on the other hand, trust is also an attitude that can be cultivated. that's very similar, yet different, because the propensity for developing an attitude of trust is relative to the positive or negative experiences an individual has had in the past.
there is a lot of risk involved in trusting. what will happen if the person i am expecting to prove their self trustworthy does not behave according to my expectations?
is my system for monitoring the person's trustability broken or in some manner flawed? what evidence have i that they have the capacity for participating in a trust relationship?
as a victim/survivors who has had my trust capacity breached and interrupted in formative years when these types of systems would have otherwise developed naturally in stages, i find there is a tendency to approach the trust issue very hyper-cautiously.
how can i trust strangers and god who i can't see, when the people [family] who were my classmates in the school of life, proved themselves emotionally and psychologically unavailable, and therefore rendered incapable of trust?
further, because i did not learn the early important lessons on how to develop trust instincts, many of my decisions made throughout my lifetime, were made according to an imagined script that somehow got installed in my thinking system.
i acted 'as if' and the results left huge amounts of baggage in their wake.
as a result of all that, i have had very little interest in developing trusting relationships with individuals. it seems to take too much time, and the risks [to my narrow mind] seem to out weight the effort that doing so would require.
i can participate in things, but usually periferally, in service capacities, and i am not a good team player. in fact in my career and vocation i can develop trust, but the conditions for it are established and constrained by me.
i think this is why i have a difficult time 'finding a mate', because i am essentially unable to trust that good will intentionality exists in the potential significant other.
i see so much evidence of that here in the relationships of other survivors as well. even those who are already coupled seem to attest to the fact that they have a hard time establishing trust between their married partners, whose very relationships, it would be assumed, would have to have been predicated on a major portion of mutual trust. it seems that we are all working from the same script.
god is the only one i trust, and i put my self totally in god's care. when i look all around me, and observe how effusive the manifestations of the material world, i can't deny that the same is holding true for me to the extent that i do n ot interfere with the process that god has planned for my life.
it's all i have to cling to. and though the word 'cling' carries connotations of negative energy, i mean it to mean more like a 'hug' than a latching onto.
what is most important for me, since i trust that since god brought me to it, god will see me through it, i can rest easy that things will go accoring to the plan. just like those lilies of the field that flower and blossom without a care. that's how we are made to live our lives, in full faith that god's working out his purpose, in spite of all our vain efforts to interfere and interrupt the process of god's arising in our lives.
thanks for the opportunity to reflect and express my thoughts about this important topic....
your brother in recovery,
ron
_________________________
- my gift
- my story
- voices affirming gay males: wc journal
