Relationships: Why Do Some People Find It Hard To Trust Others?

As human beings are inherently interdependent and therefore reliant on others, relationships play a vital role in not only ones survival on this planet, but also in their ability to thrive. And this means that how one perceives others will play a big part in how they experience life.

Of course one is not going to get on with everyone or approve of everything their fellow human beings do, but this is not important. What matters is that they don’t go to the other extreme and not get on with anyone or disapprove of everyone.

To do this is going to have the potential to isolate one from others and to put them on alert when they are around them. Or one could go to the other side of the spectrum and do all they can to get the upper hand over others; with this being the only way that one feels safe.

Trust

What this comes down to is the importance of being able to trust others and the difference this will make in one’s life. If they can’t trust others they are going to suffer in one way or another.

When one finds it hard to trust other people, they are not going to feel the urge to reach out to people; to ask them for assistance and to be there for them. What they are likely to do is to go it alone and to be in constant state of suspicion and even paranoia.

It won’t matter if another person has ulterior motives and is out to harm them, as they might end up projecting this onto them regardless of if it’s true or not. Life then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Letting Go

So one might not be able to just trust and to let go; with them being in a state of hyper vigilance. In their mind, they are just waiting for the next thing to happen and for them to be taken advantage of or violated in some way. And as this is where their focus is, it will often become what they experience.

This could make them extremely independent and as someone who try to do more or less everything by themselves. What they reveal or don’t reveal about who they are, where they want to go and where they have come from, will have to be carefully monitored as a way to avoid being taken advantage of.

Struggle

Quite simply, life could end up being a real struggle. If one couldn’t use their arms or legs it would be the same. But while they might be able to rely on their body to be there and to support them, they can’t rely on other people to be there and to support them. That being said, if one feels like this in relation to the external world, their body is likely to mirror this; with one experiencing certain aches and pain.

This is not to say that well meaning people are not around them or available to support them, what it means is that one doesn’t trust people enough to recognise these people’s true intentions. All they could end up seeing are their own beliefs being reflected back.

Relationships

One of the foundations of any relationship is trust and this will be more important when it comes to intimate relationships. When it comes to a friend that one sees everyone now and then or someone they talk to in a shop, the need for trust is not going to be a strong. And this is because one is not going to reveal much of themselves to these types of people.

However, when it relates to a close friend or ones partner, they are more likely to open up and share who they are. And this means that not only does one have more to gain, they also have more to lose.

Connection

If one can’t trust others, it could mean that they don’t have any close friends and that they avoid intimate relationships altogether. On one side they might have the need to connect and to experience deep connections with others and yet their fear what might happen if they did trust others stops this from occurring.

Conflict

So, it is clear that having the inability to trust others is not going to aid one’s ability to survive, let alone thrive. Logically this might not make any sense and yet this is going to be what feels right. Their mind might not know why, but their body is where the answers are going to be found.

One is also going to have beliefs and thoughts that support them being this way. Just as their life experiences are also going to support this outlook.

Causes

They might have a sense of why they can’t trust others or they might wonder why it is. And the answer to these questions often goes back to their childhood and how they caregivers treated them. It could be due to what has happened in their adult years and yet these formative years are often the biggest influence.

Childhood

As a child, one is completely dependent on their caregivers and this is where they learn whether people can be trusted or not. So there is a big responsibility on their caregivers to not abuse the power that they have.

This is why child abuse can leave such a heavy mark on someone and go on to define their whole life. To be taken advantage of by the people one looks to for protection and love is going to have the potential to create incredible damage.

One doesn’t need to experience extreme child abuse though in order to have trust issues. It could be something minor that happen consistently and gradually wore them down. Or just something that happened once and was not acknowledged and therefore able to be processed.

Expectations

What this then does is cause one to expect this from others. And if ones caregivers were like it, why would they expect other people to be any different. One will have formed beliefs during these moments and how they felt, as a result of what took place, would have stayed trapped in their body.

Awareness

This means there could be two areas that one needs to look into; their mind and their body. Beliefs will need to be changed and if one has trapped emotions in their body, these will need to be released.

One can seek the assistance of a therapist, healer or a coach in order to move beyond this challenge. Reading up on this area will increase ones awareness and then they can change how they see the world and how they behave.