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Learning to Trust and Communicate in Relationships
By Susie and Otto Collins
If communication
is a challenge for you right now or in the
past
in your relationships, one of the biggest
issues may be a lack of trust. If trust is
an issue for you in your relationships and
in your life, we don't have to tell you how
painful it is.
Trust
is the one quality that a relationship simply
can't survive without. If you don't have trust,
then you'll put a question mark in front of
everything your partner says. You'll doubt
their love. You'll harbor unhealed resentments
which get in the way of clear communication.
In short, if for whatever reason you can't trust no matter how hard you try, you'll keep your partner or even your date at a distance and not let them get too close to you which most likely will impact your communication with them.
Sometimes
people who have trouble communicating tell
us things like. "I just can't seem to
open up to a partner no matter what I do,"
or "I'm always saying the wrong thing
and I simply don't know how to talk with her/him."
What we've discovered is that no one is born with communication or trust issues. They are created from real or imagined fears about what may or may not be happening in their relationships.
If there are trust issues and communication is difficult, one or both of the following explanations are usually underneath them--
-The
person is in a relationship with someone who
has violated trust in some way and maybe even
continues to violate it.
-The
person has had trust violated in past relationships
and has created real fears in the present
moment about events and circumstances that
may or may not be happening in their current
relationship.
The
paradox of trust issues is that in order to
heal trust, you have to be willing to open
your heart and take conscious, intelligent
risk. Most people who struggle with this issue
have felt pain that is so great that they
have shut themselves off from opening their
hearts again. It's very difficult for them
to move past this point.
Here
are a few suggestions from our course "Creating
Relationship Trust" that may help your
communication and begin to trust again:
-Pay
attention to the fears you are feeling, honor
those feelings while discovering whether there
is any truth to your fears.
-We
all tell stories to ourselves about everything
in our lives. If you are telling yourself
untrue stories about what is or may be happening,
then stop yourself. Begin to trust in yourself
that you can change the stories you tell yourself
about your life or your relationships.
-Ask
yourself this question"Is my reaction
really about what's happening right now?"
If your answer is yes, then have the courage
to deal honestly with your situation. If your
answer is no, then have the courage to stop
yourself from creating separation and distance
by saying and doing things that will harm
your relationship.
-Keep
in mind that learning to trust others starts
with you. If there are blatantly untrustworthy
people in your life right now, then you are
being asked to look at yourself and discover
how you can heal from your past. If you make
up stories about people who are really trustable,
you are still called to begin a healing process.
Please know that no matter what has happened
in your relationships up until now that trust
can be built and it CAN be rebuilt if it's
been broken.
If
you are interested in learning more about
how
to build trust or how to rebuild it if it's
been broken,
Visit our web site on trust building to learn more...
Website: RELATIONSHIP
TRUST
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