Have you experienced a major relational trauma that made you less trusting?

Are you reluctant to trust people because you are unsure you can trust yourself to avoid making similar mistakes again?

Or do you find it easier to be alone?

Many of you have told me you can’t trust anyone anymore, which is why this episode covers a six-step strategic process for learning to trust others and yourself again.

Prefer the audio? Listen here.

When our trust is broken, it changes how we view the world and interact with others.

It can also lead us to distrust ourselves.

In my younger life, whenever I found myself in a bad relationship, I turned it inward. This is what you get for being an idiot and blind to the truth.

I chose not to see red flags because I didn’t want to be alone and blamed myself for the betrayals I experienced.

If you can relate, the six steps I’m about to share with you can help.

6 Steps to Learn to Trust Again

Learning to trust again is really about learning to trust ourselves, which is why each of the six steps here is focused on you.

Following this process will raise your awareness of your relationship to trust, which will help you heal your trust issues and establish self-trust.

Step #1: Understand Your Relationship to Trust

To raise your awareness, you need to understand why you relate to trust the way you do.

You’ll do this by uncovering your trust blueprint, which means looking at what trust meant in your family of origin.

Was there a lot of trust? Did your parents or caregivers keep their word to each other? Did they keep their word to you?

Answering these questions helps you connect the dots and make sense of your trust issues within the context of your history. If your parents didn’t keep their word to you, you may understandably have difficulty trusting others! (or keeping your word.)

You may not consciously realize how your childhood experiences impacted you, which is why this is our first step.

You can download all the questions to uncover your trust blueprint inside the guide.

Step #2: Learn From the Past

Are you experiencing what I call repeating relationship realities, where different relationships end up with similar issues?

For example, like some of my therapy clients, maybe all of your romantic partners have been unfaithful.

Christine Langley OBaugh says, “We repeat what we do not repair,” which is so true.

Learning from the past is not about blaming yourself. It’s about understanding why you made the choices you did (and why you continue to make them).

Bringing unconscious material around betrayal and trust into the conscious mind helps us make different decisions.

To do this, look at the similarities in the relationships you’ve been in where you potentially ignored the red flags (like I did), and ask the 3 Qs for clarity (which will also be in the guide):

1. Who do they remind you of?
2. Where have you felt like this before?
3. How or why is the behavioral dynamic familiar to you?

Your answers may illuminate specific unhealthy patterns and help you avoid repeating them in future relationships.

Your 50% of the Relationship

If we want to be in more trusting relationships, we must first understand why we’ve been in the relationships we’ve been in.

Ask yourself, where did I not tell the truth or have a conversation I needed to have when someone’s behavior was shady or uncool with me?

Again, the goal isn’t to blame yourself. Explore this with compassion and curiosity, not harshness or blame. Looking at your half of these experiences can help you trust yourself more.

Positive Projection

Positive projection is projecting your positive traits onto others, and it’s helpful to be aware of it when it comes to trusting others.

When I was younger, I assumed everyone was like me and had the same morals and values. If I wouldn’t do something crappy to someone, I erroneously assumed they wouldn’t do the crappy thing to me. Not true!

Step #3: Stay Present

Wait, weren’t we just going back in time?

Yes. It’s important to learn from the past, not to live in it.

When you get stuck ruminating or obsessing over the people who harmed you and broke your trust, you’re reliving those experiences.

Your body doesn’t know the difference. The same hormones get released whether you’re having a painful or stressful experience or thinking about it.

This creates issues in our tissues, as my pal Kris Carr says.

We can’t build better relationships by continually ruminating about the past. We must stay present.

To help you stay present, I included ideas for mindfulness practices in the guide.

Step #4: Set Boundaries + Clearly Communicate

Setting healthy boundaries is a crucial part of trust.

What are boundaries? They’re like your own personal rules of engagement that let others know what is okay and not okay with you.

Not communicating or knowing your boundaries leaves room for others to get it wrong. You might become resentful when someone doesn’t read your mind or “do the right thing.”

For example, maybe your friend always expects you to drive them places. You haven’t told them you don’t want to, but you feel resentful of this expectation they have.

It’s on you to tell the truth about how you feel. It’s not on your friend to know you dislike driving them when you’ve never said anything about it.

What if I’m afraid to tell my friend the truth and upset them?

If a relationship blows up because you set a boundary, it was built on your self-abandonment. (It also says more about the other person than it does about you.)

We can’t endlessly self-abandon and be satisfied in life.

When we don’t tell the truth about what we want, how we feel, and what we think, the people in our lives do not know us.

How can they love us if they don’t authentically know us? And how will we ever feel satisfied in these relationships?

Not being truthful about our boundaries also means we don’t trust that the relationship is healthy enough to withstand our boundary requests and that the other person cares enough to hear us out.

Setting boundaries early and often helps build trust.

The earlier you set boundaries, the more information you learn about someone. Isn’t it better to know early on if setting a boundary is unacceptable to someone so you can move on? I say it is!

Inside the guide, you’ll find the Boundary Boss Bill of Rights. Review it whenever you feel doubtful about setting boundaries because you have the right to set limits, to change your mind, to make mistakes, and to protect yourself.

Step #5: Commit to Self-Mastery

It’s important to understand why you feel and interact with others the way you do.

Awareness of these deep truths empowers you to do things differently – you can’t change something you’re unaware of!

The trust blueprint in the guide will help, and you’ll also find a journal prompt to help you examine significant experiences of broken trust.

Step #6: Self-Trust Inventory

Self-trust is often missing when we have trust issues.

This is especially true for people-pleasers or high-functioning codependents (HFC), who self-abandon to please others.

We erode our self-trust when we say “yes” when we’re exhausted or when we stay in relationships to avoid hurting others (at the cost of ourselves).

You need to be your highest priority. How you treat yourself sets the bar for how everyone else will treat you. Set the bar high!

Download the guide for a short self-trust inventory to see how trustworthy you are to yourself.

Slowly Learning to Trust in New Friendships and Relationships

Learning to trust again is a slow process. You don’t need to rush into new relationships or friendships. Let people reveal themselves over time. People will show you who they are when you set boundaries.

If someone’s words don’t match their actions, neutrally call them on it: “Hey, I thought you said you’d call me on Friday?”

They may own up to it and apologize, deny it, or ignore it. Either way, you’ll have more information and can decide where to take the relationship from there.

Additionally, all of our adult relationships are voluntary. You don’t need to stay in them out of guilt or obligation.

Practice discernment, too. Watch out for common signs of manipulation and learn what emotionally trustworthy relationships and healthy love look like.

Remember, breaking down your previous experiences helps you understand what happened and why so you can avoid repeating unhealthy patterns. Having this knowledge may help you to recognize warning signs early.

The most important thing is to hold yourself in high esteem. When you have healthy boundaries and communicate them, you send a different signal that’s much less likely to attract untrustworthy folks.

I hope this episode gave you ideas on how to move forward with self-trust and trust in your relationships. If it did, I’d love to hear your takeaways in the comments or on Instagram (@terricole).

I hope you have the most amazing week learning to trust yourself and as always, take care of you.