Trust

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

I have a story and a question. I'm feeling a bit devastated - I just found out, that a good friend of mine has been dishonest with me about a relatively major thing. We had often had long conversations about trust, honesty and respect. I had trusted him, and now I don't know if I ever want to have anything to do with him again. How can I ever trust him? I know this is a great learning experience for me, so while I'm feeling devastated, I'm looking for the wisdom to be drawn out of it.

Has anyone had a similar situation, what did they do, has it ever worked out well?

[dECLAN]

Hazel,

It has never really happened to me. The only words I can offer are;

Trust in God and yourself and just let go...

[Erin Pavlina]

I automatically trust people until they give me a reason not to. Once that trust is broken, though, they have to earn my trust back over time.

I would just make sure your dealings with him aren't based on the need to trust him, until he can prove himself worthy of your trust again.

[Jill]

Yep, I do same as Erin. Sure, you get burned once in awhile, but I'd much rather go through life trusting people than the alternative.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Thanks for the comments. I want to keep trusting people, and I think I can, just not him. And the learning I have so far, is there were moments when i think my intuition popped up and alerted me, and I dismissed it, as me being paranoid...

[dECLAN]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

I automatically trust people until they give me a reason not to. Once that trust is broken, though, they have to earn my trust back over time...

I agree with what you are saying Erin. But it is still only temporal trust. It is different from the deep knowing you feel in your heart when you trust completely.

There has to be a fair degree of automatic trust in any society. For example you trust other drivers on the road not to do something silly that might endanger your life or an airline pilot to take off and land safely!

But 'bad' things still happen to people. When they do we try to understand why it happened and what we can learn from it. Sometimes it is not really a question of should I trust that person ever again and by extension become a mistrusting person or trust conditionally at the risk of being hurt again. It really goes back to what I said earlier...

[Helly]

This a real biggie for me at the moment. To cut a long story short, I was burned big time in terms of trust when I was in a relationship with someone who was a big time manipulator. I've dealt with the aftermath of most of it, however the world seems a much more dangerous place now than it did before and I am still a tad wary about whom I trust.

The one thing I can share is that your comment about your intuition is relevant, I think. I, too, went against my intuition at times and I can see now that it was right. I can see that my gut feeling is my higher self guiding me and I always listen to it now.

I've decided that it is important that I trust myself and my ability to handle any given situation, as well as trust my instincts. What other people do is up to them.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Thanks Helly, in figuring out what to learn from this, I actually DO know if someone's being dishonest. So the big thing that went wrong was me going against that. Trusting yourself IS the answer.

It was Steve's blog on lightworker syndrome that caused me to confront the person about my suspicions this weekend. There are no coincidences. I read the blog while wondering what I should do about it. I had the potential therefore I had the power to help this person and myself by being open and honest with them about this. Thank you Steve, thanks everyone for your comments. dECLAN, I'm going to let go on this, and intend honest friends in my life from now on!

Question: So is honesty situational? Would you trust someone who cheats on their taxes? Who pirates movies? Can you be friends with someone who cheats on their partners?

[Strangemagik]

I'm like Erin. I trust until I'm shown a reason not to. And it takes a long time for me to fully trust someone once they break that trustwrothiness.

[Jill]

Question: So is honesty situational? Would you trust someone who cheats on their taxes? Who pirates movies? Can you be friends with someone who cheats on their partners?

You can be friends with them, but you might not want to trust them completely.

I think those kinds of things are signs of character or a lack thereof.

[dECLAN]

I came across a Zen parable this morning and it made me think about the nature of trust and of this thread...

The Truth is the most obvious thing, yet we are always looking for a needle in a haystack. When you see the Truth, nothing changes. A tree is still a tree, a mountain is a mountain. As Maezumi Roshi once said, 'I can't believe all the suffering and frustration people go through only to realise that a table is a table, a chair a chair'.

From The Grace of Zen

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Very nice Zen parable dECLAN! There seem to be so many truths, one for everyone, it seems.