The Cornerstones of Trust

I could be whatever I wanted to be if I trusted that music, that song, that vibration of God that was inside of me. Shirley Maclaine – It’s All In The Playing (1987)


Self-trust is the container through which intuition speaks. Learning to trust our intuitive wisdom is based upon the ability to create the paradoxical climate of protective boundaries and receptivity to the clues that surface all around us regarding the people and situations with which we interact.

The definition of trust found in the dictionary defines trust as confidence, reliance, faith, belief, hope, expectation and assured anticipation. I don’t know about you, but this definition is less than satisfying or useful when seeking clues to how we can foster the ability to trust ourselves and also to extend trust to others.

If we break trust down into understandable behaviors, perhaps we can begin to make sense out of how we can become skilled trust builders in our relationships with both ourselves and then, through an extension of those skills, to others.

The motivation to know ourselves is the starting point. Self-knowledge comes from direct perception, acquaintance with, experience, information and understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. Self-knowledge can only come through our willingness to participate fully in the game of life.

When I was younger, I learned powerful and often painful lessons regarding the issue of trust. I naively thought that all I had to do was find people that I decided were trustworthy and then follow their lead. Unfortunately, since my experience was limited, I often found myself in a warped version of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ story. I would decide that I had found my perfect person or perfect fit for a job or perfect clan that I could belong to and life would naturally and easily unfold from there.

I would settle into the relief that was engendered by the supposed answer to the question “Are you my mother?” (Father, Savior, true love, mentor, fill in the blank). Shortly or in midstream, I would realize that I had sold myself down the river by handing the reins of my life over to someone else who, no matter whether their motives were good, bad, or indifferent, could never take over a job that was not theirs to have.

When we come to the decision to author our own lives, self-trust becomes the foundation that underlies what we move toward and include and what we turn away from. Our yes’ and our no’s form two specific, performable behaviors. The first is our ability to be relied on.

Reliability is our ability to do what we say we will do. It encompasses our ability to commit ourselves to take specific actions and to follow through on those actions to completion or to renegotiate the commitment if we find that we are going in the wrong direction. The first cornerstone of trust building is reliability.

Next comes congruence. We are congruent personally when our needs, our values, our thinking and feeling and our actions are aligned and consistent. We say yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no. Our energies all line up in the same direction. We are ‘all of one fabric’. Conversely, when we say yes and we really mean no or no when we really mean yes, we create static in our nervous system.

Our personal music starts hitting sour notes. When our yes’ and no’s are at odds, we experience doubt and confusion and begin to mistrust our own signals. Congruent behavior engenders trust and is a necessary component of self-trust.

It would seem that we could stop at reliability and congruence and having mastered these two skills we would be secure and protected from further self-doubt and confusion since we would know who we are and also exactly what we are doing.


If life was static, unchanging and predictable we could stop here.
Life, however, is active, dynamic, unpredictable and ever changing. Therefore, our next challenge is to court the dual skills of appropriate openness and acceptance of the quirks and missteps of ourselves and others. Life requires that we bend, flex and stretch. Openness is the ability to allow others entrance into the secret and hidden chambers of our inner life. It requires discernment and risk.

Vulnerability and visibility. It carries no guarantee that we will be understood or that the results of our openness will be predictable or controllable. Openness is tricky business. Say too much and you may be setting yourself up for unpredictable outcomes. Stay closed and you may cut yourself off from the wellspring of vibrant, intriguing, surprising and precious intimacy and the climate that fosters newly formed and deeper interpersonal connections and new understandings.

Acceptance is the ability to express, and not just feel, our willingness to embrace all the unique aspects of another. Self-acceptance is the ability to accept all our incongruent and out-of-sync quirks and insecurities.

Openness and acceptance are spurred on by positive curiosity about the vastness inherent in what we don’t know about ourselves and others. Openness and acceptance combine to generate enthusiasm for the unfolding, unpredictable and adventurous jolts that come from this thing called life.

Enthusiasm is the divine particle in this composition of trust that allows us to fashion our lives from all that is great, generous and true.

(Excerpted from my book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind)