I half-heartedly assured you that I would follow up the issue of “when trust rusts” with a number of suggestions on how to resuscitate it. I deeply hope this would be that perfect sequel. When trust in a relationship seems to have been strangled, there are few first aid measures I can recommend and I hope they suffice.
What we feed must grow. That’s true in both negative and positive contexts. Love, hatred, habits, passions, and well, yes, trust. It’s not hard to imagine. See each of them as your dog. Regardless of how bad you want your cruel dog to die, it will live and grow robust if you make a habit of feeding it. Especially with delicacies! It’s no different for our emotions and life style. We are what we eat. Ultimately!
When trust has been eroded and what’s left bare and unclothed is hatred and intense feelings of betrayal, it is easy to despair on the possibilities of ever trusting the traitor. It’s so easy to wonder “how do I start trusting this person again” particularly when perennial enmity is not one of the options. How do you start?
Trust again! Not simple right? Well, I agree but this is the first in the order of first aid measures that could salvage the wreckage. Trust again. Slowly but steadily. Do this remembering that what you feed, regardless of how little the chunks are, must grow. Bit by bit, step by step, trust is allowed to sip back into the pit betrayal once dug until it fills it up.
To trust again, you must believe the best of the other person. You must suffocate the tendencies to doubt their actions and make excuses for them. Making excuses means simply: “if they knew better, they would act better”. That of course is not as easy as writing this is to me but like every other challenge, practice makes perfect.
I heard once the amusing deduction of a comedian. He said “To forgive is human, to forget is animal”. There’s the huge temptation to agree, yet I refuse to. To forget in this context of forgiveness is more a deliberate effort than it is subconscious. It is a decision to shelf the past in extinction and move on with this relationship only hoping for the best. A friend calls it deliberate amnesia. I can’t help but agree more.
Undeniably, the heart is a fragile vase; often, a slip leaves in it a crack at the least and we sure have had cases of utter wreckage. The soul is agreeably a soft canvas- pictures painted are hastily absorbed. This raises the question: how then can I completely forget? Well, the human memory can often be a traitor; it forgets what you least ponder on and when such issues pop up again, they do so with less feelings of animosity. Exceptions exist but they exist only because these persons offer less effort to the process of forgiving and forgetting.
Lastly, who else helps us through betrayals and periods of steaming hatred but God? He’s the one who can cradle our hearts to forgiveness and serenade our souls to trust again. To achieve the germination of trust again, we must run to the One who empowers us well above the human ability to trust. He shows us the easiest way to trust: to see humans including ourselves as those who cannot only fall, but can also fail due to their human limitations. To expect flawlessness is to prepare yourself eventually for a stream of tears. He reminds us that He’s the only One worthy of trust and if any other deserves trust, it’s because He lives in them.
