telling yourself all the things that you didn't get done and all the things you don't want to do. Or do you wake up just expressing some happiness and gratitude for food on the table and a cup of coffee in your hand and, uh you know, the air that you're breathing. It seems really a little bit trivial. And I don't mean to be all like gushing positivity, but the messages that you give yourself and the things you notice in the way you handle your emotional life also contribute to a sense of inner trust.
So you can reliably take care of yourself. As you listen to what's going on inside you, you respect it. You consider it. You try new ways. You maybe look for support that you really trust. You breathe into your truth. You get that inner knowing. And you can't do that when you're taking care of nothing or very little, because, like I said, the signals get a little scrambled inside and you learn how not to listen. But as you're taking care of yourself and then you breathe in and you notice, what do I say about this? What do I feel about this? Do I trust myself? You will have a sense of intuition really. I guess is what it is, and a sense of foundation and a sense of reliability. And that reliability can just as easily include the fact that not everything is perfectly reliable in your world. That's okay, right? That perfect standard is not necessary for you to be in a trusting relationship with yourself, with the world, and with others. Yeah.
So that's what I want to say about trust and trustworthiness today. I am sure we'll come back to this one. People always have a lot of questions about it, and it's really super important, isn't it? Take some time to notice what do you trust, and do you trust yourself to go a little deeper, even a little simpler, you know, with eating, sleeping, breathing. Trust those tiny things and begin to re-establish your own sense of you. I'll see you soon. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives.
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com.
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.