Disappointed through shattered trust

Trust is both important and a dangerous risk. It is important because it allows us to form relationships with others and to depend on others for support, for confidence, for advice, for help, for love and for hope. But since trust involves risk, it can also be dangerous in the sense of disappointment and hurt to all different degrees. What we risk while trusting is the loss of the things that we entrust to others like, our hearts, and our self-respect, to name just a couple, which can be shattered by the betrayal of our trust.

The Webster’s Concise Dictionary states trust as: a reliance on the integrity, veracity, or reliability of a person or thing. Something committed to one’s care for use or safe keeping. Confident expectation; hope. To commit to the care of another; entrust. To except hope, to believe. To depend upon; confide in.

Trust, to me, means that you place confidence in someone, to be honest with you, faithful to you, keep promises and confidences, to support your goals and dreams and not abandon you.

As we all know (this includes me) people are human, complex, frail, broken and sinful beings. Therefore, previous hurts, fears or losses can impede their determination to trust in a relationship. I have heard it said that you need a “realistic” type of trust when you choose to trust someone; but what is a realistic type of trust? When I am asked to open my heart and trust others and I take that leap of faith, is it not realistic to except not to have the rug pulled out from under me?

Trust begins to build between people when there is a sense of honesty, respect and encouragement towards someone and in return there is a sense of acceptance and a reassurance to become vulnerable which builds self-esteem and alleviates fears of rejection.

For me personally, encouragement is the biggest part of the key for trust. I know that we all have gifts in different areas, but one of mine is to be in tuned with peoples feelings when they need simple support and encouragement to keep moving forward or a job well done. I am not perfect in this department and don’t always hit the mark when I should, but I do pretty good if I say so myself. But it is difficult for me not to loose trust when there is no support or encouragement for me, especially when it is needed the most and should have come from a very important circle of people in my life.

So what do I do when I want to trust, but every time I open my heart and take a step out to trust, it always ends up deceiving me? It makes me feel like I am not worth much and I feel foolish for trusting in the first place when I knew I would get hurt.

What does one do; you can’t live without trust but for me trust is a dangerous risk that usually spins me into a night-mare web of confusion. My strings that are attached to trust are wearing very thin and there aren’t many left. Over the weekend one more string was ripped from my core, leaving me disappointed and in despair, once again.