It's about coming to understand how I am great, where I want that greatness to manifest, and how to use that greatness when I encounter the big and little difficulties of life. If we know these things, we can move through life like a regal schooner rather than a tippy canoe. For the more we come to understand our unique capacities and how to use them, the less overwhelmed we will be no matter the circumstances.
Self-trust is not the same as self-confidence. “Confidence is more cerebral,” writes Jack Gibb in Trust, “more calculated, and based more on expectations than trust is. Trust can be and often is instinctive. . . . It is something very much like love.”
Self-trust has always been an important quality of heart and mind, but it is even more crucial in these fast-paced, challenging times. Here's how James C. Collins and Jerry I. Poras put it in Built to Last: “With the demise of the myth of job security, the accelerating pace of change, and the increasing ambiguity and complexity of our world, people who depend on external structures to provide continuity and stability run the very real risk of having their moorings ripped away. The only truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core and the willingness to change and adapt everything except that core.”
According to Webster's, the first meaning of trust is “Assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.” When we trust ourselves, we're in touch with that inner core Collins and Poras are talking about. We have self-possession—an ease under stress that reflects a command of our powers. Consequently we know we can handle what life throws at us—we can complete the assignment, juggle our schedules, organize our desks, handle the difficulty with our boss.
When we trust ourselves, we can better navigate the waters of challenging emotional times—when we feel lost or grieving, angry, or afraid—believing somewhere in our hearts and souls that we will make it, even if we're not sure how or when. We're safe in our own care. We treat ourselves well, kindly, as a loving mother would nurture her beloved child. We learn from our mistakes instead of beating ourselves up about them, because we understand that life is about learning and therefore seeing errors as valuable information about how to go forward. We don't consider ourselves bad when we screw up, just not yet as skillful as we would like to be.
Precisely because we accept ourselves exactly as we are, we are more able to change. Shame and guilt loosen their grip. We may be in difficult or challenging circumstances, but rather than getting mired in them, we see ourselves like the lotus flower. The lotus's roots are deep in mud, yet its flower is one of the most beautiful in the entire world. Each and every one of us is like that lotus—precious and whole, despite the mud of our lives.
The ideal of self-trust has been around for centuries—it was Shakespeare who said, “This above all: To thine own self be true.” And it was the belief in themselves that the founding fathers of the United States relied on when declaring independence from England.
One hundred and sixty-two years ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his famous essay “Self-Reliance,” a treatise on the crucial importance of self-trust. Here's a bit of it: “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. . . . Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. . . . I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. . . . My life is for myself and not for a spectacle. . . . Insist on yourself; never imitate. . . . Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
Inspiring words, but somewhere along the way from then to now, we've lost our sense of their importance. So much so that when I proposed self-trust as the topic for this book, some people questioned whether it was a concept that readers would even understand! We have been so indoctrinated into looking outside ourselves for the answers and to consider ourselves unreliable that we have very limited notions of what it means to approach life from this perspective. As author Jaya Sarada writes, “You can observe how deeply conditioned the self is to seek the stamp of approval from outside sources. From an early age we are told we are good or bad according to the judgments of others, so life begins a cycle of imitation.”
Given the training we've had in listening to everyone but ourselves and believing we are broken and bad, how do we begin? We start by understanding that the capacity to trust ourselves is not a fixed state we either have or don't, like straight hair or violet eyes. Rather it is a quality of heart and mind we can cultivate. Like a muscle, it grows or shrinks with practice. Trusting ourselves will wax and wane depending on life's challenges. For each of us, particular things will shake our sense of self-trust, but each time we realize we've lost faith in ourselves, we can incorporate what we learn and grow our capacity to trust ourselves more.
To begin to cultivate greater trust of ourselves, we must turn inward and look at ourselves without fearing what we will discover, without minimizing our gifts—oh, that old thing—or beating ourselves up for our learned self-destructive patterns. The good news is that we can begin right where we are, as we are. It doesn't matter how much the world has told you you're wrong, stupid, screwed-up. You don't need to bring anything except all of who you are, because every scrap can be used on behalf of what you want in your life and who you want to become.
The Promise of Trusting Ourselves
To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you that you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Unlike the other virtues I have written about—kindness, gratitude, generosity, patience—self-trust is not something I went in conscious search of. Rather, like the rest of us, I was focused on my flaws and looking to be cured of what was wrong with me—my worrying, my fear of the future, my inability to be alone with my feelings. Therapy helped a lot—now I understood why I had the problems I did—but I still suffered from and with these issues.
Then I met a wise woman named Dawna Markova. She uses what she calls an asset-focused approach to life, which is about looking at what is right and strengthening that, rather than focusing on what's wrong. I have studied and worked with her for almost fifteen years now, and this approach is now virtually part of my DNA. I use it for myself, with family and friends, and with the executives with whom I am privileged to be a thinking partner. This book is my understanding of her approach as it applies to adult happiness and well-being, and many of the concepts and practices originated with her.
Looking back on what has happened to me over the past fifteen years, I see that I've really been on a journey of coming to more and more deeply trust myself. And with such trust, I am more peaceful, more joyful, more worry free. I'm more comfortable being with myself and by myself. I'm living more in alignment with what deeply matters to me, more able to make decisions for myself. I'm much less overwhelmed by life. And when it all does get to be too much, I know what I need to do to get back on track. It's also easier for me to accept others for who they are and not condemn their choices, values, or attitudes.
Trusting ourselves offers many other rewards. The one that's been most freeing for me is that I can stop trying to control life and instead place my faith in my capacity to respond to it.
What an immense relief! Rather than fretting over everything, we're able to move through life with confidence that we can handle whatever comes at us. Life is exciting rather than threatening because we know what we want to say yes to and do it often. We also know we have worthwhile gifts to offer others. So we reach out in delight to give what is ours to give, do what is ours to do.
Trusting ourselves also helps when we go through difficult inner times. We learn we can
