I’ve been thinking some more about trust. A big part of trust is listening to that voice inside, that gut instinct that tells us when a situation feels right or wrong. A big part of trust is knowing that we will stand firmly on the side of that voice, even when other people get upset because we are not doing what they think we should do.
In every circumstance where we have gotten hurt, odds are there was a moment when our gut instinct told us something was wrong—and we didn’t listen. Maybe we didn’t listen because to listen and act on that instinct would have meant doing something we’d been raised not to do or we felt it would contradict our values or we ignored it because it didn’t seem logical.
But if we listen to and trust those instincts, then it is far easier to trust because we know we will pay attention if things start to go wrong. We know we will have some warning. And, to the extent that our actions play into what goes wrong that gets us hurt, listening to that instinct means that maybe we won’t make the mistakes that got us hurt in the past.
Truly, if you think about times you got hurt and people who hurt you, odds are you can recall a moment when you wondered if this was how things should be or that perhaps this person shouldn’t be in your life—or maybe even that you should do something in a different way than you ended up doing them. If you had listened, how might things have been different?
We cannot always prevent being hurt, but learning to listen to that voice inside and to honor those instincts we all have, can be a powerful way to keep from being hurt.
April
