Go Ask Sawyer
Go Ask Sawyer
SOLO - The Fabric of Trust: Embracing Vulnerability and the Art of Self-Belief
Ever found yourself pondering the complex tapestry of trust and how it threads through the very fabric of our lives? You're not alone. In our latest episode, we immerse ourselves in a heartfelt exploration of trust's essence, inspired by the profound insights of the Shaman's Dream Oracle and the soul-stirring lyrics of Ella Mai's hit "Naked." We confront the vulnerability required to let our guards down and how self-trust can be the beacon guiding us through life's storms. Through candid reflections, we dissect the lessons learned from heartbreak, the significance of aligning actions with values, and the sheer bravery it takes to own our stories and speak our truths.
As we unravel the nuances between blind trust and genuine confidence in our connections, we delve into the transformative journey of building trust—starting with the person in the mirror. This episode isn't just about recognizing the red flags or the telltale signs of true trustworthiness in others; it's an intimate call to shed our metaphorical armor, embrace the solitude that may come with it, and listen intently to our gut instincts. Join us as we extend an invitation to embrace your authenticity, set your boundaries, and find the courage to foster meaningful change in your own life and in the world around you.
Good morning, good wintery morning from Wisconsin. I woke up to lots of snow today, which some may think is great, some may not. I do not. I'm not a fan of snow, although I live in Wisconsin, but good morning Nonetheless. Welcome to Go. Ask Sawyer.
Speaker 1:Today's episode is all about trust. Really really been ruminating on that word the last, I don't know, maybe month or two, just from some things that have been happening in life and kind of thinking about why I do or don't trust situations, people, outcome, and so I feel like today I woke up and everything kind of I had a perfect alignment of understanding trust. So I thought I'd pop on and talk about it because I feel like trust is one of the number one things in everything and everywhere that people want, desperately want with another person. They want trust in another person, they want to have trust in the situation. It is one of the biggest things that we wear with a badge of honor that we do not trust other people. Let's buckle up and dig in. We are going everywhere today, from the dictionary definition to what the Bible says, to what Ella May says in her song Naked, and we are going to start with the card poll, just to be in alignment. Don't mind my shuffling. We have a pop out. Fools embrace transmuting pain. We have a beautiful sun maybe moon. Looks almost like a fairy creature in the front. They're holding their knees very tight. This is card 22,. Fools embrace transmuting pain. Again, I am using the Shaman's Dream Oracle Transmuting pain, allowing life to love you, the experience of both, and I just love the way this is starting. Let me tell you why. The line allowing life to love you would mean that you would have to be vulnerable, would mean that you would have to learn to trust yourself, and until we can learn to trust ourselves and what our body tells us and the feelings that we get, we will never be able to allow life to truly love us. All right, here we go.
Speaker 1:The pain of life is sometimes unbearable. When we're in it, we think that pain, that loss, that betrayal will always be woven through our continuity of existence. We're kept hostage by the way we identify with the pain and what we make it mean. If we let it, it becomes etched into us like a tattoo. Again, real quick, sorry side note. We hold on to, I do not trust people. I do not trust people. We hold on to that pain until it becomes part of our story that we're so proud of.
Speaker 1:No matter where on the spectrum of pain you find yourself now, whether it be mild disappointment or searing loss, it's time to make peace with it. Befriend it rather than resisting it, running from it or judging it as bad or unfair or hostile. Can you see the gift that is here? Surrender to the fool's embrace, allowing the truth to envelop you in love and compassion. What if you could learn something amazing from this? What is truly yours will not pass you by. Something better and perfect for you is waiting elsewhere. If you could come to terms with the liberation and freedom inherent in loss, your broken heart might open you up to a greater sense of humanity and compassion. As in the narrative of the tarot, the fool will be at the beginning of your life's adventure and at the end, when you've integrated all the wisdom you've accumulated along the journey. He will never let you down or lie to you. He will, however, teach you how to reveal in both the beauty and desperation of life, both and this, and that will always be true. Remember, the pearl can't be created without the gritty sand causing discomfort and acting as a catalyst. In the oyster your pearl is discovered in radical acceptance that everything has value. All is well now and will be. Remember that today as you feel the fool's embrace. I got to tell you I just love this card for opening up to what trust is. And again, like there was a line there about heartbreak. Right, allow the heartbreak. Teach us, let it go.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes we get our heart broken in a relationship and so often we blame the other person. This is all your fault. You did this. You did not love me, you did not accept me. You left me here on the ground, brokenhearted in pieces, when in reality, if we looked inside ourselves, I bet we saw moments in that relationship where we knew we shouldn't be there, where we knew it was done, where we knew something was going on. And sometimes in life I mean life is extremely crazy and busy, especially if you have kids Like you can't ever get a clear thought for a moment, you can't ever get peace of mind. My children are older so it's a little bit different, but I know when they were little, like they took up everything, so I didn't pay attention to things. I didn't see things. What in life is distracting you right now from your truth? What in life is distracting you from what you don't want to see. That was a really hard pill to swallow, when I've gone through a few breakups, to realize either I was just as at fault as the other person or maybe even more. I stayed somewhere too long. I knew I shouldn't have been here. So that heartbreak, that anger that I threw on that other person, it was really because I did not trust myself. I was mad at myself.
Speaker 1:The term trust I looked up is a firm belief in the reality, truth, ability or strength of someone or something. So that firm belief that I stand on. I have no reservations, I have no insecurities about it. How many of us have that with ourselves? How many of us can actually rely on ourselves to show up? How many of us can rely on ourselves not to cross boundaries? How many of us can rely on ourselves to speak truth when it needs to be said, instead of staying quiet? How many of us can trust that we will accept responsibility and accountability when we do wrong?
Speaker 1:I really think that's where it lies. We are human. Humans make mistakes. Humans are gluttonous. We are envious, we are jealous. We are creatures. We are people that want what everybody else has, because, heaven forbid we water what we already have. We want more and more and more.
Speaker 1:And the thing is we don't stop to look at why we don't trust other people. We take it as a badge of honor. I trust no one. Oh my gosh, I've had, growing up, when I was younger I feel like I've had friends who just were very like. I don't trust people and that's just who I am. And Now that I'm learning more about it, I'm like man. That is really sad.
Speaker 1:That saying I don't trust anyone sometimes is an excuse to not have to be vulnerable. It's an excuse so you can be closed off. It's an excuse so you can be mean. It's an excuse so you can be overly accusatory of your friends or partner. And it's an excuse so that everybody else will chase you. Yet no one will ever win. It's an excuse Because, at the end of the day, we don't trust ourselves, because we've seen how distrustful we can be.
Speaker 1:We've crossed our own boundaries, we've never repaired, we've never taken accountability. So if I'm dating someone and I get a weird feeling about someone else they're talking to. I know what I've done in my past, so I'm going to project that onto them. Well, I've done. I've cheated. I've had emotional affairs. I've had emotional connections with people I should not have been, because my relationship was not good or not strong. So I'm sure they're doing that now. So, no, I don't trust them and I'm going to ask them questions about it or not, and I'll just stay bottled up with anger. I'm going to ask them questions about it, but I'm actually not going to believe anything they say, because I remember what I said. So we project that mistrust on everyone because we know what we have done and what we have said.
Speaker 1:And until we can stand firm in who we are and really acknowledge like man, I did this, I did this, I did this, how can I repair with myself? How many of us have really taken the time to sit with ourselves and say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've crossed my my own boundaries, I'm sorry that, even though I said I was going to go out tonight and I was not going to stay out past 10, and I stayed out till one in the morning, and now I'm exhausted, you broke that promise to yourself. It's all those little things. I'm going to go. I'm going to go to bed every night at 10 o'clock. You do it two times and then all of a sudden. After that it's out the window. So you're letting yourself know I'm not much of a priority. Tv is more of a priority, my phone is more of a priority. Other people are more of a priority than myself. And then we question why we don't trust other people. We can't even trust ourselves.
Speaker 1:My goal this year is to read the Bible. So I grew up in private schools. From fourth grade to my senior year my family went to church most. Every Sunday. We would go to church, get donuts, maybe drive around, look at houses if dad wanted to do that, or we'd come home and I got to tell you I have had an up and down relationship with God my whole life, especially because I'm gay and as we are taught in the Bible or, I'm sorry, as we are taught from Christians, it is not okay to be gay. God will not accept you all of that. Yet I'm reading the Bible. I've got, I'm through chapter 21 in Genesis. I've already got things to say. I'll do another podcast on that for those who want to dig deep, because I just got through the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which, ugh, my whole brain exploded.
Speaker 1:Anyway, side note, the whole first part of this is really about faith and trust. And do we have faith in God? For those of you who don't believe in God, do we have faith in the universe? Do we have faith to trust that what is supposed to be for us will be, even in that cart, what is meant for you will never pass you by?
Speaker 1:Sarah, sarah and Abraham really wanted kids and it just wasn't happening. So of course, sarah gave her servant to Abraham to marry and they had a child. And you know, god was like why would you do this? You're, of course, you're going to have kids. But she was 90 years old when she first had kids and in my head like A yes, trust that what you want will happen. Also, like my question is too did she have a conversation with God? Did she pray about it? But then, on the other hand, I'm like why would God make her, make her wait so long? But she ended up having kids and Sarah and Abraham were pillars at the beginning, just kind of creating and setting up and having all the families and descendants.
Speaker 1:But one of the questions at the end was where are areas in your life you have strong faith and where are areas in your life you do not? I do not have strong faith anywhere and that is really hard to say. And now, all of a sudden, I'm going to want to cry. That is really hard to say because I want to so bad. I want to have that trust in myself that I know where to go, that faith that like, hey, it's all going to work out. So what am I so scared of? Because, honestly, at the end of the day, everything kind of has worked out. The only thing that hasn't is my love life, and that's a whole nother podcast, because I self-sabotage and date people who are emotionally unavailable. But that's really my own thing. Because I'm clearly scared of something. So trust what I just said. I'm clearly scared of something.
Speaker 1:Ella Mai has an amazing song Naked. I heard this song a few weeks ago and her lyrics again were connected. I thought to trust. She says I could be pissed, but I'll act like I'm not. I really remember when I say I forgot. So right away you're telling me you are not showing me the real you and now I need to play a game to get to you. Why do we have to play a game? That's my question. Why do we have to play a game? Are you ready to fight just to see what's lost behind my flaws. Can you love me naked? Why does it have to be a fight? Are you proud of your flaws? She wants to know who thinks I'm beautiful when I'm looking fucked up. I want that perfect love. Am I asking too much someone who shoots for the stars? After I looked at those lyrics, I thought to myself does she love herself behind those walls? Does she love her flaws? Does she love herself when she's looking fucked up? Whatever that definition is? Is she telling herself I'm going to show the world this, but I'm really this. So, once again, not letting people in. It's an excuse to be cut off. It's an excuse to be cold.
Speaker 1:Back when I first started my journey of all the things, there was a quote passage Carorora's from, but it said something along the lines of how can we expect other people to love us the way we so desperately want when we don't even love ourselves that way? And that just hit me so hard, because we want so much from other people, yet we are so unwilling to give it to ourselves. And how many of us are actually unwilling to give it to other people, to give the trust, to give the vulnerability, to love someone when they're laying on the floor, to love someone when they're at their worst and when I say worst, I don't mean sick, I mean they're not in a good headspace, they're not in, they're not the person that we knew, we thought they've lost themselves. Are we willing to show up for them the way we want them to show up for us? And I do love that song, like it's a beautiful song and I think it's definitely something I'm like oh my gosh, I would love someone to love me naked, but do I even love myself naked? We say I want someone's love me naked, yet we're not even willing to take our clothes off, we're not even willing to show our scars, to show ourselves, but we want someone to love me naked.
Speaker 1:The final question I have to think about as I've gone through this trust is the people in our lives that we do trust. A couple of things. Number one is it a blind trust? They're, they're my family, they're my mom and I trust her always and forever. Is it just a because, like we were born into it? Is it a loyalty thing Well, I've known this person so long, so I'm just going to trust them or is it like a deep in my gut, I can trust them. And then, if I can, I really want to look at what are the qualities and characteristics of these people that we trust, because we also know everyone's human People have hurt us, they've broken trust, they've done things that we didn't want them to do. But what are the qualities that somebody has when we're like, hey, I know you messed up, but for some reason I still trust you. I'm still here and like it's a real trust. It's not like, well, I guess we, you know we're in it, but it's like I really trust who you are. A couple of things that I wrote down that have to do with people in my life that I really do, like I have a deep trust for, is change behavior. So when we have that conversation and they know they've hurt me, behavior has changed, they've paid attention to what upset me and their behavior changed.
Speaker 1:Accountability it's not yeah, you did this, but I I'm sorry, I did this, but you did this, but you did this, this, this, this, this it's I just I feel like I recently got into that with someone the other day and it just felt so defeating, like, okay, you're right, it's me. Accountability we are so terrified to take accountability because for some reason, that means we're wrong. Accountability doesn't mean you're wrong, it just means you're accepting responsibility for what you did. Hey, I hurt you, I'm really sorry. And again that underlying emotion of shame, embarrassment, I can't believe I just hurt someone I love. Yet we are so unwilling to just say, hey, let's talk about this. I hurt you, tell me about it. I don't ever want to do that again.
Speaker 1:Safety, openness you feel safe that you can tell someone. Hey, this is bothering me, this hurt me. You can speak truth to and you know, even if it might be a hard conversation, for some reason you trust, like it's. You know you can show up as yourself. That's where that safety comes in. Right, I know I can show up as the person that I am, so I can trust on the other side. So I really want you to think about the qualities of people that you trust in your life. And maybe you're thinking like dang, I'm surrounded by people I do not trust. So then my question is why? Why do you surround yourself with people you don't trust, and maybe one of them is yourself. Maybe you need to go sit down somewhere. And if it's because you know the behaviors and the actions that you have done have truly not been in alignment. Then change the behavior for yourself, accept responsibility for yourself, tell yourself I'm so sorry, I will not abandon you again.
Speaker 1:The synonyms for trust are confidence, belief, faith, sureness, safekeeping, protection, care and freedom from suspect or doubt. I love all those words. All those words make me feel light, make me feel happy. What's the word connotation? They all have such a positive connotation with them. And then, on the other side, the antonym of trust doubt, skepticism, distrust, mistrust. I was like distrust and mistrust, come on, that's like one of my students using the, the, using the vocabulary word in the definition. But then I looked up the prefix dis, which means not, so not trusting, opposite of okay, that one maybe.
Speaker 1:But mistrust I thought was really interesting. It's miss means ill, wrong or incorrectly. And how many times have we given our trust to someone incorrect? We jumped too soon and it was probably because we were feeling insecure, we were chasing, we were looking for love when we really just weren't giving it to ourselves. So we mistrusted, we wrongly gave our confidence, our belief, our faith, our sureness, our safekeeping, our protection, our care to someone who did not deserve it. And that's. I'm not saying that like you don't deserve this, like a mean thing, it's more of a they hadn't earned it. Yet we don't make people earn their place in our life very often. So I'm going to leave you with this.
Speaker 1:Listen to the song Naked by LMA. It's amazing. Think about if you love yourself naked. Think about if you're willing to take off your clothes to really truly show your vulnerability, and just think about the people in your life that you trust or don't, and ask yourself why and I really want this year to be the year we stop wearing the badge of honor of I don't trust anyone. That's so lonely. Learn to trust yourself, that gut feeling you get. Learn to trust yourself and then you will be able to see in your life and feel who can be there. And that's a lot of times where that mistrust happens, it's because we are not in line with ourself. Alright, that is all I have for you this week. It is a lot, it is a lot, but I appreciate you guys showing up, I appreciate you pressing play, I appreciate your downloads, I just appreciate you. Go off into the world and just let's go get in some good trouble, like good, positive trouble. Peace out.