Tr[U]st.

“The only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” -Ernest Hemmingway

In my own world, I’ve struggled with allowing people to really know me because for most of my life, it felt as though I was burned every time I did.

Over time, I learned how to seem friendly but kept virtually everyone at a distance, and those who got too close I rapidly pushed away, sometimes completely out of my life.

I was struggling to put my pieces back together after a major tragedy in my life, and allowing others in meant (the possibility of) compounding my heartbreak. I just couldn’t handle anymore at the time.

Then there came a point where, slowly but surely, people began to enter my life who showed me what it meant to be able to trust—

…trust them to show up

…trust them to listen

…trust them with commitments

…trust them with my heart

If I wouldn’t have begun to take down my walls, I may have never found these amazing people. They didn’t appear because I had perfectly learned to trust. They appeared because I was willing to learn to trust, even if imperfectly.  

I’ve been learning to trust and lower my defenses.

We each come to crossroads in our lives where we have to make the decision to let go of our old survival mechanisms in order to grow and make room for something better.  Sometimes what used to protect us becomes what harms us and stifles the capacity for our lives to be open and full of joy, love, and peace.  When it comes to trusting each other, we have to accept that our past is not our present. We have to be able to recognize that what hurt us before is not necessarily what is currently standing before us—even sometimes when the situation looks frighteningly similar. 

If we never allow ourselves any vulnerability, we lose out on the opportunity to make incredibly deep and meaningful connections that open up our lives in ways that couldn’t happen any other way.  Those connections draw out the very best within and create a new reality—one where we learn that the only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.