Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome back to the Practical Spirituality Podcast. We are so excited to have you on this journey with us, where we explore all elements of mind, body, emotions and soul through the lens of everyday life. In this week's episode, we explore trust and the different ways we can deal with it when it has been broken.

Speaker 2: 0:39

A bit more of a stable week for both of us so far, compared to the release last week.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Today anyway.

Speaker 2: 0:46

Today anyway, Now that we have a bit more time and that we're starting to do things in one take again instead of multiple. I think an interesting conversation or topic this week is trust. Do you want to go there and explore it? It's a fun topic.

Speaker 1: 1:00

I'm sure there's a lot to explore about it.

Speaker 2: 1:03

I think, when it comes to trust, it's one of those subjects that we all can personally relate to, but we've never maybe had the opportunity or reason to question the foundations of it, or what does that actually mean for us in our day-to-day lives, in our relationships, in our friendships with our families? We briefly discussed the subject a little bit in talking that we always know when trust is broken or when trust dissolves or when trust is maybe not the same as what it once was whatever the terminology you want to use But we never really had the opportunity, as I said, to question okay, then, what are the foundations that actually make up that trust, when it is a friendship or relationship, to explore it a little bit more. So I think we're willingly going into this conversation knowing that it is fundamentally different for every person, but most of our conversations is just to bring to the forefront of people's minds for them to understand and question it for themselves.

Speaker 1: 1:55

I think that's a great place to start.

Speaker 2: 1:58

So maybe let's start with some of the foundations of trust in a traditional sense. So, in your experience, what are some of the foundations of trust?

Speaker 1: 2:05

Well, i think some of the foundations start with our original caregivers, whether that be our parents or whoever were our first caregivers, and based on how we felt and how we were raised in that environment, whether we have a sense of self-trust or whether we trust the people we cared about, and that would be one of the biggest foundations. Then, as we grow a bit, we then move out into the world and we teachers and school and friendship base and certain areas where that starts to get questioned.

Speaker 2: 2:40

But it's interesting how it evolves or changes. Time goes on and how, even like anything, life experience continues to alter those definitions. And, of course, from a spiritual angle, we've probably all, at different occasions, experienced our trust being broken, little or large, and it's amazing of what it brings up in us personally for us to actually have to go explore more about ourselves with the different people that you and I have worked with over the years. When you've been exploring the topic of trust and people say how it was broken within someone else, the conversation often comes back to how we can't trust ourselves to make decisions on the different areas of our lives or we don't understand what went wrong or who's responsible, and it creates that inner doubt, a time to that inner critic that we would often talk about. So I think it's that even exploring the relationship of trust or trusting our own ability to make those decisions in mind, body emotions, is an interesting angle that often maybe isn't talked out.

Speaker 1: 3:35

I don't think it's talked out at all, really. I mean, i know in my own experience, i never remember anybody talking to me about trusting my own instincts or anybody teaching me about how I could know when there was somebody I should trust or somebody I shouldn't trust, and then the very people I trusted the most might have let me down, and so, therefore, i formed a perception about oh, wait a minute, these are people that I've wanted to believe. everything they said, or in the words I usually use, is they were my gods and they let me down. so how do I trust anybody else? And it's interesting that we always go to how do I trust anybody else instead of oh, how can I learn to trust myself and my gut instinct?

Speaker 2: 4:21

But that's the fascinating part.

Speaker 2: 4:23

I guess we're doing the journey quote unquote of beginning to explore that, because I think it begins to show how we have automatically, maybe trusted other people.

Speaker 2: 4:33

I think, especially at a young age, because of we don't have a lot of exposure to the world and because we grew up in the environments that we did, we do blindly trust the people around us, as you mentioned, their family, even the people, the friends that we make, and it's only till you go into the real world and, as an adult, begin to actually meet new people that you see and sometimes learn the hard way that blindly trusting actually ends up in having some very specific life experiences that make you actually question not only the friendships or relationships that you're currently in as an adult, but then it keeps going backwards, to questioning the trust in family and friends that you've known forever, and then fundamentally back to your relationship with trust with yourself, and I think that's when we talk about the journey of actually of how it ends up sending you backwards into yourself to understand these definitions.

Speaker 2: 5:21

I think some of the fundamentals of trust comes back down to communication, honesty, our ability to be honest with ourselves, with other people in the conversation, vulnerability, and then also elements of affection And that doesn't necessarily mean intimacy in that way, but I think just feeling loved and cared for or seen or heard or whatever language you want to use. So I think all of those different elements play into trust with another person, but also trust with ourselves. Are we good at actually being honest with ourselves in different parts of our life? Are we vulnerable with ourselves when it comes to our mind and emotions And even when it comes to affection with ourselves, self-care, self-love, all of those components? when you look at it that way, internally or externally, our ability to trust ourselves and others becomes a very interesting conversation.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Well, it does. And then I want to take a different angle and look at this. So we often talk about the eight billion people that are out there and there's no one size that fits all. So then we want to look at the parts of society and ourselves that have grown up in an environment where they were in survival mode from the get-go And that there was no stability and there were no caregivers to show them any of that. And then they grow up naturally not knowing how to trust anyone else, much less trust themselves, much less trust the environment they live in, the care, the teachers, the school And I say that from personal experience working with other clients that they just go.

Speaker 1: 6:53

No, i don't even want to know about trust because I can't trust anybody And I certainly don't know how to trust myself because I have no reference point for that trust Exactly, yeah. And so for me, i often will say I know this because I just recently had this happen with a client of mine and it's about starting to create some of those reference points that we were never taught. And that goes for both scenarios that we just talked about, and it has to come back to that in more journey. But how many of us have been raised to focus outwardly about that trust? The famous saying in my house when I was growing up do what you're told, and if you ask why? because I told you so, or you're not allowed to question anything, it's like OK. So that gets confusing for people as well. And while we're here saying that, it's very important because eventually it leads us back to getting curious about how we explore that relationship with ourselves. Sometimes it can be quite a long journey before we even get to the point where we're going to start to look back at ourselves.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So, speaking with a client today, for example, that a big event happened in their life And this client was saying I hate the source of the pain, and that source of the pain is me because of what had happened in their particular life, knowing that they never had the things that I just referred to. And so they said well, of course I would originally hate the source of me, the source of the pain which is me, and therefore I can't trust me. It's a little bit backwards, but the only thing they could trust is, because of the volatile childhood they had, is when the feedback from outside came back as a positive thing. They could trust that they were on track then. But, as I tried to explain to that person, that's not necessarily true. You learned how to please other people. You didn't learn how to trust you, and that the source of the pain wasn't you. They were the experiences that happened to you.

Speaker 1: 9:11

And so that's where I think it gets really interesting for a lot of people, because some people think they do trust themselves, but really they're just trusting the reflection that's been shown to them. So how did they tell the difference for themselves? And I think, as we have said, we're talking about practical spirituality. So we want to get practical. We want to look at what are the reference points that we use to decipher what trust is. Until we start to really understand what those reference points are, we have no idea how to go back in and and Work out what trust really is to us, because it's different for every single individual.

Speaker 1: 9:57

Exactly so if we don't know where we're coming from with the trust, then how do we know how to explore the trust? So what I say is alright, let's go back, like with this particular person I was talking about prior their reference points, there was no one there for that person ever.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Hmm.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Okay, so they have no reference points, so they have to start to create a new reference point. But until they can go back and Actually Understand the emotions that came with the wound and with the terror, then they're never going to be able to have a starting point. And every time that they even have a small point where they can refer back to, oh I like how I showed up in that situation, i liked my response in that situation, i can trust who I am. That's when they can start growing that curiosity to start trusting themselves.

Speaker 2: 10:55

But often what I find in our society is we're taught to blindly trust everything else But ourselves and I think, as long as that is the case, there is always going to be that emotional Intensity that comes along with when people do let us down or do break our trust, let it be little or large. And I think, from doing the inner journey and working with Michael, even for myself, it's that when we live in a world where people are navigating of who they've been taught to be or the certain experiences Has morphed them to be this way at this moment in time, and if they haven't yet maybe done the journey of exploring that and, as we talked about in previous episodes, maybe they're never meant to everyone's journey is different. If people don't understand who they are or not meant to explore themselves, then being able to trust them and what they're projecting will always have a question mark with us. If you know what I'm trying to say, because There's different masks, as we want to talk to my previous episode, that people are running off different versions of themselves, i know that there's always that chance that for human error, of someone Potentially letting you down or breaking your trust to some degree.

Speaker 2: 12:03

So when that becomes a A reality or a fact, it's about actually an understanding, about, as you mentioned, doing the journey of building that trust with yourself And I think us were trust with for me has changed quite a bit, because it's not about me trusting another people. It's about trusting that, no matter what happens in my life, i know I can get through it, that I can process it, that I can heal and understand it in my embody emotions, that people will always be people, there'll always be human, are involved, and sometimes Unintentionally. It's about what it actually brings up in our relationship with ourselves. There's always what I have found the most interesting part of that equation.

Speaker 1: 12:40

I agree with that, and one of the things I say often and I know you've just said this, but you've said it in a different way the way that I verbalize that is Humans are fallible. You can be guaranteed They will let you down at some point. That's a lot of if and it's not a when. It's a guarantee because we are here having a human experience. Hence the reason as when I'm working with people, i explain that this is why the journey needs to go inward. This is why we want to start to get curious about that, because the foundation we want to build is with ourselves, not with the exterior world. The exterior world is only going to reflect back what we already hold, and so Until we start to go within and start to build that trust with ourselves, then when a human is human, it's gonna hurt doubly because we are Pinning all of our hopes on this other person. That isn't fair. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2: 13:42

Yeah, it's understanding why we do that with different people in our lives, because it's something we've been brought up. Seeing is that people placing their trust in other people or we trust that people will be there for us or be that person that we can't be for ourselves So suddenly then, when they have a human moment, because they're still figuring out themselves. That's why, as you said, it hurts twice as hard at times, and I think that's where it's about restructuring how we trust ourselves, how we trust other people. But I think even taking another step back is actually our ability to learn how to trust life itself on the journey. And that's even harder again because there's so many experiences or so many layers to what we've all been through that we're still fighting with or fighting to understand why what have happened, and there is a lot of traumas and a lot of experiences.

Speaker 2: 14:32

But I think that's why the journey is so important, of beginning to work to try to understand why these things would have happened to us was the experience that we can pull from it.

Speaker 2: 14:42

How does that actually strengthen us and our ability to move forward? And I think the more that we actually get that information, then we can use it practically in our day to day lives and our relationship with ourselves or relationship with other people that we can't begin to trust in the sense of there's a reason behind why all of these things happen, and it's only when you begin to understand those patterns and behaviors within ourselves and within other people that I think we even redefine our trust in people again to be completely different, and to me that is maturing and growing with life. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's an easy process along the way to do it, because, let's be honest, a lot of us do have a lot of hurt and a lot of pain And, as you mentioned as well, there's a majority of people who didn't grow up in an environment where trust was present at all with anybody.

Speaker 2: 15:27

So, therefore, where to start is not an easy journey, but nonetheless it's that life is still going to keep pushing us to start somewhere, and I think it's about when it's the right time for us to start that journey for us Only, we know.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Only we know. But I would also like to say that, yep, life is going to push us to do that, but we can. I think there's steps that we have to take, and so I don't want to say that, yeah, go out there and start learning to trust life, because you can't trust life if you don't have any foundation for trusting yourself and listening to that intuition. So, you know, we all everyone listening to this podcast will have moments in their life when they had that gut feeling that, nope, this isn't right. But we overwrote it with our head because we wanted to believe something. And I think that's why they're saying you know, hindsight is worth a million dollars, because if we had trusted ourself, then we might have made a different decision. We don't know, we could always second guess that, but the truth is we won't know until we start to trust ourself.

Speaker 1: 16:36

And so we have to start there and then slowly, then we can move out to trusting life and other people in a completely different way. One of the things and I just want to say this because I teach a lot of people this I have a phrase that I love and it's called interdependence, because everybody says, oh, i just want to learn how to be independent. Because that word, codependence, is thrown out there, because codependence means I'm trusting that you have everything I need and you're going to give it to me and I'm not going to have to work at it, or I'm going to give it to you and we're going to do this exchange. And then there's independence, which I have suffered from from a great point in my life of you know what? I don't need anybody, i'll do it all on my own, which doesn't work either.

Speaker 1: 17:21

So then you have the interdependence, where it's like okay, i've gotten curious, i've started learning about myself, i've started healing some of the wounds of my past and I have a much deeper understanding of me. If I'm choosing to bring someone else in my life, i would like them to be interdependent as well, so I don't need anything from them. So if they are fallible and do let me down. It's not life devastating. It's like, oh yeah, that's right, you're human, you're having your experience. I can share part of my experience with you, and then we can both grow together from it, and so that is to me why it's so important to start back at those basics of learning how to trust ourselves.

Speaker 2: 18:04

I think an interesting practical angle to come out of when it comes to trust is that a lot of people have experienced their trust being broken in a lot of different ways. But I think for a lot of adults, especially when being in a loving relationship or an intimate relationship, sometimes it's devastating news or the discovery of, say, when a partner has cheated on you with somebody else and how that can be the place where trust is shattered. I know from a lot of people I've worked with over the years that they begin to question how they've been able to trust that person again And that conflict of I still really love the person and we've built a life together and everything. There's layers of it that maybe there's kids and there's a marriage and there's all these components of as we talked about.

Speaker 2: 18:49

Humans have human error And even sometimes, if a couple in the relationship are willing to work through it is that they say that the trust element still isn't the same, and I think that's an interesting thing to talk about, because I think sometimes, when trying to rebuild the trust, we automatically try to aim for what it once was. When really is that? I think it's important to say that in my experience, it will never be what it once was, but it does not mean that it can't be rebuilt in a different way.

Speaker 1: 19:16

I would agree with that.

Speaker 2: 19:17

And so, in your experience, when it comes to trust and rebuilding it or it being redefined, what's your experience on that?

Speaker 1: 19:23

Well, what my experience is? you know, we all know that this has happened to me more than once in my life, and so I have quite a bit of experience. And I would say early on there was a naivety to that, and it's always great, when you have an experience, to say what you would do in the circumstance. Then, when it does happen, like you said, it can be multiple, you know, can be layered in many different ways And, like we also said about contracts, maybe that's happening for me to understand something about me. Did I know that at the time? No, i did not know that, and so it was a very difficult place for me to be. I did want the trust to go back to where it was.

Speaker 1: 20:08

I did also have an awareness that it probably never would, and so for me, in the circumstances when it happened to me, the other person then was saying that they too wanted to work on it, and so I had the hope that we could rebuild something differently, and in some ways we did, and in other ways we didn't. Did I ever completely trust that person in that area again? No, but what it did do for me was it started me to get curious about what was it about me that I didn't trust. What was it about me that I didn't feel strong enough to walk away the way I always said I would in that moment, and it was in exploring why I didn't walk away in that moment that I started to really grow as a person. It also gave me the opportunity to see the other person in a completely different light, and not necessarily a negative light.

Speaker 1: 21:10

It was about understanding what drove that person's behavior at the time, and so having those two awarenesses brought more empathy, more compassion, and the fact that both of us were trying to work on it at that time was huge for me, because I was like well, that's at least what you want. But then there became other problems with trust in that as well, and so that kind of just continued to spiral for me until it got to a point where it was like, okay, i now have to make a decision that's going to work best for me. And that was okay, because I think the other person that was involved in that was trying really hard to please me instead of being true to themselves, and that's why it didn't really completely work And incredible growth, i think, for both parties.

Speaker 2: 22:05

But hard nonetheless.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Hard, very, very difficult. And it's doubly hard when you have people around you that are aware of it, that are saying, well, why are you putting up with this and why are you doing this and why don't you just do this? And it's great when you're not in it to be a sidewalk coach, i say. But when it's happening to you, as you said, it's so many different layers. The very first time that ever happened with me, it was like OK, i recognize this pattern. If I walk away from this particular relationship, it's just going to happen again until I understand why it's happened. And I need to understand that.

Speaker 2: 22:47

But I think that's an interesting point because I do think when, especially if you've gone through life and you've kicked all the traditional boxes, you're in the people to the perfect relationship, even though we both know that doesn't exist, and then something like this or your trust being broken, really comes out of a left field I don't know where it can fracture a person to their core, because it would mean that is the place just comes so unexpected. But even as you kind of mentioned there is that even if relationship doesn't work out and both individual parties move on with their lives with other people, it's the fact that that fractured core of that trust being broken, as we both know, gets carried into other relationships. It really changes our trust with ourselves and actually our experiences moving forward with basically anybody. I think it's important to put a spotlight on it because there are real life events that are life altering for a lot of us because of the deep questioning that arises.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Right, the deep questioning that arises, and then whether we choose to take that journey to understand why those experiences happen to us and what we want to do with it as we move forward. So for me, i know my personal experience was I doubted myself my entire life And so then it became about okay. So whether someone else is being completely honest with me or not is irrelevant. I need to be honest with myself, and I would say that is one of the core things that came from those experiences, because I had a great ability to be in denial about lots of things. And so, yes, it did alter me going forward in relationships and it did alter how I saw myself, but the more important thing was it opened up the door for me to start to build a different relationship with myself and get to a point where what I wanted my whole entire life was to be comfortable in my own skin and to trust my own self moving forward, yeah, and so to me that's a real blessing, even though at the time it was excruciating.

Speaker 2: 24:57

But I think it's what becomes painful about that.

Speaker 2: 25:00

Reality is as we, as you mentioned earlier, we go into so many of these life experiences relationships, friendships quite naive because it's something that we're not taught from a young age, so it naturally comes along with painful experiences, because we don't know about any of these things logically, it's not talked out, we don't know how to process any of these experiences or these realities emotionally. And then physically, if it's a relationship, you're sharing your body, you're sharing your life with this person, and then that feels violated, so there can be feeling of that rejection through a lot of different layers. And then how does that not come to actually bring up you questioning every part of your life to some degree in a subconscious or to conscious level? But I think that's why, on a spiritual level, we find ourselves in those positions, because it forces growth onto us, because none of us ever really wants growth in that way And that's why it always tends to happen unexpectedly, because we don't look forward to life gives it to us, because that's what we're here to do.

Speaker 1: 25:54

I would agree with that. But I want to also say one other thing about that and the growth that I had from it. in my naivety, in my earlier years, i had quite a spiritual high horse that I lived on for lack of a better way of saying it. I just thought, well, if that ever happened to me I would do this, and if that happened to me I wouldn't tolerate this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and really quite judgy, not even realizing I was being judgy, just thought I was very clear on what was important to me or what wasn't important to me.

Speaker 1: 26:31

One of the greatest gifts I got through some of the experiences I've had where trust has been broken in many different areas of my life is I don't get to sit on that spiritual high horse anymore.

Speaker 1: 26:42

In fact, it was quite humbling and actually brought me to a new level of empathy for other people and their experiences that they're having And this idea that I know better than anybody else, or I know what the right thing to do is.

Speaker 1: 27:01

I have no clue and I would never say that to anyone. Now I would say, well, my experience is, and you have to trust what's going on in your experience, because no one knows what's going on for you, and so it's about you have and again that brings it back to us and learning how to go, well, what is right for me in this moment, and not just act based on what other people are telling us at that time what we should or shouldn't be doing. So I think that's a very important thing and I'm forever grateful for it, because I know for a good portion of my life I wouldn't have said that I felt superior, but I felt like, well, if that ever happened to me, i know how I would respond. And then to see it happen to me and see how different I responded- So we all have a plan until life happens.

Speaker 1: 27:54

Exactly, exactly. That's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 27:57

I feel like life will always present us with those realities of people breaking our trust in order for us to explore what trust means to ourselves.

Speaker 2: 28:05

And I think it's for us to say that everyone's journey with that is completely different. And as long as we're not able to trust ourselves or run, as long as we're not able to process or do the journey mentally and emotionally and physically with realities of a lot of our past, it's going to be quite certain in some ways, that we're going to continue to repeat a lot of those patterns where trust is continuing to be broken because we're continuing to look for the wrong things in people in order to validate stuff within ourselves. And it's that, i think, is that when we become self-sufficient in those ways of being able to trust ourselves mind, body, emotions and our intuition all of those components will find that we'll actually be able to engage with people again, both a lot less conditioning, with a lot less judgment, as you said, with more empathy. So we're not actually sacrificing anything. I just think we're, as an adult, now allowed to mature or understand things that we didn't have access to before, and even with experience.

Speaker 1: 28:59

And I think you said another thing in there that's important to highlight Lots of times when it happens and we feel like we've been cracked open and the pain is so intense especially depending on where we are in our life we might go.

Speaker 1: 29:14

I don't ever want to go back to that again and it sets up the pattern of avoiding, and so so many people feel like I can't allow that to happen again. It's where some of the control and some of the avoiding steps in and knowing I think your wording was life will always happen and I will be okay regardless of what is happening. Knowing that if I can just relax and know that this emotion isn't going to kill me even though at the time because I can remember a time mine got cracked open and I truly thought it would kill me it didn't. I did survive and I learned a lot from that, and each time I managed to be able to explore the emotion even more. So I think that's important to give our listeners that bit of hope to know that we don't have to avoid it. We have to be worried that the emotion is going to engulf us and swallow us up and we're not going to survive it because we will as long as we are able to be present for ourselves.

Speaker 2: 30:19

But I also think an interesting thing that we would have talked about before also is that, say, when our trust is broken, that often gives us the opportunity to create space, sometimes from people to actually be able to build a relationship with ourselves.

Speaker 2: 30:33

Because if we actually look at life in a lot of ways, let it be from a very young age, like we've always been surrounded by people, and let it be family friendships, and then once we start dating and we're in a relationship, then we often go from relationship to relationship and often take the baggage with us from relationship to relationship with actually ever being able to take a step back and to be able to sort through it.

Speaker 2: 30:55

Do I believe you can do that while being in a relationship, of course, like there's no doubt about that, but sometimes it's that people do need that space to be able to do the journey and to actually understand what's going on within themselves, because sometimes it's hard to figure it out when you're still actively engaging with life. Right, we're often not given permission sometimes to take a step back from what's traditionally expected from us or even what's traditionally normal if it is to be in a relationship, one after the other, but from doing the journey and doing the self exploration, actually being in a relationship with myself and understanding those fundamentals or of that trust within me, has actually allowed me to get more out of the relationships and friendships around me tenfold.

Speaker 1: 31:40

Go ahead 100% with that, 100% with that. What I'd like to leave everybody with is we all know that probably every single person listening to this podcast has had their trust broken in some way or another, and I guess the real thing that Gareth and I are talking about is taking that time to step back and question it in a different way than you've questioned it before, knowing that it's not about something wrong with you, but get curious about how you can learn how to trust yourself and knowing that life is going to support you as long as you do that. So that's what I think we're really trying to say. The practical side of it is just really taking that break, like you just said, having a look at ourselves in a different way and knowing that there could be a different way to explore it than what we've been traditionally taught. Thanks so much for listening.

Speaker 1: 32:39

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