This is a free-write. I wanted to start this blog post off in medias res — in the middle of things. Perhaps something about being bleary-eyed and groggy as I woke up to my 3 year old standing next to my bed screaming that "It's time to get up!" and that she needs to pee (even though she's perfectly capable of doing that on her own).
I thought about starting it with moments from this past week that left me thinking about the word "trust" and what it means to me. Like when I was in a virtual co-writing session with the other members of The Academic Writers Space (TAWS) and someone mentioned "boundaries," but not in the way I expected.
"What boundaries do you have?" she asked. "Is one of your boundaries to put your phone in the other room so you can focus on the task at hand?"
Boundaries for myself? I had always thought of boundaries as something I erected to keep others away (yeah, haha, "erected," I see some of you out there reading this snickering :P). It actually makes a lot of sense to establish boundaries with oneself so that we can trust that we'll get the work we want to get done, well, done.
I thought about having a structured, well-thought out blog post on the topic of "Trust." I mean, this is my first blog post back in quite some time. I want it to be meaningful. Inspiring. To resonate with my readers (and with my future self when she reads it again — Hi future me! I hope life is treating us well!).
But the thought of structure and of careful detail is out of my Scope-of-Being right now. The me who showed up at this keyboard right now, clacking away while my sick daughter naps on the couch in the other room, nervous system on high alert since she could wake up crying for me at any moment, dogs sleeping around me (also feeling anxious that they could jump up and bark and awaken the sick child at any moment), run-on sentence rambling endlessly on, probably losing my readers in all its spiraling, scattered thoughts, is decidedly not a me who is aligned with careful, focused, structured writing.
Also, with all the AI-generated writing nowadays, maybe a rambling mess of words from a determined but often rundown mom might resonate more with readers. This is just me. Not formulaic. Not particularly witty in this moment. Just me. Raw and present.
And maybe that's okay. Maybe I can trust the me who is overwhelmed to still produce value. So, after that long, rambling intro, here are some of my thoughts on trust.
Trust
As an academic, I always like to start with the dictionary definition of a word. Oxford Dictionary defines trust in the following way:
Reliable, true, able, and strong. I think those are traits we all would like to have. Beyond just their adjectival property, those traits evoke a vision of action.
When I see "reliable," I see my boyfriend, Gemein. I know without a shadow of a doubt that regardless of what is happening in his own life, if I needed him, he would drop everything to be there for me. I know that when he says he'll do something, I can count on him.
The word "true" carries with it a dual sense of honesty and benevolence. Words can be true (they are not a lie), but a person can also be true (they act with good intention). In my life, I would have to say that my mom is someone who is "true." She lives a life that is true to herself and to her values.
Able. This one is a bit trickier for me. I used to be "able" to run a six-minute mile. I used to be "able" to draw for hours on end. I used to be "able" to write 50,000 word stories. Ability seems to come from the areas of our life that we water and tend to. When I dedicated over two hours a day, six days a week to running, my running abilities improved. But there's more to it than that. There's also a balance component.
When I upped my running mileage from 35 miles a week to 50 miles per week over the course of two weeks, the intensity and strain caused a literal stress fracture on my tibia. I was out of running for the entire season.
So "able" has to do with intention, action, and care. I firmly believe that I am "able" to do anything, so long as I am willing to pay the price. The price of running a six-minute mile is a lot of practice, listening to one's body, adequate diet and nutrition, and oh so much patience.
What about strong? I'm going to skip over the physical implications of the word "strong," as much as I would love to deadlift 300lbs (and very much intend to do so at some point), and talk about its connotation as a character trait. I see strength as the ability to keep one's positive vision in mind and to get back up despite life throwing them one negative thing after the next and knocking them down over and over again.
Strength is forged. It's forged through our commitments, our perseverance, our unwillingness to accept defeat. As long as I keep getting up and moving forward, I cannot lose.
That action of getting up, of putting one foot in front of the other when all you want to do is collapse, or even worse, go back to where you were before... To me, that is strength.
So trust has a lot of different components that all work together.
How is trust built?
Let's discuss how trust is built. Once again, I think to TAWS. Zabeen, a fellow TAWSer, once wisely said that trust is built through repeatedly doing things that you say you're going to do. It's a pact with yourself, made by yourself. And, she emphasized, to build this trust, you can start small. You can tell yourself to drink a glass of water. Or, if that's too big, to take a sip of water. The more you do the things you tell yourself to do, the greater your trust in yourself grows to be.
You learn that you are a person that you can rely on. That you are a person of strength. That you are able to do the things you want to do. This persistent action, this building and stacking of one small task after the next, is what helps foster greater self-trust.
If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. When someone asks if you trust someone else, what are they asking you?
My answer to that is, "Do I trust that they do what they say they're going to do? Do their actions match their words?"
You know the expression, "Actions speak louder than words"?
Well, when we say we are going to do things, or that we want to do things, but instead plop down on the couch and doomscroll away our time, we create distrust with ourselves.
We may mean the things we say, but when our actions differ, then we aren't in alignment with our values. And this leads to cognitive dissonance. Something has to give. Either our actions need to change to match our words, or our values need to change to match our actions.
"Well, I didn't really think I was going to do that anyway. It was just a pipe dream."
We betray ourselves. Our hopes. Our dreams. Because we've eroded our trust in our ability to actually do the things we said we wanted to do.
You may be thinking, but I do want to do those things. I'm just so tired. I just don't have any time or money. I feel that. So much. That's why I think of Zabeen. It doesn't have to be something big. It just has to be something. Something in alignment with what I want to do. Some small step closer to the "me" I want to be.
So I stand up and jump up and down for a minute. I turn on my Pimsleur Korean and repeat the words after the speaker. I do the smallest possible thing to align my actions with my values.
With those small actions, I build trust.
It may not seem like much, but those small steps add up. Just by starting and doing something, some small, imperfect thing, I bring myself closer to the person I want to be and the life I want to lead.
If you made it this far, thanks for sticking it out. Let me know in the comments below what small thing you do to keep moving towards your goals and/or how you foster self-trust.
~ Krystin