To Trust or Not To Trust

Embark on a journey with me, Erin Anderson, as we confront the stormy seas of healing from betrayal trauma and the arduous road to regaining trust. It's a voyage that isn't for the faint of heart, requiring the steadfast dedication of both partners to navigate. Together, we'll unravel the complexity of trust—how it's a meticulous garden that needs tending, not just an overnight miracle. And when dealing with a narcissist's blame-shifting and growth dodging, know that your pursuit of healing is valiant, not a sign of fault. I'll chart the course for recognizing the time to reestablish trust and the strength to hold your boundaries when the waters are still choppy.

As we steer the ship into calmer waters, we examine the anchors of trustworthiness: accountability, empathy, and relentless self-improvement. You'll hear about a client whose dedication to treating his partner with respect is a beacon of hope for others striving to rebuild trust. This episode also shines a light on the importance of trusting your gut, especially when societal pressure urges women to disregard their unease. And for those who crave camaraderie on this healing voyage, I extend an open hand to join 'The Other Side of the Struggle: Healing from Betrayal Trauma.' It's a sanctuary where shared experiences and personal growth form the bedrock of our supportive community.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:33

Hey everyone, it's Erin Anderson with the Erin Anderson B-Trail Trauma Coaching. I am super excited that you have tuned in. Today. Let's keep talking about how to heal from B-Trail Trauma. Welcome to the other side of the struggle. This is a podcast where we talk about trauma, how to heal it and then how to take it and use it to unlock your mission and your potential and to use it to live your very best dream life.

Speaker 1: 3:20

When you're dealing with B-Trail Trauma, it can be hard to know how to heal it, how to stop the pain and to know what your next steps are to take in your own life, and these are the questions that we try to answer here. Trauma has the ability to rob us of our joy and identity, which is why it's so miserable to experience. But with the right tools and with the right mindset, we can totally reclaim that joy and even use this trauma to strengthen ourselves, so that way, trauma does not knock us off of our joy again. Living your dream life should be a non-negotiable, but trauma tends to try to negotiate that with you and even though trauma is not something that we will completely ever be free of in our life, the pain is negotiable. This is why I created Aaron Anderson B-Trail Trauma Coaching and this podcast is because I want my listeners, I want my clients, to live, truly live, free from the prison that trauma can put you in. I want you to live on the other side of the struggle. Hey, my loves, welcome back to another episode of the other side of the struggle. So today we're going to chat about another major thing that I hear a lot of, that I come across about and this is a question that I probably hear more than any other question and that is how do I trust again right Now? Obviously, I recorded in a couple of podcasts about this very same thing, but it always is a good idea to go back through and repeat some of these things before. Okay, and you know, let's be honest, like one of the reasons why we're sitting here saying like, how do I trust again? Is we do understand that trust is necessary for having a healthy and fulfilling relationship with our partner, like that's obvious, right?

Speaker 1: 6:03

But what I hear from a lot of my clients when they first start coming to me is that they are somehow 100% responsible for the broken trust in their marriage and their relationships. Their husbands are often guilt-tripping them like why don't you trust me. I told you I wasn't into that anymore, right? Or I've been so good for a week like why can't I just have your trust back? And they think that, even though they have done things to hurt the marriage or hurt their wives or to make it so their wives do not trust them anymore, that they should just immediately trust them. Brush like it's water under the bridge. We should just all forgive and forget and trust again. And that's not the way trust works at all, and anybody that is literally trying to guilt, trip you into trusting them and making, trying to make you feel bad because you just don't trust them, is Not somebody that is trustworthy. They're not actually doing the work To get in and earn your trust back.

Speaker 1: 7:30

So let's talk about how we know when it's time to give our trust back and, in the end, let's talk a little bit about what we can say that is really going to be helpful and very, very secure for us To communicate that no, I'm not in that place yet and it's okay. Okay, it's number one. How do we know when to give our trust? Okay, well, first it's going to depend upon the actions of the other person. Okay, now you're not coming to me because you're the narcissist.

Speaker 1: 8:14

If you're the narcissist, everything I have said in this podcast, it funds you. That's the honest-to-gosh truth. When I talk about forgiveness, when I talk about trust, when I talk about these things, a true narcissist will actually be really, really triggered by the things I say. So if you're not triggered and you're here looking for truth, that's a good sign, okay. However, if you play this episode for somebody you don't trust, yeah, yeah, they might get a little triggered by some of the things I say, because a narcissist is not interested in Ever hearing about what they can work on. All they want to do is point out what everybody else around them needs to work on and what everybody else is doing wrong, so that way, they never really have to acknowledge within themselves why they're feeling so broken, so triggered. The idea of that is terrifying to them, because if they admit to themselves that they have work to do on themselves, then maybe they'll also have to admit that they're a terrible human. Okay, and that's not the case. It's just we tend to do not smart things when we're running from our emotions, when we're not actually acknowledging them. We tend to do not smart things like blaming other people, or making somebody else, or trying to make somebody else feel bad, or pushing their emotions aside, or Trying to guilt trip them for having an emotional reaction Just because we did something wrong. Right, that's what a narcissist does. You're coming to this podcast. If you're learning things, you're not the narcissist. I can tell you that. Okay.

Speaker 1: 10:28

So how do we know when to give our trust? Well, number one, they're going to really hear you. They're going to recognize and say things like I know I hurt you. I Know what I did was not okay. I Can see now that that was really inappropriate. I Am so sorry, please forgive me. How? And they're going to check in with you. How are you feeling when I did XYZ? How did that make you feel? And they're really going to try to see things from your perspective.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Somebody that is trustworthy is going to get in and do the work that they need to do on themselves Because, number one, they care about you, but also because they care about who they are, because they care about them, they want these results for them. Someone who is trustworthy is ambitious. They're going to get in and do the hard work and the hard thing, and they're not going to stop trying until they get the results they want and they're going to be open to feedback. They're not going to take offense to the feedback. They're not going to try to guilt trip you into giving them trust. They are going to understand completely why you feel the way you do and they're going to do what it takes to repair the damage they have done. That is someone who is trustworthy. That is someone who really really cares that they have your trust. That is someone who is going to try to build back your trust Because what you experience matters to them and you matter to them.

Speaker 1: 12:32

I had a fantastic client that actually did this really really well. I worked with her and her husband for about three months. It really did matter to him how she was feeling and how his actions came across to her, and so he did the work. He was checking in with her and saying, hey, I know that what I did was not okay, can you tell me what you experienced and I'm just going to listen. And after she was done talking to him about what she experienced, he gave her a big hug, thanked her for being so open and honest with him and he got to work. He started doing the important emotional work that he needed to do on himself so that way he wasn't so offended and scared of her emotions and the way that his actions made her feel.

Speaker 1: 15:43

He is a perfect example of someone that can be trusted. To this day, he treats her like a queen. Even though he makes mistakes, he still is constantly trying to make life better for her. He's constantly saying things like hey, I can see you've had a really hard day. Let me take care of the kids. Do you go take a nice long soak in the tub? Or if he's done something wrong, like if he's ever slipped up looking at a pornography or something like that, he immediately goes to her with that. He doesn't try to hide it from her. He immediately goes to her and says I am so sorry. I know that this is really really hard for you. What can I do? Do you need space? I am happy to give you space. Do you need, like I'm gonna schedule immediately a call with my coach and like I'm gonna work with him on this? Like he gets on the ball? This is a guy that is trustworthy and I gotta tell you, like all of this girl's friends just absolutely adore her husband because he treats her so well. Even though he has his own struggles, he still treats her like a queen. That is a person we can trust.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Okay, number two how do we know when we can't trust? Well, if somebody expects you to trust them after they have even once broken your trust, that is a really good indicator that they're not ready for your trust. It is not up to you to heal what is broken when they have been the one that broke it. It is not up to you to clean up their mess. And when they are expecting you to just trust them again and just to get over it oh my gosh, it's been a week, why can't you get over it? That is somebody that's dismissing your experience and breaking your trust in those very words. That is not a person that is ready to be trusted. They cannot expect you to clean up their mess when they've created the mess. That's not okay. You weren't the one that broke the trust. If they're the one that broke the trust, then they need to be the one to do the restitution.

Speaker 1: 18:35

Another person you can't trust is a person that is not going to take any ownership for their lives If they're consistently blaming you, faulting you, dismissing your emotions, poking you until you have an emotional reaction. That happens a lot as a sick game. A really great video to watch, if you're wondering, is the sickest game to play by Tilswan. It's on YouTube. She talks about this very thing about a person who will push and push and push and push and push until that other person has a reaction finally to their emotions. Then they turn around and guilt them and shame them for having the emotional reaction that they have had. That's a very sick game to play. That's, again, another person that cannot be trusted.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Another person that you cannot trust is someone, again, like I said, who blames you for things that you are not responsible for. A person that is going to consistently misunderstand you when you've given them the opportunity. Many times. They just want to live in their own world and they just want to make you the bad guy. That is a person you cannot trust. Another person you can't trust is someone who just makes you feel icky. You might not necessarily know why, but your gut is just like ooh, I don't like this situation, I don't like this guy. You need to trust that. You need to trust your own instincts. If your instincts are saying, back away, that is what you do, back away. That doesn't mean you have to give somebody your trust.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Women have been taught by society to be good little girls. That means that we don't ever want to make somebody feel uncomfortable. We want to always make somebody feel good and happy and all these things. But that's a dangerous teaching, honestly. We need to stand up for ourselves. We need to be able to speak up and out and call somebody out when they're inappropriate. That's important. When somebody is not being appropriate, we need to say it, and it's important to not put somebody else's experience and emotions over our own. However, again, if we're in the wrong, then we get to own that, because we're fantastic humans and we want to do right, because we like who we are. When we do right, it's not because somebody else's experience is more important than ours. No, it's actually that our experience is really important. We want to make sure that we have the best experience. Therefore, we're going to take ownership of the things that we do wrong. That's how we build self-trust, actually.

Speaker 1: 22:00

And the third piece to this what do you say when someone is trying to get a trip you? How do we respond when someone is sitting there saying, oh, you just need to trust me, right, it's your fault. I've done everything you've asked me to do and you still don't trust me, right? And they're not actually putting in that work. Well, number one we get to trust ourselves. That's really important.

Speaker 1: 22:36

People who don't trust themselves are easily gaslighted. But people that do trust themselves and they trust their experiences, they trust their gut, they trust what is happening to them and what they think about that situation, those are people that are really hard to gaslight, okay, and they tend to say things like I can see that my trust is important to you or that you really want my trust. However, if you want my trust, these are the actions you need to take. Simple as that. You can also say you know, trying to guilt trip me for not trusting you is not making me trust you more. As a matter of fact, it's making me trust you less and telling me that I still cannot trust you. If earning my trust back is so important to you, you will not just expect me to give it. You'll actually get in and earn it and we just hold the line, my loves.

Speaker 1: 23:56

In order for you to trust someone again, you're going to have to have some really difficult conversations with people and not be deterred or distracted, when they have an emotional reaction to what you say, when they shut down, when they dismiss, when they try to ridicule or they try to deflect Right. These are all things that are not trustworthy and we don't have to sit there and keep pushing and pushing and pushing them because now all of a sudden we get into the space of not being trustworthy. We just get to have a really fantastic boundary here that says something along the lines of the way you're responding to. This is not making me trust you more. If you would like my trust, then you'll do the work. If you want to know what the work is, you'll ask and then we go about our business.

Speaker 1: 24:56

I cannot iterate enough to you that it is not completely up to you to bring trust back to this relationship, and if you find yourself in a relationship with someone who is consistently breaking your trust and expecting you to do the work to repair it, you really need to consider if that relationship is worth saving. But if somebody is willing to get in and do the work, if they can really hear you, then that is a person that we can possibly give a few more chances to. All right, my loves. I hope this was helpful. Again, if you would like some personalized help, get in, make that call, schedule that call with me. You can message me on Facebook or in Anderson Beach, routal trauma coaching and we can schedule a call from there. Or there's a link, a Calendly link. You can click that. That will also get you a call booked with me. Or go join my Facebook group the other side of the struggle and you are more than welcome to reach out to me there and we can book a call from that as well. All three ways. Lastly, if you are a coach that would love to become more trauma informed, so that way you can really help your clients move their traumas, get the results that they are wanting, be able to have fantastic experiences with you so they keep coming back and so that way they refer all of their friends to you. Set up another call with me. Let's get you on the next version of the Unashamed Life Coach School, where we'll teach you how to set up a business, an online business that is trauma informed, and help you start getting clients yourself. All right, my loves, until next week. I'll see you on the other side. Bye, guys.

Speaker 1: 27:21

Okay, so I've got a question for you. Have you joined my free Facebook group or Instagram page yet? If you haven't go and do that, and this is the reason why I always post my freebies, updated information and all kinds of goodies for my community in that page. I'm also really active. I post videos, I answer questions. So if you guys really really want to get in and interact with me, go like me on Facebook.

Speaker 1: 27:56

Go join my group the other side of the struggle healing from betrayal trauma. Come find me on Instagram, erin Anderson, betrayal trauma coach, and come follow me, because I always have something good there just for you, my audience, and I love connecting with you there. I also post anytime that I have groups going on. I talk sometimes about my programs. So if you guys are interested in working with me or even just following me and getting as much free content as you possibly can, go hang out in my group. Go connect with the ladies that are there. Also, come and join Immune and Unashamed for those married couples that are following me, because in that group, me and my business partner, kaisin Kidd, are also talking and offering some great content.