Iyanla Vanzant: Mastering the 4 Essential Trusts
Self-trust begins with self. It is an individual experience that grows both from your relationship with yourself as well as your belief in and experience with something greater than yourself.
It may or may not be supported by others. If you do not trust you, it does not matter what anyone else says or does. When you do not trust yourself, nothing will sound or feel or look right, because you will be waiting for a guarantee that will never show up. Moreover, even if it were to show up, chances are you would not trust it anyway. A huge part of your journey to self-trust will be learning how to deprogram yourself from all of the misinformation that has hijacked your mind since childhood.
Self-trust has nothing to do with passively expecting that you can or will have and receive everything you want, when you want it, just like you want it. Self-trust is about having an inner voice, being connected to that inner voice, learning how to hear and follow that voice, instead of all of the other adult authority voices playing in your head. Self-trust means having the confidence in your value and worth and in your ability to do what is best for you, moment by moment. Moreover, if the choices and decisions you make do not work out for your highest good, you know and believe that you will still be okay.
OMTimes: Why do our feelings matter?
Iyanla Vanzant:: Not only do our feelings matter, they are at the core of whatever we believe is the matter with us. Feelings are a fundamental means of communication that arise from inside us. Feelings cannot be faked. As adults, we think or talk ourselves out of what we feel. We convince ourselves that working is more important than eating, or that watching television, doing the laundry, or finishing an assignment for work is more important than sleeping. We tune out our feelings, essentially committing a form of self-abuse and neglect.
When you are unwilling or afraid to feel your feelings, when you do not want to cry or say the wrong thing, you can get stuck in thinking about what you should feel rather than acknowledging what you do feel. When you are not in touch with your feelings, when you cannot name them or do not give yourself space and permission to feel them, you are left with needs that do not go away and that you are unable to fulfill. This leads you to believe that you are not safe in the world, that you make bad choices, that you cannot have what you desire, and that your best efforts will never be good enough. You spend so much time gathering facts externally that you miss the information you receive internally through your feelings, and this is how you miss the boat outfitted to deliver you into self-trust.
