Awaken Your More

Ep 1: Self-Trust for Sensitive People: What It Actually Means and How to Build It

• Rachel Yve • Season 1 • Episode 1

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0:00 | 13:14

So many sensitive, high-achieving women know they should trust themselves  but in practice, they're outsourcing decisions to everyone around them, mistaking other people's certainty for wisdom and their own quiet knowing for naivety. In this episode, I'm breaking down what self-trust actually means and why it's the foundation for everything, and the practices that genuinely build it.

Tune in to learn:

  • Why self-trust and self-confidence are not the same thing — and why the distinction matters
  • How your nervous system and body are the starting point for real self-trust (not mindset work)
  • The overlooked connection between boundaries and trusting yourself
  • How to tell the difference between intuition and anxiety as a sensitive person
  • Why mindfulness is about far more than meditation — and how it quietly rebuilds your inner authority

Check out the blog post that accompanies this episode: https://awakenwithrachel.com/what-does-trusting-myself-actually-mean-a-guide-for-sensitive-people/ 

Are you a sensitive, high-achieving woman who's ready to stop playing small and step into the life you know you're meant for? I work with women like you in my 1:1 coaching programme, Meant for More — a deep, somatic and coaching journey to help you find peace, reclaim your power, and move toward your purpose.

🌿 Meant for More 1:1 Coaching: https://awakenwithrachel.com/contact/
 ✨ Book a discovery call: https://awakenwithrachel.com/contact/ 

SPEAKER_00

I'm Rachel and this is Awaken Your More. I teach sensitive, high-achieving women to step into lives of peace, power, and purpose so they can finally start living a life that feels like theirs. Hello and welcome to today's episode. Today we're going to be discussing what self-trust is and how we can begin to trust ourselves, especially if you're somebody who is sensitive or heart-led, because trusting ourselves can often feel like the scariest thing in the world. So today I'm going to give you a few tips and some antidotes on how I have developed self-trust over the years as a highly sensitive person and a high-achievers, because that is quite a mix. I want to share a quote by somebody called Carl Jung, who was a famous psychoanalyst and psychotherapist. He famously stated that your vision will only become clear when you look inside of yourself. He who looks outside dreams, he who looks inside awakens. And obviously, I'm gonna take the he out of that because it can apply to both women and man. But what this is essentially telling us is it's telling us that until we learn to understand ourselves, to actually know who we are, then we cannot trust ourselves, we cannot awaken to our fullest potential. And I think that's why a lot of us feel stuck, and a lot of us feel like we are living a life that is not truly ours. It's because as society, what we've done is we've learned to outsource our decisions. We've learned to see that looking into AI, Googling, asking for other people's opinions constantly is the way to the right decision. It's the way to trust and validate what we're thinking. And really, it's about looking within. It's about knowing who we are so that we can really trust what we want to do in our lives. And as a process, uh, a lot of people think that self-trust is something that we're just innately born with. And it really isn't. It's a process of learning, it's a process of becoming somebody that we can trust. And we do this over the small habits and the daily actions over time, it's not something that is acquired instantly, and this self-trust is particularly difficult if you're somebody like myself who is highly sensitive and is also a chronic perfectionist. Because what we often do is we often outsource decisions because we want to make the best decision, and we also outsource decisions because we're constantly reading the room, we're scanning people, we're noticing their body language, we're looking directly to how others are experiencing things as a way of checking in and validating our own experiences. And one of the biggest lessons I've had as somebody who is sensitive is to stop doing that. It's to stop chasing what other people are doing. There's a big distinction between being confident, because I would say, you know, I'm a confident person in my job. I know that I can teach, I know that I can teach yoga because I've acquired these skills over time and I've built confidence. But I still had these skills that I felt confident in, but I still lacked self-trust. And there's a big difference between being confident and having self-trust. Often people get this confused. And I just want to make it really clear that like confidence is really about what we gain externally, and self-trust is what we gain internally. So it's how we feel about ourselves, is if we trust ourselves to make a right decision. Uh, if it's if we trust our values, is if we know that whatever we choose is right for us, it's right for who we are. And again, this comes back to that question of who am I at my core. And I think that's why many of us who are highly sensitive can be really confident in a particular skill, but still feel like we lack self-trust. And now I'm gonna share some ways that I've begun to develop self-trust for myself. And I'm not perfect, I don't have it all figured out, but these things have really started to help me when I've been facing difficult decisions and I've not really known which path to take. So I think the biggest clue for me, and is what I teach in my work, is checking in with the body because your body will speak before your mind speaks, and your body will be often processing data quickly and before the mind has had a chance to catch up. So that's why it's actually really important that we do body-based practices, because there is a huge link, you know, that mind-body connection is really important. But learning to listen to the body is the biggest signal we have in terms of knowing if something is right for us, trusting what we want. And I found that when I am feeling that something isn't right for me, I will feel like contracted and small. I will feel dense, my energy, my vibration will be lower, I'll feel low and I'll feel slow. And when something is in alignment with who I am, I will feel expansive, I'll feel energized by just doing it. And I think it's really important to start to notice this rather than thinking about it all the time in the mind. Can you next time you're weighing a decision or you're unsure of what direction to take, just take some time to check in with your body? And it's not always clear, but the more we do it, the more we get to know ourselves. And I keep saying get to know ourselves because this knowing ourselves is the core pillar for self-trust. And I want to talk about developing self-trust through the act of boundaries, and this is boundaries that we put in our lives to allow us to be the best possible version of ourselves that we can be. And that's about really discovering what situations, activities, or friendships, relationships align with who we are, that make us feel better, that are taking us in a direction that we want to go in and not taking us away from our path. So I share a really good example from my own life here, and it's not meant to be like a dig at anybody, but I did a lot of partying in my last 15 years of my life, and when I got to like the end of my 20s, I really just wanted to let go of that side of myself. And I don't think that we should have to be all or nothing. I still enjoy doing some of those things, and I think as a side note in this wellness and spiritual space, we can definitely fall into the trap of being like, oh, I need to be really like perfectly spiritual, I can't possibly have any alcohol, I can't possibly do this, and I think it's about finding your balance there. So that's something for another episode. But what I'm trying to say is it's about leaning into those things that will help take us in the direction that we feel we want to go in and not pull it away from that. I did a lot of partying and then a lot of those friendships I had, they tended to be centered around this. And when I was starting to do more of the inner work, when I was starting to look deeper into who I was, I was finding that that wasn't really who I was becoming. And when I was doing those things, I was actually taking away a piece of myself each time that I was trying to build. And each time I kept doing those things, I kept finding that I was like lowering my vibration. I was not working in the direction that I wanted to go in. And it's really important to recognize this. So one of the most important words that I have learned is to say no. And I think children are really good at saying no. I think maybe let's bring that into our own lives. Like, where can we say no more? Not in a way of like, I don't want to be nice, in a way that protects ourselves. From my own personal experience, it can be a really lonely path when you choose yourself over what you think you should do or what others want you to do. But the more you can do this, the more you can bank on yourself to trust the decisions you make, to trust that you'll follow through, and to trust that you're taking steps for yourself. And this leads in quite nicely to something that I call this like accountability loop. So self-trust is really done in the small moments, showing up for ourselves, doing the things that we say we're gonna do without bailing. And I think that can be as small as, for example, if you say you're gonna go on a run today, instead of coming home and sitting on your phone and mind-numbingly doom scrolling, can you do the run? Can you follow through with that? Because the more you follow through with the things that you say you're gonna do, the more you tell your subconscious that you're someone worth trusting and that you can trust what you want. This is a really big one that I get asked quite a lot about. And this has been sort of actually a lifelong journey for me. But what I've come to realize is trusting yourself is about knowing what the difference is between intuition and anxiety. And I think if you're highly sensitive, empath, however you relate to that, there's a lot of anxiety and intuition a lot of the time, and it can be really hard to distinguish between the two. And for me, the biggest indicator has been anxiety is really loud. It comes in the form of what if questions. It's trying to constantly rationalize and question what it wants us to do, and it will be constant, like a constant repetitive loop that keeps cycling around a situation. Whereas intuition comes through in the stillness, it comes through with a direct message, and it might not always be the message we think we should have, but it will often come through clear and assertive. And a good way to do this is to build in time in your day of just being completely still, so that's sitting for five minutes and maybe sitting with the question or the situation that's coming up, and just asking yourself that and letting the answers come through in the stillness. I think that another way we can really start to build self-trust within ourselves and in our lives is to practice this idea of like mindful non-attachment and just acceptance to what is. A lot of lack of self-trust comes from the fear of the unknown and the fear of not wanting things to change because we're scared that we've made the wrong decision. But if we can kind of adopt this mindful attitude of like whatever is gonna happen, happen, whatever situation or decision I make will be the right decision for me, we can detach from the outcome. When we detach from the outcome, we learn to trust ourselves more. We learn to just accept what is rather than pushing and forcing for what we think we need. And I guess that acceptance, that radical self-acceptance of the situation can be practiced just through bringing yourself into the present moment more, through meditation, through breath work, through leaning into your body-based practices. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this video. I hope it has been helpful. If you did enjoy it, please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel. I'll be sharing weekly videos on how you can find peace, power, and purpose in your life as a sensitive, high achieving person in this crazy demanding world. I will see you next time.