Life Challenges Create Distrust

Life seldom pampers any of us; we all face challenging periods, difficult situations and painful experiences. These encounters can lead us to losing ability to trust life, others, and even ourselves. In this exploration, we dive into the origins of distrust and embark on a journey to rebuild trust.

Understanding Trust

Trust is a complex concept, and often is shaped by personal experiences and subjective perceptions.

We all may have a different perception of trust, and it is important to know and be able to communicate our expectations to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and disappointments.

And what is your subjective definition of trust? What do you expect from others (or yourself) to consider they (you) are trustworthy?

Introspection Exercises: Distrust

In our attempt to understand where we stand on (dis)trust, it is important to dive deep into our memories that contain information on events that caused our loss of trust. The root causes are, usually, hidden in our childhood memories. If inspired, please take a moment, close your eyes and attempt the answer questions provided in exercises 1, 2 and 3.

Exercise 1 – What made me distrust life?

Life’s challenges and situations in which we feel that our destiny, or life is against us can erode our trust, leaving us feeling unsafe. Please close your eyes and think of the earliest events in your life in which we lost trust in our life (Paradox-x clients often share that losing someone dear to them made them distrust life).

Exercise 2 – What made me distrust others?

We all have situations in which we felt betrayed or disappointed by someone that we consider important or close to us. These situations can create distrust and beliefs that others will not take our best interest into account.

Exercise 3 – What made me distrust myself?

If we examine our memories, we can identify the situations in which we either betrayed others or betrayed ourselves. An example of self-betrayal may be a situation in which we did not leave the situations or relationships that were harmful to us, even though we had an opportunity to leave. We may also recall situations in which we betrayed others, for instance – we shared a secret of our childhood friend which created rumours and hurt our friend.

The Impact of Distrust

Continuous anticipation of worst-case scenarios triggers our fight-or-flight mechanism, impacting our physical and emotional well-being.

Living in distrust can lead to chronic fatigue and emotional depletion, even when we’re unaware of the underlying anxiety.

Thus, it is important to find the causes of our distrust and learn to trust while keeping ourselves safe.

How to Safely Trust

The Paradox-x practice has revealed that people who have issues with trust, in most cases, feel unsafe. They also believe that distrust is saving them from harmful situations. While this may seem to be logical, the therapeutic practice has found that distrust is harmful because it keeps us in a state of stressful anticipation. The practice has also shown that trust creates and maintains a healthy state of mind and body. However, we need to make sure to understand what a balanced trust is, since we may have false beliefs about what trust is. Some of us may identify trust with blind trust, with being naïve and even “stupid”. Thus, we need to make sure that our trust is accompanied by virtues that will keep us safe.

Trust and Discernment

Distinguishing between blind trust and healthy discernment is crucial.

Realizing that trust is multifaceted, we must acknowledge others’ weaknesses and not impose unrealistic expectations.

Trust and Free Will

Respecting the free will of others is of utmost importance in building a “healthy” trust.

Imposing expectations on others may lead to a violation of their autonomy and hinder the growth of genuine trust.

Trust and Interdependence

We may, also, need to master interdependence principles.

Interdependence is a state in which two or more beings live in a mutually beneficial relationships – in comparison to parasitic relationships in which parasites leach on their host. 

Building a state of trust in which we are safe, as well as in which we are respecting the boundaries of others, brings back a healthy balance in our lives.