Tonight is is snowing in the panhandle of Florida, where I live. Not at my house, but it is supposed to be here in another hour or so. I don't have to be at work until 10am, but have a conference call at 8am so will be up and working even if it is from home. Which is fine, I get to work in my sweats with my puppies for a couple of hours.
Images by National Geographic
And, as I was thinking about it snowing in Florida, I thought about snowflakes. How individual they are, unique in their own right. Not one like any other. And that is what trust is like. Every single person has a different idea of what trust looks like for every different relationship they are in. Every trust is different, unique.
Trust is the first thing we learn as babies. We are taught by our caregivers; usually parents but sometimes other people such as grandparents, adoptive parents, guardians, nurses, doctors, or even sometimes foster parents. There are so many different types of families we just have to remember that no matter who the main caretaker is, they are human and capable of love and compassion. This first caretaker is provided with support, love, friends, family, and a child of enormous potential. What they are not provided with is instructions.
Our first lessons in trust is from our parents. Their main job is to keep us safe, to ensure that we have a safe environment to grow up in where we can thrive and learn without causing ourselves significant harm. Parents and parental figures are there to help us thrive through the developmental stages until we are able to navigate them on our own, or at least until we are obstinate enough to not let them help anymore. They try to guide us to life's dangers and shield us from obstacles that can keep us from developing properly, learning responsibility, or causing emotional scarring. Not all parents are able to do this, but that is their purpose. Those who can, work hard and diligently to do what they can despite their own obstacles like being single, working two jobs, trying to care for someone who is sick, losing a job, etc. Some people are not equiped to be parents but they try anyway.
Some people are given children and try to do their best but have to make choices and priorities and sometimes they make the wrong ones. There are also those who intentionally make bad choices and fail to provide the safety their children need to learn trust. People in abusive relationships, who are using substances, who expose their children to unsafe environments knowingly. While I am sure there will be backlash for this; they are making a choice and are teaching their children to mistrust the world.
A child cries in its crib because it is hungry and someone brings it food. They are uncomfortable so they are rocked on someone's lap. They are hurting from teeth coming in and someone gives them something cold to chew on. They start to trust. Without even knowing what it is. They trust unconditionally.
Then something happens. Their primary caretaker makes a mistake and suddenly trust is fragile. Maybe mom was sick in bed with the flu and the food didn't come soon enough because daddy didn't know how to make it right. Trust has become questionable. From that moment on we wait to see who will earn our trust and who won't. And we watch, and learn. Learn who we can trust and who we can't. And we learn how we can trust them. And each version of trust is as unique as a snowflake.
We learn which people we can trust with which parts of our lives. We learn who we can't trust with secrets, who we can trust to pay us back money, who can keep our deepest fears to themselves and not use them to hurt us. We learn what to trust with our parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, and significant others. But what if we learn trust and then can't find it again.
Some people never learn trust. They are raised in such dysfunction they have no idea what it looks like. These are people we say live in survival mode. They are always on alert, usually street smart, able to survive no matter what. We may not like the way their lives look, but they don't know how to trust so they rely on only themselves for everything and have no expectations from anyone else. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't a better way then learning trust and losing it.
When we have learned trust....and it is shattered at some point, it is difficult to get past. But we do, we learn to trust again. We learn maybe to be more selective about who we trust with what, but we do trust again. Sometimes quickly, sometimes not as quick. But what happens when you have fragmented your trust so much and it still is too much to expect and that trust, those little slivers you have passed out so carefully, are all shattered? What do you do then?
The worst part about that scenario is that often those people learn to not trust, go into survival mode like those who have never learned trust, but with one big difference. They know what trust looks like, they remember what it feels like. How amazing it was to share something and know it was safe with them, to know they were safe.
That saying, "you don't miss something you never had," rings very true here. If you have trusted before and that trust has been lost, you long for it again, You crave feeling safe and secure. And when you can't find it, it makes survival mode even more difficult. Not only are you taking the burden of the entire world on your own shoulders and not sharing it, you are compounding it by looking for someone to share it and not finding them. Looking for that extra pair of hands, someone to hold a small piece of your world. Then, maybe, if they prove worthy, you may let them hold a little more, and a little more. Until one day, they are there making you feel safe again. You are fearful, afraid that that trust might be broken again, and you slowly let go, working through your fear, letting some trust come back. You give in to the feelings And then like a snowflake....they are gone, melted in the engagement of relationships and the caverns of misunderstandings and misperceptions and miscommunication.
And then once again you are in the world, alone, bearing it all, wondering when you might, possibly, feel just a little safe again. Maybe, someday.......
Images by National Geographic
And, as I was thinking about it snowing in Florida, I thought about snowflakes. How individual they are, unique in their own right. Not one like any other. And that is what trust is like. Every single person has a different idea of what trust looks like for every different relationship they are in. Every trust is different, unique.
Trust is the first thing we learn as babies. We are taught by our caregivers; usually parents but sometimes other people such as grandparents, adoptive parents, guardians, nurses, doctors, or even sometimes foster parents. There are so many different types of families we just have to remember that no matter who the main caretaker is, they are human and capable of love and compassion. This first caretaker is provided with support, love, friends, family, and a child of enormous potential. What they are not provided with is instructions.
Our first lessons in trust is from our parents. Their main job is to keep us safe, to ensure that we have a safe environment to grow up in where we can thrive and learn without causing ourselves significant harm. Parents and parental figures are there to help us thrive through the developmental stages until we are able to navigate them on our own, or at least until we are obstinate enough to not let them help anymore. They try to guide us to life's dangers and shield us from obstacles that can keep us from developing properly, learning responsibility, or causing emotional scarring. Not all parents are able to do this, but that is their purpose. Those who can, work hard and diligently to do what they can despite their own obstacles like being single, working two jobs, trying to care for someone who is sick, losing a job, etc. Some people are not equiped to be parents but they try anyway.
Some people are given children and try to do their best but have to make choices and priorities and sometimes they make the wrong ones. There are also those who intentionally make bad choices and fail to provide the safety their children need to learn trust. People in abusive relationships, who are using substances, who expose their children to unsafe environments knowingly. While I am sure there will be backlash for this; they are making a choice and are teaching their children to mistrust the world.
A child cries in its crib because it is hungry and someone brings it food. They are uncomfortable so they are rocked on someone's lap. They are hurting from teeth coming in and someone gives them something cold to chew on. They start to trust. Without even knowing what it is. They trust unconditionally.
Then something happens. Their primary caretaker makes a mistake and suddenly trust is fragile. Maybe mom was sick in bed with the flu and the food didn't come soon enough because daddy didn't know how to make it right. Trust has become questionable. From that moment on we wait to see who will earn our trust and who won't. And we watch, and learn. Learn who we can trust and who we can't. And we learn how we can trust them. And each version of trust is as unique as a snowflake.
We learn which people we can trust with which parts of our lives. We learn who we can't trust with secrets, who we can trust to pay us back money, who can keep our deepest fears to themselves and not use them to hurt us. We learn what to trust with our parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, and significant others. But what if we learn trust and then can't find it again.
Some people never learn trust. They are raised in such dysfunction they have no idea what it looks like. These are people we say live in survival mode. They are always on alert, usually street smart, able to survive no matter what. We may not like the way their lives look, but they don't know how to trust so they rely on only themselves for everything and have no expectations from anyone else. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't a better way then learning trust and losing it.
When we have learned trust....and it is shattered at some point, it is difficult to get past. But we do, we learn to trust again. We learn maybe to be more selective about who we trust with what, but we do trust again. Sometimes quickly, sometimes not as quick. But what happens when you have fragmented your trust so much and it still is too much to expect and that trust, those little slivers you have passed out so carefully, are all shattered? What do you do then?
The worst part about that scenario is that often those people learn to not trust, go into survival mode like those who have never learned trust, but with one big difference. They know what trust looks like, they remember what it feels like. How amazing it was to share something and know it was safe with them, to know they were safe.
That saying, "you don't miss something you never had," rings very true here. If you have trusted before and that trust has been lost, you long for it again, You crave feeling safe and secure. And when you can't find it, it makes survival mode even more difficult. Not only are you taking the burden of the entire world on your own shoulders and not sharing it, you are compounding it by looking for someone to share it and not finding them. Looking for that extra pair of hands, someone to hold a small piece of your world. Then, maybe, if they prove worthy, you may let them hold a little more, and a little more. Until one day, they are there making you feel safe again. You are fearful, afraid that that trust might be broken again, and you slowly let go, working through your fear, letting some trust come back. You give in to the feelings And then like a snowflake....they are gone, melted in the engagement of relationships and the caverns of misunderstandings and misperceptions and miscommunication.
And then once again you are in the world, alone, bearing it all, wondering when you might, possibly, feel just a little safe again. Maybe, someday.......