Learning Self-Trust

I spent some time in an open chat in the trauma support room and one thing I heard a lot of was a lack of self-trust. The conversation really motivated me to write a post about trust and in my research of trust and trauma, it made me realize this may end up being a series of posts. Today I wanted to start with trust of self because I feel like learning to trust ourselves is such an important step in healing and if we can learn to trust ourselves, maybe, just maybe the world will feel a little less out of control and a little bit safer.

Trust and Trauma

For many people, especially those of us who have experienced trauma, we either never develop a sense of trust in ourselves OR we lose trust in ourselves after the traumatic event. This lack of trust comes from internal and external sources. Internally we may blame ourselves for the experience that happened (maybe if I hadn’t done x then y wouldn’t have happened). Externally, especially for people who experience complex trauma and abuse, we are conditioned by the person inflicting the trauma that the trauma is our fault, that we’re the problem, and sometimes even be told our experiences are not valid. This level of invalidation can cause us to lose trust in our sense of reality, doubting our memories, our experiences, our emotions, and our intuition. For some people the trust with self becomes so shattered that they disconnect from their body (dissociate) and have a hard time trusting what their body is telling them.

What does lack of self-trust look like?

Lack of trust can look like many things. It can look like ignoring your own intuition. It can look like imposter syndrome (defined as the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills). As mentioned previously you may not believe your own lived experiences. You may also ignore your triggers. This can lead to a build up of internal tension which could lead to a bigger reaction to smaller triggers over time. Lack of trust can also have blurred boundaries with the world and people around us. It can also lead us to losing track of who we are as individuals. A more common example of lack of self-trust is an inability to make decisions, and doubting the decisions that we do make.

6 Tips for Building Trust in Yourself

I found this article that provides some tips for building trust in yourself. The tips are much easier said than done, but not entirely impossible. With each tip I’ll share some personal anecdotes of how the tips have helped me regain trust in myself. If you’d like to read the full article it can be found here.

Tip #1 Be Yourself

This tip can sound very scary and maybe even confusing, especially if you’re not even sure who you are anymore. Even if we’re not sure who we are, we often have a sense that who we’re being is not our true self, an intuitive experience that we may ignore when we lack trust in ourselves.

The article suggests to start being yourself with people you feel comfortable with. I find that this can be challenging because many times if we don’t trust ourselves, trusting another human to accept us can be really hard.

For me, I started being myself with a therapist that I had built good rapport with. When I was able to be myself around my therapist I realized that I wasn’t innately unlikable, but that I’m actually a really likable person. When I had this first sense of knowing I was likable, I started to be myself around my closest inner circle (mostly a couple of my cousins and a close friend), when they still accepted me when I started being myself I expanded yet again. I still struggle to be myself with new people, but I have found some people I can truly be myself around. I’ve also decided that if a person doesn’t like me when I’m being myself, maybe I don’t need them to be a close person in my life. The people who have helped me learn to be myself has taught me to trust in my own judgment and my own decision making a lot more. A lot of my lack of trust came from people who judged my decisions and criticized my every move and now they have limited access to my life.

Opening yourself up to be yourself can feel uncomfortable at first, but if you keep doing it, over time the discomfort will dissipate and you will feel more confident in being who you are.

Tip #2 Set Reasonable Goals

Setting our goals high can motivate us to achieve the things in life that we want, but if we set our goals too high it can set us up for disappointment, leading to a sense of failure that impacts self-confidence and ability to trust yourself. This tip recommends setting smaller goals that lead you into the direction of your bigger goals. When you achieve the smaller goals and get closer to your bigger goal you gain confidence and trust in yourself to keep going.

I find this to be an important part of building confidence. I recently heard about a journaling technique that has you make a promise with yourself each day. That promise can be as big or as small as you want it to be, but the more often you keep promises with yourself the more likely you are to trust yourself. I see these promises as goals in a way. Somedays I just make a promise with myself that no matter what I’m going to brush my teeth, not matter how productive I am in other areas of my life, making that one promise and keeping it gives me a sense of accomplishment (I hate brushing my teeth). Over time you can make bigger promises to yourself, so for example, I’m working on “I will brush my teeth at least 3 days per week.” For me that’s a big deal because I have an aversion to toothpaste.

Another example of this in my life is that I really want to go to graduate school to become an art therapist. I don’t know how I”m going to afford graduate school and I struggle with trusting myself to be able to manage the workload of graduate school. I’ve been talking about it for years and even talked with admissions counselors at a college I’m interested in attending. I’ve got my bachelor’s degree in Psychology, but haven’t taken an art class since 7th grade (around 13 years old–I”m 32 now). I became passionate about art and it’s healing properties when I went to a treatment program in my 20s that had an open art studio and I want to bring that healing to others. So, this past week, I looked up the community college by me, they offer the art classes I would need to get into my graduate program. I applied for the college, and I inquired about financial assistance to pay for my program. Steps I’d been putting off for a long time and I’m so proud of myself of taking these steps because without these smaller victories, the end goal isn’t achievable.

It’s good to have big long term goals, but it’s even more important to have short term, achievable goals. It really does help build confidence and momentum to move forward toward bigger goals. Taking the small steps helps you build trust in yourself to be able to take the bigger steps as the come up as well!

Tip #3 Be Kind to Yourself

This tip encourages you to love yourself unconditionally. To get rid of negative thoughts and self-criticism when you make a mistake. It encourages you to keep an eye on your inner voice and how it reacts to your reactions. When you love yourself unconditionally you can learn to trust yourself unconditionally.

For me this goes a lot with self-compassion, a topic I recently posted about, you can read the post here. For me self-compassion was a game changer that really made me realize I didn’t deserve the trauma I experienced and that I deserved better from the people in my life, and life itself. Being compassionate with myself has taught me to listen to myself. To listen to my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs above all else because if I’m not looking out for me no one else will. Self-compassion and being kind to myself has also taught myself that I can make mistakes without it being the end of the world and has taught me to rely on my own strength. Which leads ot the next tip.

Tip #4 Build Your Strengths

We all have things that we’re good at and things that we’re not so good at. To build trust in yourself, do more of the things that you know you’re good at and fewer of the things that you’re not so great at. Over time you’ll learn to trust in your ability to try new things. If you’re not sure what you’re good at, ask someone close to you.

The example that comes to mind for me with this one. I know I’m good at writing, that I have good handwriting. When I first started art therapy I knew nothing about painting. So my first paintings were literally just colored backgrounds with quotes or words. Eventually after I felt more comfortable with that I started adding other things. One of my first paintings was pink, yellow and purple stripes and it said you are worth it. A few weeks later I painted a canvas black, put a moon on and some dots to be stars on it and wrote “Find Light Even in the Darkness” my next step was exploring with blending colors. After a while I began getting so many compliments on my paintings and I was able to do more and more things, even drawing and painting Stitch and other cartoon characters. I started simple with something I knew I could do, and eventually over time I became even more confident in my art to try more and more complicated artwork. The sad part of this story is that I stopped painting for a while and now I”m having to rebuild my confidence when it comes to painting again. I feel like this post may be a reminder to trust my abilities more and to keep practicing. One rule I used to have for myself was that I wasn’t allowed to throw any of my paintings away if I messed up. That I had to keep going and work with the mistakes, and most of the time, by the end of the painting you couldn’t even tell I had made a mistake.

Find something you enjoy and are good at and practice it regularly. Sprinkle in new challenges over time and you may be amazed at what you are a capable of! Don’t limit yourself because of your weaknesses, instead be open to your strengths, accept them and work with them and be kind with yourself about limitations you may have.

Tip #5 Spend Time With Yourself

This one can be so hard for people who have experienced trauma. I feel like this one also requires self-compassion. However hard this one is I do feel like it’s important because it allows you to get to know yourself on a personal level. The article recommends meditating for 5-10 minutes daily, noticing your internal dialogue and letting it go without judgment.

I have mixed feelings on this one. I know it’s important, but it can be so hard, especially if you haven’t yet built a positive relationship with yourself yet. I will say though that my time of learning about myself and taking time to reflect has been so helpful in learning to trust myself. It’s helped me to hone my interoception skills and learn what my strengths and weaknesses are. For some people meditating may be really hard and so I wanted to share the option of writing or journaling, but doing so in a way that isn’t adding judgment and commentary to your thoughts. Mostly a stream of consciousness writing that allows you to see/observe the thoughts that are happening. Don’t worry about spelling or typing, just write and see what comes out and observe it without judgment.

Tip #6 Be Decisive

Build trust in yourself by breaking the habit of questioning yourself. When you make a decision, stick with it. Don’t change your mind. If you’re having a hard time making a decision (especially something with minimal consequences, like what to eat) just pick one and stick with it. Worst case scenario it ends up not being exactly what you wanted, but you can use it as a learning experience. Sticking with your decisions will help you learn to trust yourself and may even help you make decisions easier in the future.

I shared about my painting experience previously, I feel like that’s a good example of this, but also, I’m going to be transparent. I did not perceive this post to be so long, however, I made the decision that I wanted to post it in the forums, and so I’m going to follow through with it. The reality is it’ll probably be too long for some people, but maybe people will still read through the end, and posting it is my way of telling myself “I trust myself and my words enough to know that they are important to share”.

Discussion Questions:

What are your thoughts on self-trust?

Which tips do you think might be helpful for you to incorporate?

Do you have any other tips you’d like to share that may benefit the community?