What is self-trust?
It’s more than self-compassion, or self-esteem. It’s not thinking you’re great all the time, or ignoring your faults. It’s also not beating yourself up for mistakes, or “not living your highest potential.”
Self-Trust is a byproduct of integrating all the parts of yourself and radically accepting them.
When you start to internalize acceptance of yourself, it changes the way you operate in the world. These are five habits that change when you begin to trust yourself:
You can make a mistake and not cringe about it for days afterward. You can apologize sincerely and move on, even if the other person is still salty.
Of course we will still make mistakes, but when we trust ourselves, we also give us the benefit of the doubt. We let other people work through their own feelings, and are even ok if people don’t like us. We can correct and repair our mistakes, but we can’t control if others will accept that.
You learn to balance “taking it day-by-day” with keeping your eye on your long term goals. You feel proud of your consistent accomplishments without being defined by them.
You make progress on your goals in the short term and the long term. In fact, you see where your daily activities, your self-care, your choices are NOT in alignment with your values and your long term goals, and you develop the courage to adjust them. That might mean ending relationships, changing how much you invest in your work, hobbies, family, or activism. Things fall into place because you pay more honest attention.
You stop feeling overly guilty/responsible for the well-being of others. You realize that we are all responsible for managing our own triggers. This makes you act from compassion, not from guilt.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could make people feel a certain emotion? Maybe part of you knows that, but another part of you doesn’t want to give up on others. The truth is, people have a choice when it comes to our behavior. Even when we’re being jerks. Especially when we’re being jerks. So when you trust yourself NOT to be a jerk, you won’t keep trying to change yourself just to make others happy.
You get better at decision-making, and spend much less time feeling frozen with over-analysis. You feel prepared for the outcomes of your choices, whatever they may be.
How often do you struggle to make a decision? Do people get frustrated because you let them always pick the restaurant? That’s not as nice of a gesture as you think it is. Sometimes others have to pick up the slack on the emotional labor because we don’t want to take up any space. Making a decision is a good thing to do! When you trust yourself, you know that you will be able to handle whatever the result is, but you also get better and making choices that are right for you anyway.
You no longer need to tell yourself a version of the story that makes you the victim, ignoring or justifying your harmful actions. You are more honest with your loved ones. You can own your faults, without minimizing or maximizing them.
You know how you have that friend whom you call whenever you need to talk shit about someone else, and in your version of the story, the other person was totally rude and you were totally harmless? And then you throw in a decoy detail that makes it seem like you are admitting fault, but really it’s a mild thing and still puts most of the blame on the other person? That’s because you don’t trust yourself. You suspect that you might actually be a jerk and you have to hide any jerky qualities you might have.
The truth is, we can all be jerks sometimes. It’s ok to be honest about that, AND still be angry at the other person.
These are just some of the outcomes that may come from your work in therapy. Or, if you’re interested in a more accessible format of learning these skills (ie, short-term, lower cost), read more about the Cultivating Self-Trust group here. If you haven’t decided if 1:1 or group therapy is for you, you can contact us below and we’ll help you figure it out.