Trusting Yourself

It's hard to create something new when you don't trust yourself.

"I've said this a thousand times, why will this time be any different?"

If you don't trust yourself, be honest about it. Name what is true: I’m untrustworthy.

And of course you don't trust yourself - you have broken your commitments time and again. You would actually be stupid to trust yourself. You wouldn't trust someone else that had not lived up to their word as many times as you have. This isn’t judgement. It’s coming face to face with What Is.

Starting with What Is

Re-building trust with yourself is much like re-building trust with someone else. It has to start with acknowledgement and forgiveness.

Acknowledgement - even though it's with yourself - is necessary. Don't ignore the issue, pretending it's not there. I can just change. I'll start to follow through on things, starting today. It may feel like an unnecessary step because there's no external person you need to make amends with. But you are the one that needs to face yourself. You are out of integrity - you're fractured and need to acknowledge the fracture fully.

It may just need to be two minutes of meditation. Or 10 minutes of journaling. Or maybe eventually a conversation with a trusted friend that can hear you process this out loud.

The shift that will happen inside of you by fully acknowledging that you have been un-trustworthy with yourself, living out of integrity with your own word and desires, is half the work.

After fully acknowledging and feeling the breach, find your way to forgiveness. Reflect on why you have been living out of alignment - the thoughts, beliefs, patterns - and extend compassion to your self. The way you would to another person.

Forgiveness is not letting yourself off the hook. It's creating the energetic space for something new to be created.

Small and Consistent

Now you're ready to begin the process of re-building trust. And the best way is to start small.

There may be temptation towards grand gestures. I commit to running a marathon this fall! I commit to blogging every day! But just like a diamond ring after an affair, grand gestures are not the key to re-building trust. Consistency - especially in the small things - is the path to knowing you're serious. You're making a true change in who you are.

What can you commit to being consistent with? What small thing do you want to start doing every day or week to practice being true to your word?

A trustworthy person is trustworthy in every aspect of their life.

If you know you can trust yourself to wake up at your desired time every morning, you're more likely to trust yourself in other areas of your life.

If you show yourself that you can be depended on to arrive at the time you say you will to appointments, you are more likely to trust yourself with your business commitments too.

Integrity comes from wholeness. When you are whole, you can trust yourself in any area of life. This is why the newly recovering alcoholic begins with making his bed in the morning.

Don't overcommit. Don't make commitments in a peak state that you won't follow through on a normal Tuesday afternoon. It's better to under-commit and show yourself you can be consistent and follow through than to overcommit and give yourself more evidence that you can't be trusted.

Find small ways - in different areas of life - to commit to being trustworthy, true to your word.

Your Word Becomes Oak

As you begin to trust yourself with small things you can begin to make bigger and bigger commitments. You will know when it's time. For some things it may just take a few days of being consistent. For other things it might take years.

You will know you can trust yourself when your word feels solid. Your word is oak. When you speak it - to yourself or others - it is not hope or an intention, but you feel in your body that it is already done. Like the "Amen" at the end of a prayer - it is so.

Eventually the former alcoholic can hang out with friends in a bar again. The former binge eater can trust they will not cave in to cravings at 10pm. The aspiring writer can trust he will have his ass in his writing chair at 6am in the morning. Not because of willpower, but because they have proven to themselves - in small ways at first - that their word, their commitment, creates their life. There’s no internal dialogue or summoning willpower. There is simply commitment.

There is a freedom that comes from being your word. It does not box you in or tie you down in a restrictive way. It frees you to create the life you want. Your yes is yes and your no is no. You create through speaking. It is the ultimate creation, like the opening verses of Genesis.

May you acknowledge the ways you have broken trust with yourself. May you find compassion towards your old patterns and behaviors. May you find small ways every day to begin aligning your word with your actions. To become whole and integrated again. And may you enjoy the freedom that comes from creating your life with your word.