Webs of Trust

Webs of Trust

Fragile and powerfully strong, fundamental and elusive. Emanating from tiny creatures to help nourish them, to help them stay connected. No, I’m not talking about spider webbing. I’m talking about trust, and us.

What a weird thing that is. We all need trust as a building block for growing up. Or maybe it’s the mortar. Trust connects us to each other, to our world.

It is a curious phenomenon. When I trust, I am effectively giving you a pointy stick and telling you where it will hurt the most to poke me. If you are trustworthy, you will take the stick, and you won’t poke. Otherwise, ow!

In the dark ages, I got poked a lot. I trusted all the wrong people. I believed that everyone was untrustworthy, like the people I was choosing to trust, who seemed to relish every jab they gave me.

I don’t get jabbed much anymore. Seems like I can tell better who is likely to wield that pointy stick.

Trust is a belief, which is an idea, which is a thought, which we can choose, or unchoose, to think.

As I left the dark ages behind, I changed the way I thought about trust. I started over in a lot of ways, and Creative Questions really helped me focus that by focusing on the result, the outcome, I wanted.

Bad creative questions had been my norm, “Why do people always hurt me? Why don’t things ever go my way? Why do I always get the short end of the stick?”

Now, I could start asking good Creative Questions, “Why do things go my way? What makes me successful? Why am I intimate? Why am I happy?”

By making little shifts in my beliefs, I started making changing the quality of my days. And I started to expect that things would be nice. When I believe my loved ones will be kind to me and support me, instead of believing that they will always, eventually, let me down, I change my behavior. And if they do let me down, it has somehow shifted from a personal poke to just a thing. Although sometimes it may take a bit for me to remember that.

When I started to believe that the Universe is here to support me, that my environment is here to support me, that the whole of my existence is here to support me, everything changed, just a bit, then gradually more and more. I started to look for silver linings, opportunities, lessons for my spiritual growth.

When I remember that you can’t disappoint me, only my expectations of your behavior can disappoint me, I can take responsibility for my feelings about you. If you are constantly not meeting my expectations, I get to change them. If I remember that you can change your behavior, just as I can, I give you a lot more latitude.

How have I changed from putting my trust in stinky bad places, to trusting it is all for my benefit?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01062014