Episode 22: Learning to Trust

In this episode,

Lizzie shares simple steps for learning to trust both others and yourself as well as how to differentiate between instincts and anxiety.

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Post-pod questions to consider

Is there an area of your life where you don't trust yourself? How can you break it down into small steps to start building more self-confidence?

Episode Transcript

Hey. You're listening to Midnight Philosopher with Lizzie. Thanks for tuning in. Today, I'm going to talk about trust. 

When I was a therapist, I talked about building trust with people as walking up a staircase. You take it one step at a time and little by little you begin to open up and trust people. And there's also a skill to develop in trusting yourself. To trust simply means to believe that another person has best intentions when they interact with you. And to trust yourself means that you believe in yourself when you have a gut instinct. More on that later. Trust and belief are heavily linked. So, I don't trust people easily. I've had many experiences in my life, some involving trauma, that have breached my sense of trust. 

My therapist was one of the first people I trusted after my mom died. Well, one of the first people I trusted who I hadn't known before my mom died. And my therapist did not earn my trust overnight. In fact, it took over a year for me to trust that she had my best interest in mind, and she was patient with me. Something that helped me trust her was that she always invited me to bring up in session if she did something that bothered me. And I did bring up issues a few times. Something she said that didn't sit right or capture my experience in the right way, and she always respected what I said and apologized if necessary. The fact that I could openly discuss issues with her helped her earn my trust. 

She also went above and beyond to show she actually cared about me. She texted me on the anniversary of my mom's death, for example, and also on my birthday. And one of the beautiful things about therapy is the interrelational skills you develop with your therapist, you can then transfer to other areas of your life. So my therapist helped me learn how to trust people by me learning how to trust her. 

Another person who really helped me learn how to trust people more recently was one of my improv coaches. So my entire life, I've had serious worries about coaches and mentors and teachers. They've always usually liked me just fine, but I've never fully trusted them even if I liked them as people. And for as long as I can remember, since I was a little kid all the way through grad school, I definitely didn't wanna open up to teachers or coaches or mentors. I always kept them at arm's length and kept our relationship strictly professional and strictly boundaried. 
I hid many aspects of myself from them, including what I considered my weaknesses and flaws. 

This coach was different. I could tell she made astute observations about me and saw me, including my flaws. And I felt she genuinely cared about me, and she was open to telling me a little bit about her life. And so I felt a little bit better about telling her about mine. And every time I freaked out about something or made a mistake, she met me with kindness and compassion. She didn't pretend to be perfect, and I appreciated that I didn't think she was perfect and that I still wanted to know her as a coach and a person. And while I've accepted that you know, it's still a professional relationship and we're not friends on a personal level, I'm forever grateful to her and how she helped me learn to trust not coaches not just coaches or mentors or teachers, but helped me learn how to trust people in general. Knowing that people like her exist gives me hope. 

And another time I learned to trust was to trust my own instincts or to trust myself. So, instincts are a primal impulse from ancient times. They operate from your subconscious mind and they usually come from something called your vagus nerve, which is a huge nerve that runs throughout your body from the base of your brain all throughout your body. And it helps you have that innate sense to figure out danger, and it helps you kind of size up other people. Um, so a common analogy that's been used is, you know, trees communicate with each other through their roots. Trees can actually learn a lot about another tree through their roots and this is the same with people and their vagus nerve. So if you have suddenly a gut feeling like something is off, that's probably your vagus nerve communicating to you. 

And, you know, sometimes it's hard to tell because sometimes people with anxiety don't feel that they can trust their instincts because they're not sure if it's anxiety or if it's like an instinct. So I think something that helps with that is to remember that anxiety is usually a worry about a future event. But trusting your instincts is usually in the moment. So, like, if you're walking down the street and you just suddenly get this feeling in your stomach or somewhere in your body that something's not right, that, you know, there might be danger nearby, that's a gut instinct. Whereas, if you're at home worrying about a situation like that is anxiety. That is not a gut instinct. So gut instincts are in the moment and anxieties are usually about some future event or worry. 

So, I had to trust my gut instincts a lot as a social worker, and there were many times when I had to do that. From doing home visits and housing units to working with clients under duress, I always had to trust my gut instincts. And one time comes to mind in particular. The area I worked in was, unfortunately, heavily impacted by substance use, and I was helping my supervisor and the administrative assistant close the building. And we had a policy that no one walks out alone at the end of the day. And there was a man under the influence of a substance sleeping in the waiting area. We respectfully woke him up and called an ambulance. 
And the ambulance took twenty minutes to arrive, which was a ridiculous amount of time. 

And during those twenty minutes, the man dozed and then came back into consciousness and talked to us. But, I just had this gut instinct. My vagus nerve was tingling that this man might switch his demeanor at any moment. I was and the difference between me being anxious about that and my gut instinct is I wasn't worried that this man might do something in the future. 
I was worried that in that exact moment, that man might switch his demeanor. And, I was right. As soon as the EMTs arrived, he started swinging punches and yelling profanities at them. My instincts helped me handle the situation in a way where the man felt cared for and I kept myself safe. My subconscious mind was able to pick up on something that my conscious brain wasn't able to. My vagus nerve sensed his vagus nerve. 

Your instincts are in your body and your body senses things before your thinking brain. And my body was able to pick up on cues that my brain hadn't picked up on yet. And this happens quite often and it's just, you know, practice trusting your vagus nerve. Practice trusting your gut instincts. And you can do this slowly over time. 

One time, I was walking through the woods and I suddenly had this instinct that something was about to happen. And I trusted it and suddenly, a giant hawk flew through the air. And that was my vagus nerve sensing something in my environment. 

So, how do you know when to trust someone else? And how do you know when to trust yourself? The key to trust others is in slow incremental doses, especially if you've been hurt before. Start by sharing less vulnerable things about yourself like a hot take about food. For example, mine is that Golden Oreos are better than regular Oreos. And see how the other person reacts. If they respond in a way that makes you feel safe and regulated, continue slowing up slowly opening up to that person. 

Check-in with your body frequently because often your body knows things before your mind. If you feel uneasy in someone's presence and you find yourself hunching your shoulders and clenching your jaw and fist, check-in with yourself and ask yourself what's going on. It could be your body's way of giving you a message about the person you're talking to. 

And how can you trust yourself, especially other voices have tried to silence yours? Again, start with checking in with your body and noticing what's happening for you. Notice which parts of your body feel heavy or light, tense or loose. For example, if your heart starts to race, check-in with yourself and ask what's going on for you. 

And another way to distinguish gut instincts from anxiety is to notice your bodily sensation. So start to be able to identify anxiety and what goes on in your body will help you then be able to identify a gut instinct and what goes on in your body. 
You will be able to feel the difference once you get in touch with yourself. And you can do this by keeping an emotion journal. And every time you feel like an emotion, you can write what bodily sensations you feel along with it. And this will help train you to learn that, like, when for example, for me, when I have anxiety, my heart starts to race. But when I have a gut instinct, my heart slows, but my fists clench. It's just a different bodily, um, function for me, and I think it's pretty it's pretty that way for a lot of people that if you start to notice the nuances, you will notice that anxiety feels different in your body than a gut instinct. 

So you can also start trusting yourself with small decisions, like what you want to make for dinner and slowly build that confident confidence up to trusting yourself with larger decisions like which career path feels right to you or should I trust this other person. 

So, to recap, in this episode, I talked about trust. I talked about how I learned how to trust people and how some of the things that made me trust people were open communication if someone did something that bothered me, like with my therapist, and feeling truly seen and understood, like with my improv coach, And feeling the sensations in my body to trust my instincts. And knowing that your instincts are there for real, like, you have a real vagus nerve in your body that, um, creates that. 

So, I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening tonight. Please follow me on Instagram, the Midnight philosopher. I'm going to go figure out why I'm clenching my jaw right now. Have a good night.