Trust is necessary for every relationship,
not necessary that it’s easier to trust your blood relatives and not other
people whom you meet in your life time. In fact sometimes we get to see lack of trust even in a parent-child relationship which is the closest
and most beautiful form of relationship( esp youngsters , with the main idea
that parents will not understand them, and they start hiding things)
Today why is it getting so difficult to
trust others? May be because we not able to trust ourselves? Ok and what if our
trust is broken? Should we forgive?
They say it’s easier to forgive
blood-related but difficult for an outsider. Forgiveness can be given to anybody,
not necessary blood related, because I know how to forgive, but we choose whom
should we forgive and whom not to forgive. If we know the art of forgiveness,
if we can forgive someone, we can forgive anyone.
But what is that Trust and how do we develop
it? To find that out, we first need to experience it ourselves. In present
times why is it difficult to trust someone? Because before trusting someone you
first doubt them. There’s not defining
of percentage of trust or doubt we have on others, yes but the effort we put in
any relationship / friendship can be defined.
We cannot say that I trust you and
gradually over the time my trust will increase. Either there is trust or it’s
not there at all. Even when there’s a single doubt in your mind, you are still
in the doubtful stage. Also there’s this interesting thing that some of my
friends getting into new relationships said that “I’ll be mentally prepared, so
that even if I’ve to face betrayal, I won’t be that hurt, that my life stops”,
saying this itself means that you don’t trust that individual, it means you
have already given the benefit of doubt to that person that they have the
capacity to betray you.
Again they say “Trust has to be earned”.
Now see the person who has to trust is you, so the other person does not
require to do anything, they are the way they are, now whether or not to trust
them is your choice , it’s just that over a period of time you get to know
them. However, trust is actually a foundation of any relationship or friendship;
it cannot be developed over a period of time.
Again by trusting other person you are not
doing them any favor, rather it’s a favor to yourself, because all that time
we are in doubt, there’s disturbance and instability inside your mind, which
means a lot of waste and negative thoughts. The moment you start trusting , all
those waste and painful thoughts are over, so basically you are relieving
yourself of all the anxiety and burden , because now there is no doubt, so the moment you think
can trust other person , what do you get? Peace, happiness and stability, so whom
did you do the favor to? Yourself!
Why are we not able to trust someone today?
Because when other person says something or does something, we start doubting
that person, does he/she think the same? Why is this occurring to you? Ever
given that a thought? It’s because you are that way, if majority of the times
your thoughts, words and actions are separate, you will picture other people
with the same pattern. So it’s basically about integrity at a very root level,
in your everyday life, you have to pretend, to please others, to maintain that
image that you've created for others, when your self-esteem relies on what opinion
do others have about you, and somewhere you had to hide your thoughts and
feelings, so most of the time in a day,you are cheating yourself, because you don’t
have the courage to speak what you think. The whole day you are spending impressing,
influencing people, you don’t have time to be yourself! Throughout the day you
live disintegrated, because your sense of worth is based on what others are
thinking about you, because normally everyone thinks if I don’t speak well about
others, they won’t like it, then they won’t like me, and then I will not like
myself.
So we must begin with accepting ourselves,
these are my strengths and these are my weakness, and its fine to have some
weakness, but I am working on them. So when you have this integrity within you,
you are able to accept others too in the same way, that they too are equipped with
some good and some bad about them, and I am ready to accept them that way, so
what happens eventually is that the person whom you've accepted as they are,
will stop pretending. We pretend before whom, we know, will not accept us the
way we are. Similarly when it comes to a
husband –wife relationship, problems arise, like till when am I supposed to
deal with something I don’t like about my spouse! We can generally pretend for
few hours when we are out in a day, but it’s difficult to pretend throughout
the day. So when this wall of pretense falls, you see a different person, and
the general dialogue “Oh, so this is what you really are!” comes up. The above
scenario would be more common among-st couples who've been committed before and
have then married.
So when you say to relevant other that “You’ll
have to win my trust”, the truth is rather like you have to be strong enough to
trust them. When you've accepted others, then there’s no expectation. Example
you expecting that the relevant other will change, would do something for you,
that means you are creating an image of that person in your mind, and saying
that till the time you act in this
manner, I shall trust you, once you behave in contradiction to the way you
were, I won’t be able to trust you. Why?
Because that image that you've created in your mind is broken.
So best way to tell someone is, “I trust
you that you are feeling the same way what you are saying” , so you are saying
that I believe that even the smallest of the things you say are only which you
are really feeling at that moment. Now let’s
take another example, a married friend came to me and said “My husband is a
very nice person, he always shared everything with me which I liked, but he was
way too honest as an individual, so initially though it was difficult to accept
his straightforwardness, I did accept it but now he hardly shares anything and I
also suspect that he’s started lying to others and me too, now how am I
supposed to accept him with this change? “
So here we see that though she pointed out that her husband has started
lying to others and she’s uncomfortable with that, shouldn't be an issue, as
she as a his partner would rather try to understand him and also support him in
his act of probably pleasing other, but in real she’s definitely unhappy
because he has started lying to her, so what’s changed? Probably she has not
accepted a certain action or words that he said and probably would have said
that ‘This truth, that you've shared with me, I will not accept it, I will not
like it’, means her power of acceptance has lessened and so her husband had to
lie to her. And this stands vice-verse as well.
So when we are hurt due to certain words or action of a person we trust,
it’s necessary to understand that everybody
in this world makes mistakes and counsel yourself that their mistake should not
affect you and check on your stability of mind , you cannot blame other person
for your hurt feeling, it’s your responsibility to heal yourself of that uneasiness , and now
with that clarity and strength you can try to see things from their perspective
and help them deal with the disturbances in their lives. Because at times we
get so much involved with our own feelings and grievances, that we don’t
realize what is the other person going through.
In conclusion when we are trusting other
person, it’s not them but your strength to be able to trust them, it requires a
realistic perspective about people and needs to be combined with a willingness
to forgive and grows best in an environment of acceptance.
Compiled by:
Isha R Ganatra
