On trust
I met a new friend this week. She and I didn't exchange a word. Well, that's not true. I spoke to her, but she didn't respond verbally herself. Rather, she relied on her instincts—tuning into my tone, my posture, my movements, my energy—to communicate with and respond to me. It was a short-lived friendship. I'll likely never see her again. Yet it stayed with me. It left me ruminating on the notion of trust, of what it takes to trust in someone or something else, on what it takes to trust oneself.
How did my newfound friend know that she could trust me? And what can I learn from her about trust? (Note: the friend in question was a friendly squirrel I met on my morning coffee walk, in case you haven't picked up on that yet. Let's call her Sally the Squirrel.)
Animals are amazing creatures. They live in the moment. They live for the moment. They don't need, expect or even want anything to be perfect—they have no concept of perfect. They simply ground themselves in the present and rely on their instinctual confidence and radical presence. They express themselves authentically (think of a wolf and its howl). They set and honor boundaries (anyone with a cat knows this all too well). They know nothing but how to forgive (any dog lovers out there?). And they're resilient (bless all rescue animals).
Animals offer us comfort in silence, small moments of joy, connection without words—whether they're house pets, zoo animals or wild ones in nature. Through our interactions with them, we can practice empathy, patience, gentleness. We can practice boundaries. We can practice letting go of our inner critic and rather practice relaxing, playing, being without expectation. Animals don't need us to be perfect. They just need us to care.
So why do we feel a need to be perfect? Instead, why don't we feel a need simply to care?
Sally calculated I was safe, wagering that she could trust me with little to no proof. Thankfully, she was right. She picked the right human nut!
We make similar decisions every day ourselves, whether we're aware or not—most of them unmarked. We trust the barista to make our coffee properly. We trust the metro driver to deliver us to our destination safely. We trust our electricity provider to supply our energy reliably.
Sally made this notion of trust visible to me. She trusted herself to radically trust me.
Do I trust myself enough to radically trust me, too? Do I trust my own knowing, timing, capacity? And if not, how might I?
I'm not a philosopher, but trust is an Aristotelian virtue. It lives between two extremes of excess (trusting too much and being gullible) and deficiency (trusting too little and being paranoid). A trustworthy person is reliable, consistent, truthful—not perfect. Their actions come from values and commitment, not performance and perfection. To trust ourselves, we sometimes have to borrow others' trust in us before we can trust ourselves.
“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”
Later paraphrased famously by Will Durant as "We are what we repeatedly do." Therefore, we learn to trust ourselves by trusting ourselves.
How can we practice this?
We can start small. We can reconnect with our bodies and breath. We can establish clear boundaries. We can challenge our negative thoughts. We can reframe our mistakes. We can learn to act on our instincts. We can take time to rest. We can take time to play! We can take ourselves less seriously. We can let go of being right (or wrong). We can practice forgiveness—of others and of ourselves.
Underneath all of this, learning to increase our own somatic awareness is critical. The opposite of anxiety isn't calm. It's trust. This means staying present and honest in our current experience, trusting that we are where we need to be. We learn to tune into our own energy, our own body language, our own physical sensations.
Sally makes this look easy. I know it's not. Yet it is simple. "Practice makes perfect." This practice is worth it.