Who and how?
Trust seems to be something that magically emerges, when we meet the right people. If we have trust issues, we very often believe that the circumstances don’t leave us a choice. But that is not the full story. If you look a bit closer, trust begins in ourselves. We need to believe in our own ability to judge people’s character and to survive the pain, people can (and will) inflict unintentionally. If you believe in your own strength, trust becomes an active decision.
Once we are convinced to be able to deal with disappointment, there is still the open question of who deserves our trust. The sociologist and best seller Autor Brené Brown published her research on trust in her book “Braving the Wilderness”.
She describes 7 aspects of trust.
We trust people if they
- respect boundaries and act within them
- are reliable
- are accountable
- keep secrets to themselves (ours and others)
- practice their own values, even if it’s difficult
- don’t judge people who ask for help
- are generous in their assumptions about others.