(Ep. 65) Rebuilding Trust from the Inside Out

What if the person you trust the least... is yourself?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Friese unpack one of the deepest roots beneath anxiety, relationship struggles, and emotional triggers: self-trust. 

They explore why betrayal by others often awakens something much older—and why healing begins by restoring trust in yourself before trying to rebuild trust with anyone else.

Laura explains that many of us learned early in life not to trust our own hearts. Whether we grew up without supportive caregivers, or we were forced to mature too quickly, or painful experiences taught us to doubt ourselves, those early wounds shape how we experience broken trust today.

The conversation offers a powerful reframe: the goal isn't to pretend betrayal doesn't hurt. It's to comfort the places within you that were wounded so you can respond from your true self instead of your triggered self. From that place, wisdom, healthy boundaries, and genuine trust become possible again.

In this episode:

🔹 Why broken trust with others often reveals a much deeper lack of trust in yourself

🔹 How childhood experiences and early caregivers shape your ability to decide with confidence

🔹 The difference between "capital T" Trust—the deep need to feel safe—and the everyday trust required in healthy relationships

🔹 Why healing doesn't mean ignoring betrayal, but comforting the wounds it awakens so you can respond from your true self

🔹 How restoring self-trust frees you to set healthy boundaries, navigate relationships with wisdom, and be okay regardless of another person's choices

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hello and welcome everyone to this episode of Triggered and True. Laura, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_03 0:33

I'm doing pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Very good. Yeah, we actually had a little bit of time to catch up right before this on the podcast, which was nice. And one of the things I was sharing with Laura is that um as she knows, and uh now the listeners will know, I am working on a book that talks about yeah, that talks about uh my journey through the uh compassion method. And um one of the things that I'm recognizing is that when you are forced to write down your thoughts and like explain it to others or teach, you really dig in deeper. And there's even though I've been around this material for six years-ish, I'm so wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

It's been six years.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of synapses going off for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

So no, I love uh Brian was allowing me to read. Um, I've only gotten through the first chapter, but he sent me multiple chapters. Are you on chapter chapter chapter four?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I am on chapter six now, the 10 gifts.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

That's amazing. Yeah, I didn't get caught up. But one thing that I think is really cool from my my V.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Just so everyone knows, Laura's, you know, like uh timeliness sometimes, you know, you know. It happens, but I've learned it's a great opportunity for me because it may trigger me a little bit, but man, I've learned to just work through it. And with Laura, I have learned to just roll with it. There's not a lot of people in the world that can just roll with it, but with Laura, I can roll with it. Yeah, well, part of just laugh about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Yeah, yeah, part of not to, you know, to give my own. There's an excuse, Kevin, isn't it? Yes, here it comes. No, but honestly, your chapters are really like weighty, you know, like there's a lot to them. Like it took me a while to genuinely read through it. You know what I mean? Like it's one thing to skim through it and read through it and be like, yeah, that's good. But there's also like a lot to it, even just chapter one was definitely had a lot to it that took me not a while to get through because of the the context or like how you wrote it, you wrote it really well. You put in story, you put in examples, which I think is really important. But one of the things that I really like about it is I'm learning the compassion method from a different angle too. You know, so it's not even though I'm the creator of the compassion method, when I hear you write the book from your perspective, it's like looking at it from a different angle. And it's really cool to be able to learn more through you learning more and presenting it to us.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Oh, never thought about that, but that is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Yeah, so it is taking a little bit of time.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

But so you have synapses, you have synapses firing too. So that's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Yeah, no, definitely. I love it. I mean, a big part of how I learned too, even though I haven't written a book, was doing the content for the classes that we've done and everything.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

When you have you did write a book, you wrote the compassion method workbook.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Oh, that's true. I did write that book. So that is a book for sure. It's a workbook, but being able to teach it, writing it or teaching it helps us learn. And that's even on a neurological level. If there's anything that you've been really wanting to know, kind of like inside and out, write it, teach it, and you'll know it so much more than just learning it and absorbing it. You're actually being able to resay it in your own way.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, I always tell my team the best way to learn is to teach.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

It really is.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

So the the final the final project is uh, you know, present it on a whiteboard, present it, present it.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Yep, yep. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

You will you will be forced to dig in to a much deeper level.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Yep. No, that's great. Yeah. So I'm excited about the book. And I think hope all of our listeners are gonna be able to get the opportunity to read it.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah, so timing-wise, I'm hoping uh early next year. So yeah, that's amazing. It should be it should be finished by the end of uh this upcoming month. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Just like that. Yep. I just whipped out a book.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, well, you know, honestly, it's been I've been thinking about this for several years and just getting your thoughts in order has taken a quite a while. And then there was uh at first, you know, I'm a pretty disciplined person. As some of you listen to the podcast a while, you know, like I'm a little maybe OCD-ish. Um, so I'm a pretty disciplined person, but I found it really, really difficult for this.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

And I think there just had to be like a fullness of time before it was like, okay, you've got your outline, you've been adding to this outline, you've been kind of looking at this kind of on and off for three years. Now is the time. And then once I started rolling, now I'm having a hard time with the OCD of stopping.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Like I'm at a point where I'm like, if I could just go away for like two or three days and just do this, I could finish this. But you know, life is not always that convenient, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

So um, that's awesome, though. You're in the flow. You got over the hurdle.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I'm definitely in the flow. Yeah. Yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep. So that's good. Yep. Um, so today's topic, uh, for some of you that may wonder how do we pick the topics for the podcast? We we typically focus on things that are current for both Laura or I. You know, something that's current in my life, I'll run it by Laura and say, hey, this is something I'm bumping into. And sometimes Laura comes up with the idea because she's seeing things in her practice and with her students that seems to be a recurring theme. So what really was highlighted for this month's podcast was uh around issues of trust. And Laura just kind of ran into a bunch of, I think it was primarily students, maybe, maybe some in your practice too, that were running into trust issues where they were having a really difficult time, you know, trusting others. So maybe you just expand on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Yeah, it just seemed like for a couple of weeks that was a theme. And, you know, it felt like people wanted to find like the answer to trust, but they wanted to find it more externally. Like, how can I, you know, if I've had a breach in my marriage, how can I rebuild that trust? If I've had something happen in a friendship, how can I rebuild that trust? If I've had something happen with my employer, how can I rebuild that trust? Almost like kind of the how-to to rebuild trust. And there's actually quite a bit of information out there that does help you kind of create external plans to deal with how to grow in trust with a person again. But from the compassion method standpoint, I was recognized.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Spoiler alert, spoiler alert.

unknown 7:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

I bet you it has nothing to do with the other person.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

Spoiler alert is right. But well, what I would see was so much management, you know, and then they wanted me to help them manage it. And that's one of the things that I find very common in traditional counseling and therapy, is there's a lot of a management that comes in and great ideas too. You know what I mean? Like some of these clients are like, well, I've already, you know, realized that, you know, this is the problem and this was what needs to happen. And once this happens for a certain amount of time, then I'll be able to do this. So there's this like really elaborate plan to rebuild trust. Whether you're the person that broke the trust or a person broke the trust with you, we have these elaborate plans to protect ourselves from the pain we experience from whatever the situation was that caused us not to be able to trust that person again. But from the compassion method standpoint, it is all internal. You know, there's an internal process going on with trust that even if that person does everything perfectly, or if you do everything perfectly, it does not guarantee that you're going to rebuild trust with that person. And it's pretty impossible to actually rebuild trust with someone when the issues aren't what they're really about.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Right.

unknown 8:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

And I think it's important, you know, uh whenever we get doing this and we talk about it's it's not about the other person, it's about what's going on inside of you.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Kind of the knee-jerk reaction of people is to feel like, well, you're not hearing me.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Yeah. You know, and also it's legitimate pain that we've experienced. If somebody betrayed your trust, yes, in a marriage, for example, that is a lifelong partner that you felt safe with, that you wanted to, you know, developed this relationship, this family, this connection. Let's say you've been married for 20 years and that person, you know, does something to break that trust. That is a very painful process. And that is painful no matter where it came from. So acknowledging it and grieving it and feeling it is just as important as recognizing where it internally came from in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, and I think it's very important that you're not saying we're not saying that the pain's not real. That not what happened is not real. The pain's very real. What happened matters for sure matters a lot, and there's consequences to what happened.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Exactly. And those all things are all true. And getting to the root of it, of why it's hard for us to trust is also very important.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yeah. And you're also not saying to be a doormat. So let's just stick with that theme of what you said about the the broken trust in a marriage, the infidelity or something along those lines. Um, the consequences of that may be separation.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

Yeah, there could definitely be things that that person has to do to protect themselves and their family. Yeah. The situation is not okay. So, this is again, like you know, Brian just said, you're not a doormat. This isn't just saying, hey, it's nothing to do with them, you just have to deal with it. In fact, when we actually get to our own hearts and what's really going on, we're able to even take better care of ourselves because we're not looking externally, we're looking internally. And that could very well be creating boundaries, creating things that we're going to put in place to take care of our hearts and take care of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And the empowering thing about this is that you don't have to wait to be okay until the other person proves their trustworthiness.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

And if they never can prove it, that's the point of the like the separation. Like if that person continues to be untrustworthy, continues in that, you know, that infidelity, yeah. That would trust doesn't mean like, oh, I just have to take care of yourself doesn't mean I just gotta put up with it.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

Yeah. So you can live a full life of being able to trust others, regardless of what you've experienced with people not being trustworthy in your life.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

And that's so important because, like you just said, we're we're not waiting until the other person proves to us that they're trustworthy for us to trust in others as well as that person.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah. Yeah. So where where would a person begin on this journey? You know, and I think we talked about too that a lot of it, a lot of it stems from a lack of self-trust.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

So where would you help, like in that scenario that you just talked about in the infidelity? And I think I hope that the listeners could think about whatever situation they're struggling with, trustworthiness in the same frame. But exactly.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

And another thing is, you know, making decisions in life. You know, that was one of the incidences with a person. They were just like, I just have this big decision coming up. I can't figure out what to do. I'm losing sleep over it. I'm feeling very anxious about it. And that is actually rooted in not trusting yourself. You know, and one of the questions I asked this person was, when was the first time you remember not trusting yourself? There's usually zero to 12 years old in early childhood development that we did something or we didn't do something, and we felt like we couldn't trust ourselves anymore in making a decision or doing the right thing or whatever it might be. We stopped trusting ourselves. So now as adults, we have these decisions coming up that we're fully capable in our frontal lobe of making a decision. But we're frozen, we're stuck, we don't know what to do because we stopped trusting ourselves a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Well, I remember one of the things you talked to me about was um, you know, it's a triggered triggered versus true. So who you're not trusting is your triggered self. Because you're true, your triggered self is kind of like your triggered self really is not very trustworthy.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

That's true. Very reactionary. Very reactionary. Yeah, it doesn't have a it's that amygdala, it's our child brain that doesn't have that frontal lobe that can think in a broader sense, that can see perspective and solutions and resources and the ability to look through a situation. It's a primal way of thinking that really isn't gonna be trustworthy because it's instant. It's whatever we're feeling in that moment that our reaction, our triggered self is going to be seen and it's gonna be exaggerated. It's gonna feel way bigger, it's gonna feel all or nothing, it's gonna be high stakes. So that's not necessarily a trustworthy logical part of our brain.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Even though the feelings we're feeling are trust that we can trust that we're feeling those feelings, our logic is not trustworthy in those moments.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Right. Yeah, because we're not fully accessing it. Yeah, like you said. And and you know, we we we like to think life is black and white. You're like, you're either triggered, you're either in your triggered self or in your true self. Yeah no, there's this continuum. It's it's really more of a am I more triggered than true or more true than triggered? That's really what it is, you know.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

So, what you had told me, and I just found this in my notes recently as I was doing the book uh research. You had told me, you know, I was struggling with this decision more along those lines of this decision making, trusting myself to make decisions. So you said that you're trying to, you're trusting your triggered self, not really, because your triggered self has made mistakes. Your triggered self has made reactionary decisions that were wrong.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

And from that place, you're scared to make decisions because you're scared of being wrong. It roots back to performance, performance as a protector. And being wrong is is really, really, really wrong because it really, really is big.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Because it's coming back, you know, shame, shame spiral. Like I made a mistake, I am a mistake. So what really helped me as I was able to get more connected to true self was I got more connected to the visionary, you know, like when I did the how am I seen exercise.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Yes, your true self.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

The how am I seen exercise? I think you know, you sent it to 10 people. I think three or four people picked visionary. Okay. Well, a visionary person is kind of out there boldly making decisions that no one's ever made before in some regards. You know, you're doing things, you're making decisions to do things no one's ever done before. That's kind of the kind of what goes with the territory of a visionary. And I had really put kind of pushed that away because I wasn't trusting my decision making.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

And um now I'm much more confident in the decisions that I make because they are more grounded in my true self. So they're more connected to that visionary piece. Yeah. So, you know, when I think about progress that's been made, that's just a huge area where I've really stepped into that part of who I am. And it's hey, it's made huge rewards in in our business. Because before, uh, you know, I would want it to be like, okay, I kind of want to put this out to a vote all the time.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Exactly. Getting that approval, getting that approval, insurance, having someone make the decision with you.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah. And, you know, in in the leadership of a country, I think democracy is amazing, but that's not the way it works in business and in your in your home and in your you know, it's not a democracy with your children. Like they don't get a vote necessarily. Like you're gonna listen to their feedback and it's like whatever, but like the kids, this isn't like, hey, what what should we do? And we all vote on it every now and then. Maybe that's cute. And I think as a leader, you recognize that 90% of the time, you you know, if your staff or whoever has a bent against doing what you're doing, you really should listen to that. But then there's that 10% of the time where they all may think you should go one way, but you know that you know you should go another. Exactly. And you gotta have that confidence and trust in yourself to do it. Because otherwise you're not a leader.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Exactly. And that's and that's feedback to that self-trust. Exactly. And it can come in all different forms. You know, by you wanting to get a vote means you want the approval and the acceptance and the support of not making the decision on your own. But like you just said, you know, even though we get feedback and we see it, hear other people's opinions, which is very valuable and very important, at the end of the day, you make the decision as the business owner on what you're going to do. And we want to be able to do that in peace, not waiting for something external to validate what we believe to be true for ourselves, but to be able to make that decision, even if we're wrong.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Right. Even if we're wrong.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

That's a key thing because we think, okay, well, trusting myself means I'm always going to make the right choice. No, it doesn't necessarily mean that. I believe as you go and trust with yourself and you are more aligned with your true self, more of your decisions will usually work out well.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah, you're more connected to the frontal lobe. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

So you're going to think things through in a different way. You're not going to have anxiety, you're not going to have, you know, different emotional reactions to making a decision because you're more at peace with yourself. You feel safe, you feel like you're okay, even if you're wrong. And I think that's a big thing in self-trust that we always, because we were raised in the knowledge of good and evil, we're constantly trying to make the right choice, the best choice, the good choice. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we're making the right choice if we're not connected to who we are. I've seen so many people go through and do all the right things, but they're actually not trusting themselves in the process. They're trusting good, they're trusting the knowledge of good over who they really are. Because sometimes when we choose who we really are in a situation and choose to trust ourselves that the decision is best for our lives, it may not be popular. It may not look right or look good. But we're recognizing that sometimes that's part of trusting yourself. I've seen it with raising kids. Sometimes I've allowed them, and I'm like, I don't think that's gonna turn out well, you know. But I've had to allow them within reason to make decisions. And most of the time, as a parent with a developed frontal lobe, I was right. But I can pinpoint a handful of times that my kids did things that I was like, I don't think that's a good idea. I think this isn't gonna turn out well. And they just said, nope, I'm gonna do this because I raised them to be able to learn how to trust themselves and to be able to move forward in things, even if potentially they're not gonna work out well. And then they surprised me and what they chose was the best option that I wanted to come in and be like, nope, that's not good.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

So deciding things only based on good and bad, not that we don't want to, not that we want to go make decisions that are gonna be, you know, not good for us or for other people, but recognizing that making a decision out of the knowledge of good and evil isn't always the best decision.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yeah. Well, even if it turns out right, it's still being driven by the wrong energy.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Exactly. And you'll see that a lot in religion, that people are the right things. Exactly. It's really high stakes. So they've done all the right things, but they're dead inside.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Think about it from an identity standpoint. You know, if your identity is hinging on you being right or wrong, boy, that is high stakes.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Yep, exactly. And what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 21:43

I make a mistake, I am a mistake. That's high stakes.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Exactly. And that is the thing that makes us not trust ourselves because we actually have shame from past mistakes that we didn't have caregivers in our early childhood development supporting us in our mistakes to know that it's safe.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

That's actually what builds trust with ourselves. Not just doing everything the right way, but making mistakes and knowing that you're still safe, you're still loved, you're still supported, you still have someone with you even in your mistakes. And that m shows you that you made a mistake, but you're not a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah, we talked about this before. Uh failure and love are no longer connected.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Yeah, exactly. But in our early childhood development, for many of us, yeah, that was that's our programming. If we fail, we will not be loved. If we succeed, we will be loved.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

And that's the relationship we have with ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I think about it in terms of love and to make the love, to make it a little more practical, think of it, think of the love in terms of connection.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Like it was the the lack, the it was the lack of uh connection would get severed with our caregivers if we made a mistake. So the whole like sending your kid to the room when they make a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

We've talked about this before. Like, now wait a second. When your kid makes a mistake, maybe that's when they need you the most. Yes, exactly be with them in it versus sending them off on their own and and doing disconnection because disconnection is hell, literally.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Exactly. It literally is.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

And for a child's brain, it's it is the end of the world. And that's what we're experiencing in those moments when we make a decision that we feel like it's going to cause disconnection.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

We were doing a our module last night with the self-compassion. And one big part of multiple people's question was, Do I deserve compassion when I make a mistake? And it was the same thing of like, that is when you need it the most. And people's concern was if I get compassion in my mistakes, I'll continue to make the mistakes because I won't learn my lesson. So if someone is harder on me and withholds connection, withholds compassion, then I'll learn from my mistake and I will never want to do that mistake again.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah. And I mean it's so interesting how we're so scared of enablement, because that's, you know, enablement is kind of what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Or what people are worried about.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah. And but this, I actually just finished this chapter in the book on compassion. And I was talking about how obviously one of the things compassion is not is enabling.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

And and a part of what human compassion is, is we think it's removal of consequences.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

You know, there are still consequences if we make a mistake. So if your child mismanages money, letting them suffer the consequences of that is very compassionate.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

But you don't have to it's punish them. It's the energy you come out of them.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Tell them they're never going to be able to make a good decision, they can't be trusted, take their money away. All the things that we end up doing to try to teach the lesson instead of letting, I believe, majority of consequences are natural. That when you mismanage money, you're going to have a consequence. But I'm here to be with you in it. That's what compassion says. It doesn't say mismanaging money is okay. It says, I am here to be with you in it. And I'm also here to let you lend my adult brain to you so you can learn how to manage money. Because of course, with an underdeveloped brain, you're not going to be able to manage money well.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

But if we just withhold and we, you know, and cause the person to feel like they're not going to be able to be supported and loved in it, then they're going to become frantic to make good financial decisions. They'll probably go on to be very successful in financial decisions with high anxiety, absolutely, big reactions. Cause even though they made all the right decisions, they're still feeling that pain.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah. And I think another big piece of it is it's not the removal of consequences. And that means that most of what we call discipline, whether it's us disciplining ourselves, is very much driven from the knowledge of good and evil, very much shame driven.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Okay. So it is driven from the standpoint of, like, I'll just think about parenting. A lot of my discipline in parenting was to try to help me be okay. Yeah. I was scared, especially as they got older. I mean, when they were younger, their misbehavior was so much lower stakes because it's like, you know, they're digging through a cupboard they shouldn't be digging through. When they get older, it's they're hanging around with some people that, you know, it could be literally life or death, you know, and they're doing things. So the the stakes go up quite a bit. So a lot of my discipline was driven because I was scared and I was trying to be okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

I had to have them be okay for me to be okay, that codependency.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

You know, so that was a lot of my discipline. So um, yeah. No wonder if you're a kid growing up in that, that's pretty high stakes if you make a mistake, then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

So you could because your parents are not okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Your parents not okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Yeah. And I feel like that, I mean, because we're talking about self-trust. I think with parenting, self-trust is so important and so valuable because a big part of us is not trusting ourselves and being able to have consequences to be able to teach and train our kids because we're so dysregulated and we're so triggered that we're not able to trust ourselves. And then this is a key thing, too. If we're not able to trust ourselves, we're not going to be able to trust our kids. I can, even if my kid makes a bad decision, I still trust in who my child is. To me, their mistake is a reflection of ignorance, of reaction, of their own pain. Of their own pain.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

The crap I didn't do for them when they were a kid.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

But that, but that to me, that is what's going on here. They're not not trustworthy because they made a decision that was not a healthy decision for them. They're still trustworthy, even though they made a decision that wasn't trustworthy. And that's a really important distinction with kids. I'll hear that commonly with teenagers and young adults. Nobody, my parents don't trust me.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

And the parents will be like, Well, you did this thing, you know, of course we don't trust you. But how does a child learn how to trust themselves if we don't trust them and we see their mistakes as who they are?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah. You know, one of the one of the things I shared in the chapter on compassion was from the prodigal son, the story of the prodigal son, which I'm sure a lot of listeners are very familiar with. But that was a powerful, powerful example of everything we're talking about. And so kind of I without going too great into detail, but in the story, Rebellious Son, father very wealthy, rebellious son asks for his inheritance. The head scratcher is the father gives it to him. You know, if you think about it, like in any culture at any time in history, I can't imagine any culture where that's like not offensive. Okay. Well, then in Jewish culture, with the very much reverence for honoring father and mother, obviously a commandment, and you know, and then to do that, like what a what a dishonoring thing to do, you know, to your to your father. But gives it to him like knowing full well. So what I wrote, I said the consequences are predictable. The son ends up in ruins, but the father doesn't rescue him. No extra fund sent, no bailout trip, no frantic fixes. What does he do instead? He waits in hope. He doesn't force reconciliation, send guilt-tripping messengers, or shame him into return. He waits until the son has his own great awakening, comes back to himself, his true self, and chooses the way home. Because the father handled it this way, when the son returns, the repentance is real. No lectures, no I told you so', just connection, just being with. And I wrote, it's a beautiful balance of boundaries and compassion, showing that sometimes the most loving thing and compassionate thing is letting someone face the consequences of their choices. With four children and a growing number of grandchildren, I know the only way I could pull this off is by being free of shame. Shame would hiss the whole time. How could you let this happen? You're a horrible father. A good one would fix this by now. What will people think? And on and on and on. The only way to displace shame's root in your heart, self-compassion.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

The only way to have trust. Think of the trust the father had in his decision.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Yeah. And I love the part of that story where he's not passive aggressively waiting for his son to come home either. We're like, finally, you're here, and like, you know, making him repent and earn it, but he sees him, you know, coming and runs to him. That is an eager anticipation and trusting that his son is going to come home to him. That he had trust in his son in the midst of his terrible choices.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Well, and he had trust in his decision-making ability.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

That's true too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

I mean, he gave him enough rope to hang himself.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

He gave him the inheritance. Who would do that? That's absurd. That's that's absurd. I mean, it's just like who who would be able to do that, knowing full well that that money could be the very thing that leads to his demise.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

You know, but at the same time, it was the only hope for the son to repent, yeah, to turn, to come back to himself. Like he trusted himself in that decision. So, like I said in there, the only way I could do that, a decision like that. And that's not like, you know, it's that's obviously not a recipe.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

Yeah. That's like different every time, of course.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Like we need the moment.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Position ourselves like that as a parent.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah, because ultimately this has to be spirit-led. God has to do the leading in this. And you know, obviously, the father in this example is a picture of God. So he's but like as a father, or making any tough decision, you wanted to be led by the spirit of God and to be connected to the spirit of God. We have to be connected to ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

To be able to hear clearly, our triggered self is going to get it all jumbled. It's going to be all scrambled.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

So you ever hear those people like, oh, God told me to do this? And you're like, I'm not saying he didn't say that, but the filter that that's coming through is really your trigger. You're feeding that through your triggered self. And it is like scrambled.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Yeah.

unknown 33:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Our triggered selves really are rather untrustworthy. So the whole point of today is hey, it's not about the other person. It's not about them proving their trust. There's an element to that, obviously, but your ability to be okay is really about you connecting back to you.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Yeah, exactly. And going back to that base of zero to 12 years old, that early childhood development, because that is where we first have experienced not being able to trust ourselves. Because in zero to 12 years old, we did need a caregiver to help us learn how to trust ourselves. And when we don't have that, that hole, that lack keeps us from being able to trust ourselves. So it can be an event that happens that causes us not to trust ourselves. Like I asked, like when's the first time you remember not trusting yourselves. But that's also reinforced, similar to a gift giver. It's reinforced by having a parent that's helping us learn how to trust ourselves and ultimately how to know ourselves. Because that's where trust comes from. It's I know who I was created to be.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Right. I know that I know who I am.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Exactly. I know who I am. So I don't put my trust in good or bad decisions. I put my trust in who I am. And I make decisions from that place because it's been reinforced and supported by caregivers that came alongside me and taught me and saw me in the process and heard me in the process and protected me and was with me.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Again, to clarify, bringing in caregivers if that wasn't from your exactly biological parents or your primary caregivers.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

You need to bring in people that have trusted you in your life. Where have you felt trusted? That's going to help restore that self-trust.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

When people become uh what they call, you know, like when you have to grow up too soon, be over-responsible, yeah, take care of yourself. Most of those people have such a difficult time trusting themselves because they didn't have that reassurance and support of someone bigger than them being with them in the decision making.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

They grew up way too fast. They were making decisions beyond their age.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

So of course they don't trust themselves because of that.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Yeah. Kind of a funny story. We have a client that um uh he's kind of turned things over to the next generation. So he does, we don't work with him directly anymore. We work with his kids. But he would call in and he would ask for advice to what with one of my traders and he would, what do you think about this, this, this, reading about the corn market? And my trader would just lay out all the factual information and say, you know, what the opinion was. And like more times than not, he would do the exact opposite of what and and and my guy who came to my office, he's like, I don't even know why he asks, you know, but there's an example. And this guy, a hundred percent, like he trusted himself. Like he's he'll take the input, you know, and but he kind of already knew what he wanted to do. He already kind of had his mind made up and he was just he was looking to learn or whatever, you know. He wasn't being condescending about it. He was just like very confident in his decision making. Yeah, and whenever that client would make a decision on that or anything else, it was like, nope, this is what we're gonna do and we're gonna roll with it. Yeah, so there's a lot to be learned from that.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

There is, there's something very valuable about trusting ourselves and in connection to trusting others to bring it back to kind of what we were first talking about with, you know, if somebody has broken trust with you, a couple different practical steps is to first recognize, you know, why does this bother me so much? What does it mean to me? If someone broke my trust in the same way they broke your trust, we would both process it differently based on our early childhood development, based on who we are, we would look at it differently. So it's finding out specifically what bothers you about this. I've talked to multiple different people over the years of people that have had infidelity or had, you know, financial mistakes or different things that they felt like they couldn't trust their spouse anymore in. And why it bothered them and why it would bother me, we're so different. Like there's just so many different reasons why. We have like our universal, you know, what people would think if they experienced that. But then when you kind of funnel that down to your specific reason why it triggers you and why it causes what bothers you about it, that is so key. Because if we just label it with, well, it's just wrong, why? Why does that mean so much to us? Often we'll go back to, you know, I felt abandonment when I was younger, if I felt lack if I was younger, if I felt these different things younger, when you repeat something very similar that I experienced in my early childhood development, it's going to hurt me in a compounded way. It's gonna make what you did so much bigger to me because of my lack and my pain. Step one, why does it what does it mean to me? Why does it bother me so much? And going to that root pain and bringing comfort and care to it. And then the second part would be when did I lose trust with myself? Whether that was I didn't have a caregiver to support me in trusting myself or an event happened that caused me to believe that I wasn't trustworthy. Being able to connect it to yourself and connect it to the trauma and the lack that we experience. When we face both those parts of self-trust from pain and lack, or from decisions we made that cause us not to trust ourselves, then we can actually get to the root of why that behavior, that untrustworthy behavior bothers us so much.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah. That's really good. And from that place, once we brought healing, brought in the caregivers, 10 gifts, brought in the healing. None of what you're saying means that you still don't have a situation to manage with this other person.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

But until you deal with the pain that's causing you to react to this in that individual way that we all react to things because of our own pain, we won't be able to clearly see the changes that are need to be made, the boundaries that need to be put in place. What we're going to decide. And I always tell people that you're not going to be able to make a decision in your triggered brain. That's like trying to make a decision, intoxicate it. It's not going to be the best decision because you're not in your faculties. So come back to your true self and from that place, decide what you need to do to take the next steps for consequences, restoring relationship, doing what I talked about in the beginning of those five steps to restore relationship. That would be the opportunity then to be able to do those things that help restore relationship. But I wouldn't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Yeah, the thing that you read in the book, the self-help book or wherever you did. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

There's probably great ideas of what to do from that place, but you're not going to be able to actually truly trust if you don't deal with the wound and the pain that's causing the mistrust within you, that that person's decision triggered within you. If you had gone your whole life being able to trust yourself and you'd gone your whole life properly comforting the areas of your life that you were hurt or betrayed in, and that you felt safe and secure because your needs were met and someone betrayed you, it would feel different. It doesn't mean it wouldn't bother you, but your reaction would come from your infernal lobe. Your reaction would come from your true self. You would have the wisdom to know what to do in the situation because you're not in your triggered brain that's reacting to something that happened a long time ago that's happening again in our adult life that we're seeing through the lens of a child. We're not seeing through the lens of an adult. Now wisdom can take part in this process. We can do this 10 different ways. There's multiple resources and solutions on what to do in this situation because I'm back into my frontal lobe, trusting myself, feeling safe and secure. So now I'm in the driver's seat. The act of betrayal or whatever caused the mistrust is no longer driving. I'm driving. So I can do this however I want. I don't have to be subject to teaching someone a lesson to be able to trust them again for me to feel okay. I'm okay if they can become a trustworthy person in their behaviors or not.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

And this is the kicker. They are still trustworthy and who they were created to be, even if they did something that wasn't trustworthy. But I cannot see that in my triggered state.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Well, every single person on this planet's true self made in the image of God is trustworthy. Every single person that ever is and has been or will be is a trustworthy person when they are operating from the place they were created to be.

SPEAKER_03 43:33

And if they're not able to operate from that place, yeah, then we can make you make boundaries based on their behaviors for you to take care of you, not against them as a person. And that sounds like we're just being saying, like, you know, just see that person as trustworthy. Don't worry about all that. Yeah, no, the reason why we want to see who that person is is because we are now able to see who we are in the middle of the situation. It's for us, it's not for them.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

It's back to the podcast uh one, two, three ago or four ago where we talk about judgment. Yeah. It's like if we're judging them untrustworthy and we're calling that trustworthy as their identity, well, that's a mirror image, and that's probably more of a reflection of where we see ourselves. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that really jumps out to me as I just think about the whole process. Process and the whole thing is that, you know, when you grasp this, and the more time you can stay connected to your true self, life just gets a lot less high stakes.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

You know, it's just like just think about how high stakes everything is when you have to have them, somebody else outside of you do something for you to be okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Because how much autonomy or control do you really have?

SPEAKER_03 44:54

And it's a lot of stress to try to control another person for them to make the right decisions for you to feel safe. It's impossible. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of look at it too. One last thought is, you know, I've talked about capital in needs that we didn't get met in early childhood development. So we're going to want those to be met by a spouse or from other people in order for us to feel okay because we didn't get those needs met. I would um challenge you to look at certain situations and see if you're trying to get a capital T trust met from that person. That's bigger than a lower key trust of what happened in the current situation.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

When we're trying to get that capital T trust met from that person because of what they did to hurt us, the mistakes they made. It's ultimately going back to our early childhood development. We have a capital T need for trust. We still need trust from that person, but now it's lower stakes, like you talked about. Now it's a lower T trust. We still require it, we still need it, it's still important for relationship and connection. But I don't have to have you be trustworthy for me to be okay. I can be okay, even if you don't you don't know how or you can't be trustworthy.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Yeah. And from that place, the the strategies we put together in the books we read, the knowledge, the wisdom, it's just gonna be so much better.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

How we how we do these boundaries, how we try to help that person. It's it's the story of the prodigal son. The father came up with the absolute perfect idea of how to help his son, which would have been one that I never would have thought about in a million years.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Yep. But he was doing it from a clear brain, true self that was able to make a decision that was best for his son, that he could be at peace with. So if you're make putting boundaries up, you're trying to help create a plan for people to restore trust, start with yourself first, recognize where your pain is in it, be able to comfort that so your brilliant frontal lobe, your true self, can come up with an amazing creative solution for what you're going through.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Absolutely. Yeah, we gave some powerful homework for everyone.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

Yeah. And and empathetically, you know, trust is hard. It is painful. Doesn't mean that we don't have emotions connected to it, but let's discover what those emotions are. So it no longer rules over us. We're able to actually be okay no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Well, it's hard, but it's also really fun because when we learn how to trust ourselves, life gets a heck of a lot more enjoyable. Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

Even with hard things happening. It's wild how when it no longer has the same impact on you, all of a sudden you're like, Do I want you to be trustworthy? Of course. But I'm okay no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Yeah. And if I make a mistake, you know, I can trust myself to make a decision. Yeah, exactly. Even if it's wrong. Yeah, even if my hardest decisions are um uh matching my clothing a lot of days because I don't have much trust in myself that I know how to put together. So my wife and I got into it this morning. I put together the shirt and I said, Is this too much brown with the pants I'm wearing? She said, she said to me, She's like, um, it looks uh, how did she say it? Basically along the lines of, it looks okay. I'm like, whoa, what's okay, me? You know? And I'm like, you gotta understand, I I have no ability to put together things. But maybe it's really just a part of my heart where I'm still not trusting myself.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

I think so. To be creative in it, to be able to trust your heart of what you want to wear and what colors you want to put together and be okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Trusting myself and creativity, my two least favorite classes of all time in school, music and art. Oh, yeah. The worst grade I ever got in my life, music. Yeah, it's horrible. But anyway, so all right, Laura, thank you for sharing your heart and all of your wisdom with us. And we look forward to uh applying uh and myself too here, uh applying what you have uh taught us today. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 49:14

Yeah, we'll talk, we'll see you guys all next time.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

All right, sounds good. Thank you, everybody. Bye bye.