Hanna:
Episode number 54. Hello my friends. So I just dragged myself off the couch to record this for you today. I was watching some trashy TV. I just got obsessed with a new-to-me reality show. Because, I’m going to blame my friend here, I got obsessed because I was out hiking and swimming in some lakes up in the mountains with some girlfriends yesterday and I was saying that I want a new show, like a new good show like Queens Gambit or True Detective good but also secretly I was like reality TV has been really rubbing me the right way lately. You know Survivor is my one and only forever love reality show I do throw that on whenever I’m in the mood for something that isn’t what I normally go for but yesterday I was talking to my girlfriends and I was like you know I just want to get shallow and watch some smut. And my friend Ellie was like omg you have to watch Love Island UK. And I was like ugh that might be too, I dunno, basic for me and she was like no, you watch the UK version because the accents make it seem really elevated. So I started it this afternoon. Michael and I went for a hot as fuck walk with Ghost by the river and then I was like it is over 100 degree out, perfect day to chill out ahah. No it’s not actually it’s a perfect day to go for a swim or something but I decided it’s the perfect day to sit here inside and binge this show. And I have been watching for literally hours. And then I looked at my phone and the episode I was meant to record today is about trust issues and I was like OMG I am creating trust issues with myself by not following through on what I said I was going to do today.
Hahah. So here I am. I got up. Ok so that’s not what this episode is about really but just let it be a reminder to you that you can always find some smut to get down on instead of doing what you said you were gunna do. Not a problem, netflix your way through your saturday whenever you want. But for me today I know that I really do want to have this podcast out to you and it means more to me than watching fake couples with elevated accents hash it out with one another and try to figure out how to build an instantaneous relationship with cameras in their face 24/7. I would actually rather honor this commitment to myself and my real life and record this for you. So here we go.
“I have trust issues”. This is the dirty little thought we’re talking about today. And you’re like BUT I DO. Here’s all the reasons why. I dated a guy who cheated on me. I had a father who left us. I was told I was doing well at work and then got blindsided by getting fired. Here’s the evidence, and now I can’t trust anyone. I don’t know how.
Ok, let’s honor the pain that happened for you when those events occurred and know that your job is to allow yourself to feel the pain of disappointment, heartbreak, even anger and resentment if you want to but look, saying you have trust issues, I’m just going to come out with it. This thought is HARSH. Talk about harshing your own vibe. It’s harsh for you. Because what we want is to live and enjoy our lives yeah?
You can’t enjoy and live when you are under the impression that you have issues. The only thing that will be coming up are more issues. You’re harshing your own vibe. Damning yourself in this way, I have talked about this on I think episode maybe 2 or 3, your brain wants to label you based on the past, and most of us don’t even consider that firstly we don't have to do that, we don’t have to buy along and as I call it get in bed with your brain, but also that we can’t continue to let our brains label us based on our past if we want to create new evidence for the future.
This happens mostly with romantic relationships right? Having “trust issues”, now before you go but no seriously it’s true that I DO have trust issues, consider if you want to. Do you wanna have trust issues? Probably not. So look what is happening when you continue to believe this thought:
You are dating someone.
And you’re thinking I have trust issues. When you think that way you feel insecure. If I have issues I’m insecure. Or like down on myself right? I have so many issues, I feel totally lost and incapable and insecure.
When you’re feeling that way you act out of insecurity.
That might look like playing games. Being super confrontational. Or hiding your feelings. Or people pleasing your way through the relationship. Or overthinking everything. Or relying on your partner to heal your trust issues, which is not their responsibility right, let’s just be clear we are never seeking someone to heal our trust issues by their actions, right? They get to just be themselves and you get to decide if you want to love and trust them. Right? So all of this crazy shit we so from insecurity and self distrust.
The result of all of that sounds like a whole bunch of issues. Right it’s like I have issues trusting men, leads to issues trusting yourself.
See how that works!? I have issues leads to creating issues. Your brain is a powerful ass thing I’m telling you I dunno how anyone can doubt that your mind is in control of literally everything.
I have issues creates issues. So stop harshing your own vibe by reiterating and entertaining this unhelpful thought. I have trust issues.
What if you just refused to believe that starting now?
Because Wow what a fuckin horrible thing to think about yourself. Imagine saying that about your best friend. She’s got issues, would you say that? Do you think that would HELP and SUPPORT your friend to figure shit out if you were like girl you just got issues.
What about ‘i have a lot of experience in human behavior, all kinds. I am mastering the art of trusting myself.” MMMMM. Think about that. How is that true?
So when you say you have trust issues, what are you really saying? That just means that you cannot decide if you should trust someone.
And you never will decide if you want to.
That is what it takes to solve trust issues, to decide if you want to, right now in this moment, and not make it a problem.
You have trust options.
I choose to trust every person who signs up for a consultation to show up. Because I want them to. I hold space for them to show up, I come prepared to Coach the shit out of them, I love them up in my mind before they arrive. And guess what, some of them don’t show up. They “break my trust”.
Do I decide not to trust the next person? No, I want to trust them because the alternative is to not show up as me, to create issues in my business. Using someone else’s actions to direct how I think about me. That is emotional childhood.
So no, instead of deciding to use evidence from my past to decide something is wrong with me, trust issues, I use it to decide that I have a freaking PhD in human behavior. I know more about people and can make even better decisions in my best interest now. I might change the way I invite people to consultations. I might have a different process for screening people, have specific markers for someone I might not invite to a conversation because I have more information, more feedback to strengthen my IGS. My internal guidance system.
When you believe that you have trust issues, your IGS will not activate. It will not turn on. Your internal guidance system will get the memo to just chill because you’re literally saying I don’t know what to do, I don’t need you, it’s been settled, I don’t know whether to trust or not, I CAN’T trust.
Versus being like hey I do know somewhere what I want to do, I do know whether I want to trust or not, hey hey, I’m listening. We need to open up the lines of communication with our inner knowing, what I’m calling the IGS, the internal guidance system. It’s the place inside that comes up with ALL the answers when you believe “I know what to do.”
Now this feels confusing for people because they always are asking like is it my gut telling me something or is it just a trauma response I need to look beyond or is it just my tendency for anxiety that I need to ignore?
I’m going to let you know right now that ignoring or looking beyond ANY of that is not going to be helpful.
We will work on how to sooth your nervous system and stress responses in Private Coaching so that you can hear what your gut says. But please do not ever ignore or try to bypass your central nervous system’s attempts at protecting you. This is when your body starts firing off even more often and harder. Let’s always make sure that we are allowing our bodies to manage the stress that comes up and recover from it so that we can get into alignment with what we really want and what our values are. You cannot follow your own lead if you’re telling your body to shut up and just try to push through without making space for nourishing and calming the nervous system. Again we talk about this alot inside Private Coaching and how to actually get out of incessant activation. But today if you’re feeling activated and not able to get in touch with the heart centered, gut centered, whatever you call the part of you that is all knowing and holds your true desires and values, to be able to trust your self, if you’re feeling too activated to hear that part, make sure that you are taking care of your basic needs first. Are you sleeping? Are you eating? Are you breathing? Are you going outside? Are you taking time to check in with your body? And one little trick I will share with you is to take a minute. I really mean one minute. To do something that allows you to engage with your body that doesn’t require thoughts or feelings. Just a little what’s up to your body. I do this thing where I just close my eyes and hum. Sometimes I will put my hand to my throat and feel the vibration. And hmmm. And it’s not trying to avoid feelings or thoughts or whatever it’s just that it literally doesn't require them. How can I just engage with my body in the simplest way, using my senses. Not my brain to think about it, not my feelings to try to process anything or whatever and it’s like a little secret way to open lines of communication with your body. You are opening up new communication with your own body. I encourage you to find a way or ways that are so stinking simple like close your eyes and rub your ear lobe. Like just feel your ear lobe, all the microscopic indents and little tiny peach fuzz. Or listen to the sound of your own breath. Don’t do anything to even change your breathing pattern, just close your eyes and use your hearing to listen to what your breath sounds like. Engage with your body.
Safety, to trust, to say yes, to go, to stop, that all happens in your body. Feeling safe happens in the body. And the more open lines of communication you have with your body the more in tune you will become with how you truly feel. And to not make it a problem, right like there is no need for judgment when you’re humming or feeling up your ear lobe, it’s just connection and open lines of communication with your own self.
Ok so that was a bit of detour and I truly would love for you to experience this nervous system soothing and being the custodian, the shaman if you will, of your own nervous system, so come to Coaching and we will do so much more of this work together.
Because I want you to be able to find safety in the uncertainty of life. That is why we believe we have issues with trust, because we want to be certain of what’s outside of us and we believe that certainty will create safety to trust. But all of life is by nature, uncertain.
Not knowing whether to trust someone might be an attempt to protect yourself from heartbreak or being emotionally hurt. The truth is that you cannot. You cannot protect yourself from that. But your brain wants certainty so badly. It wants a, as Kara Lowentheil would say, a certified letter from the Universe, saying YES he’s a good guy, trust him. Or no this relationship will end in him cheating on you, get out now. Or you will absolutely follow through on this so it’s okay to trust yourself. But since there’s no such thing as that certified letter telling you what to do, you stay in this problem place of confusion and insecurity and let self trust wither. Create more issues of distrust. I’m trying to prevent heartbreak or another emotion we fear having, but in that attempt to avoid something “negative” we’re stuck here in the negative.
And the truth is always that he might be a good guy now and not later. This relationship won’t end in him cheating but it maybe will end in another way. You might NOT actually follow through because you change your mind or didn’t feel committed. So trust isn’t about being certain or predicting outcomes perfectly.
Trust is finding safety in uncertainty.
And we can do that.
We can. Even though you’re like but how, if you’re saying it’s totally uncertain whether this will work out, how can I be vulnerable enough to share my feelings? How can I make a commitment to someone, if it’s uncertain whether or not he will stay committed to me?
In the same way that I can trust and Coach women every day towards goals that I’m uncertain they will meet. The same way that I can trust and choose my partner every day, love him unconditionally even though I’m uncertain that he’ll always choose me and love me unconditionally.
I make space to connect with my body and find safety there. I know that I have the answers to what I want to do. I practice having my back no matter what and I don’t make uncertainty a problem at all.
Uncertainty is just MYSTERY. I think I learned this from my marketing coach Simone. That uncertainty is actually mystery. And Mystery sounds intriguing and magical and like something I want to wade in the waters of. The mystery has so much to teach me about myself. About who I choose to be.
Uncertainty is not a problem, so let’s stop trying to be so sure of everything all the time. The mystery is necessary to cultivate your own sense of who you are, and where you want to go.
Imagine if there WAS a certified letter stating exactly what would happen always. What a boring unimaginative and generic life we would all lead. No one would have any character because we would never have the opportunity to make decisions for ourselves.
The false promise of being absolutely without a doubt sure that you can trust is clouding your ability to know when you want to. Did you hear that? It’s important.
The false promise of being absolutely without a doubt sure that you can or should trust is clouding your ability to know when you want to.
When you WANT to. That’s all it is. When do I want to trust? Trust is feeling safe with uncertainty. When do I want to do that? When is it worth it to me to do that based on my values and authentic desires?
The need to be sure of whether trust is the “right” decision is literally inhibiting the connection with your gut, your knowing, your body, and it’s making it SO MUCH EASIER for you to fall victim to the Imperius Curse. The control curse. Any Harry Potter fans out there? The imperius curse is one of the three unforgivable curses in the harry potter books that renders someone under total control of another wizard. Being afraid of uncertainty, rejecting the unsureness of life, and feeling unsafe there makes it easy for someone else to come in and tell you what to do, what you should do, how you should live. People who are easy to control are people that believe that being unsure is a place of pain & unsafety instead of a place to find yourself.
I can feel safe in the mystery. Curious and welcoming. The mystery is where I will find myself.
Decide what you want to do for this moment. There is no right choice, you know I’ve said that before year? There’s no such thing as what should I do? It’s what you want to do. There’s no should. Should is a rejection of authenticity and inner knowing. So what do I want to do? Get behind that decision. Have your own back no matter what the outcome.
Do I want to trust or not?
I can trust people if I want to and I can create the connection in my body to safety when uncertainty exists, which is always.
Even when I was watching Love Island, haha Love island does have a purpose after all, I was watching, nay, binging, love island and noticing where people were trusting their gut and it looked so different person to person. There wasn’t like a definitive answer about what they should do. Some people were like I have buttflies in my stomach, the flutters, for this person and that is more than enough to let me know that I want to go all in. I am here for it, the butterflies are telling me that this is it. Right, and who fuckin knows what will happen, I am only on epside 5 so I don’t know yet right if that realtionship works out, but she’s like I know what I know, it’s that I like him and I want him and willing to risk the pain of heartbreak for leaning into my inner knowing now.
And then there’s another girl who said I’m just looking for someone tall that I can build into the flutters with. I don’t have those flutters in my gut over this tall guy now but there’s something that tells me to stay a little longer with this one, I want to see where it goes. I want to share more of myself and get to know more of who he is.
Both of those are brilliant approaches to love because both of those were led by their own ideas, values, desires. Both felt safe in the uncertainty.
There is no rule book about how to fall in love or be in love or be. Be. Full stop.
Thinking you have issues get’s in the way of being. That’s what I want to say! Right there. “I have trust issues” get’s in the way of being you. You may have struggled in relationship before, ou may still struggle sometimes, you will still feel confused or alone or overwhelmed or stressed and maybe you’ve felt that way 1000 times before so of course of course it’s easy to just go there again, that I have issues, I am a problem, I don’t know how to do this. Of course you can go there to that familiar place where things are tough to figure out and decisions are hard to make. But all of that can be over right now when you decide to no longer pay homage to the ghosts of issues past and be.
What do I want to do? Why? Great, I love my reasons, now do it and I’ll be right here for you whatever happens.
If you want to trust, trust. People are like well I want to trust but I have trust issues. Fuck that. I want to make a million dollars but I have money issues. I want to fall in love but I have love issues. I want to love my body but I have body issues.Sounds ludicrous, as my client Hannah would say, it sounds ludicrous when I say it. Like, quit arguing for some ludicrous ass issues. Solve your issues by doing what you want and not making it an issue.
You have to actually make decisions, and go ahead, to be able to evaluate them. I feel like that’s what’s stopping so many of you from understanding how to find that self trust is like you stay in confusion and indecision and overwhelm…of course you can’t trust that! You’re like I dunno if I can trust him, so I’ll stay frozen and wait it out to see what he says or how he’s going to lead this relationship.
You have to be brave. Maybe that’s it. Like we need to practice being brave. Making a decision and evaluating it like I would rather spend time making new choices about my life and having my back and building that ability to like love on myself… than spend time saying I dunno what to do with my trust issues.
Alright I trust you to be more and more you and align more and more with the future of you every day. I trust you to know yourself and do what is right for you. Go hum and feel your earlobes. I’ll talk to you next time.