Trust is one of the seven attitudes of mindfulness. How to trust yourself, and your feelings, is an integral part of mindfulness practice.
The Buddha once said that no one should believe things just because he said them. He advised his listeners to take his teachings and apply them in their own lives, and discard those that did not resonate. The same is true for you.
Understanding trust – your basic wisdom
Your journey is yours to travel, and part of that journey is learning to trust your basic wisdom. If you feel strongly about something, it is usually a good idea to listen to the feeling. Ignoring or pushing away thoughts because some other authority tells you so, can be counterproductive. And just because something worked for someone else, does not mean it will work for you. With mindfulness, you learn to practice an objective process of inquiry. You learn to question your own thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions. Of course, you can learn from other sources, but ultimately this is your life to live. Try this Calm, Clarity and Confidence meditation to help.
Trust of feelings without reaction
Learning mindfulness is about developing insight, so you can listen clearly to what your heart and mind is telling you and make informed choices about actions that are right for you. Through insight, you can learn to notice feelings and explore them, without reacting to them. When you show up fully to a situation and learn to unpack sometimes complex feelings and layers of emotion, you can then trust yourself to come up with the right response.
Five ways to practice trust
- Slow down. Get into the habit of noticing when emotions or feelings are triggered and allow yourself time to feel them. Delay any reaction, take a breath, allow whatever time you need to process before responding.
- Try meditation. Set a schedule, say 10 minutes, daily, for four weeks. Just do it. This act requires trust because you will find some days are easier than others, and you may not feel like much is happening. Sticking with meditation requires a degree of trust that it will help. There are guided practices to get you started here.
- Reflect on your hobbies and interests. Do you have something you enjoy but which has taken time to gain skill in? There will have been a time when you knew by instinct that you wanted to do/learn something, and you also knew it would take time. But you trusted yourself. Note down what this ‘trust’ feels like in your heart, mind, and body. Get familiar with the body sense, so you can recognise it in other situations.
- Have there been times in your life/career when you have backed yourself to achieve something, even if people around you were not so sure. Again, reflect on what this felt like in your body and get curious.
- Practice with small decisions. Pick some non-threatening situations and start trusting yourself to make the right decisions, learn from when things do not go so well, and go easy on yourself.
It takes time to learn how to trust yourself. Be gentle, be patient. You do not have to have all the answers today. Use the meditation below as part of your practice in developing trust in yourself.
