What the world needs is for you to trust yourself
Tell me: do you trust yourself?
I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on what I believe about self-trust – today, and what I believed when I was younger.
In my teens, twenties and thirties, self-trust wasn’t even on my radar as a concept.
I was trained to delegate my decisions to people and structures who “knew better” than I did (family, school, college counselors, the media, etc).
I received and internalized the message that there was a “right way” and a “wrong way” – and believed that I could not reliably, correctly know the right way for myself.
If you’d asked me then if I trusted myself, I would have been completely and frustratingly stumped. I didn’t even know what that meant.
Later in life, as my career and family took shape, I slowly became aware of a nagging sense that perhaps I wasn’t always acting in my best interests.
This was my first self-trust clue.
Sometimes I’d commit to something that wasn’t right, and realize later that I was the only one who suffered because of it.
Sometimes I’d struggle to make a decision that didn’t have a clear right or wrong answer, and then agonize over my choices and how people would view them (and me) as a result.
Other times I would outsource a decision to someone else, only to see that they made a choice that ultimately didn’t work out for me or for us. I’d get mad – at them and at myself – for not listening to what I knew was best.
I don’t think I’m alone in this.
For many of us, trusting ourselves feels dangerous. And you’re right – it is.
In a society that requires conformity, trusting yourself is actually a subversive act.
Trusting yourself is rebellious.
It goes against the grain of what we’re conditioned to believe we should do. It flies in the face of the implicit and explicit expectations and agreements we have with the people in our lives.
Trusting yourself is brave.
It’s choosing to live loudly and honestly and openly, with no apologies or explanations, in a world that expects you to stay small and justify your every choice.
Trusting yourself is being on your own side.
It’s choosing to stay with yourself, to not self-abandon – even/especially when you make mistakes or life gets hard. It’s believing in the inherent value of you: your wisdom, your experience, your point of view, your feelings, and your decisions.
Trusting yourself is powerful.
It’s owning your sovereignty and claiming The Truth: that only you can know what’s right for you.
And, I believe, trusting yourself is EXACTLY what our planet and our world needs most from you right now.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I’m thinking a lot these days about the kind of world I want to live in.
There’s a lot I want to see changed about our world – so much, in fact. And yet, when I consider The Domino (and by that I mean, the one dominant factor that will topple the rest)? It’s self-trust.
A world of people – and especially women and people of color and other marginalized groups – who trust themselves to make authentic choices, to earn and spend money, and to create structures and systems that benefit all of us?
That’s the world I want to live in.
A world of kids and young adults who learn to listen to their inner wisdom and make high-integrity choices that honor their dreams and the dreams of others?
That’s the world I want to live in.
A world of adults who trust that each of us, that ALL of us, knows what’s right and best and true for ourselves, and who allow each other the freedom and agency to live a purposeful life, however we define it?
That’s the world I want to live in.
And it all begins with you learning to trust yourself. And practicing it.
Trusting yourself isn’t indulgent or reckless or selfish or wasteful.
Trusting yourself – and acting in alignment with that – is what’s going to move us all in the direction of a better, healthier, happier and more sustainable world.
I’m practicing this every day – in big and small ways. And I hope you’ll join me.
Onward,
