“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”
~Seneca
What a wonderful and true saying this is. Live life as if there is no end and you are destined to live forever, spend time as if it's abundant, but spend each day as if it's your last. In this shortness of life, is there any scope to ponder over petty matters which pose no relevance to the bigger picture of life? Emotions like hatred, anger, resentment, or distrust – do they really have any meaningful importance in life? Only a deep thought can make you realise what you are losing out by indulging in hatred and disbelief.
“I can’t trust anyone in this world, not even my father. Thrice I trusted the closest people in my life and they all have let me down” is the honest confession of Joe who came for a hypnotherapy session at my chamber. You may resonate with this. You might have broken trust in the past or your trust might have been shattered. There is no blame that’s directly going to you for not being able to trust.
5 Reasons You Don't Trust People
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Disturbed childhood
If you have grown up in an environment of cynicism where you have seen adults around you not trusting each other, the repercussions will likely be on you. Kids who grow up with parents who do not share a healthy relationship will likely not be able to trust their friends and family while growing up. Trust is reciprocated. So, when you trust, you don’t get that back.
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Shattering relationships
This is one of the most important causes of not being able to trust people. Those who were hurt in the past likely hurt others down the line in a dysfunctional form. As they try to protect themselves from any further hurt, they end up hurting others. Past experiences of broken relationships play a major role in low self-esteem and lack-mentality.
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Rejection
Did you grow up in an environment where your parents never trusted that you can do well in life? Have your achievements often been undermined without any appreciation? Well, rejection plays heavy when it comes to trust. You often suffer from low self-trust, self-esteem and self-confidence. You grow up not being able to believe that you can really go miles with your success. Hence, rejection leads to imposter syndrome where you lack self-trust.
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Trauma
This is yet another reason for not being able to trust. Traumatic events and PTSD cripples your trust ability. These can be anything from your personal or professional lives where you might have been traumatised. Somebody might have cheated you or you might have gone through unprecedented and shocking events in life. When the closest ones take away the trust, it gets really hard to ever have faith in anyone.
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Genetic
It might be in your genes for not being to trust anyone in life. This has totally contributed to your personality where you suffer from general lack of trust. People who are diagnosed as/suffer neurotics often endure the issue of disbelief.
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Unrealistic expectations
Well, expectations in relationships are often quite common, but only with the right partners. Higher the unrealistic expectations with wrong partners, it is likely that they won’t be met. Especially, if your expectations are unclear and unspoken with a partner who doesn’t understand your heart’s words, you will possibly end up in a broken relationship and hence shattered trust. This may seem true with a colleague as well where you assume him/her to be very supportive and cooperative, but instead turns out to be very blatant. Unrealistic expectations brews broken trust.
Effects of not trusting people
Now that we know the reasons for not trusting, next comes the effects of it. Surviving in disbelief might look very nominal in day-to-day life with throngs of people dwelling in this mental state. But, the repercussions of it are huge and long lasting.
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Take life for granted
You could end up taking your life for granted. In this very beautiful life, such small events which are holding you back actually don’t matter. But, if you dwell in their thoughts, you might end up not living life to the fullest and end up regretting at the end that you didn’t live it wisely.
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End in procrastinating
With no trust on others, you can end up fretting about a short life, procrastinating about it and end up getting sad. You fall apart thinking life is short because you believe it should have been indefinite. But then why not live it to the fullest every single day?
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Overthinking about future
With no trust in others, you keep worrying about how you spend the upcoming days. In the process, you miss out on living that specific day. Overthinking and procrastination are the outcomes when you have no belief in others and yourself. You tend to indulge in analysis paralysis, doing you no good. You worry about what might happen in the future, without living the moment at present.
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More conscious what others think about you
Since you don’t trust others, you mostly think about how others perceive you. You strive to perfection trying to constantly do things right. But the limited time we have on Earth, do we really need to worry about how others think of ourselves? Why not accept yourself with an open mind and try to enjoy the glorious sunset right in front of you.
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Think about petty things
This is a natural outcome of not trusting people. You spend the time you have in hand putting your nose in the grindstone of petty matters. Unless the matter is really disturbing enough, why not ignore them and stay engaged in productive things in life. Let’s take two examples of this.
Disturbing colleague: For instance, if you don’t trust your colleagues, you end up involved in petty politics in office and pulling each other down. But, with this nice and limited life, is it really worth it? You can engage in far more productive things and improve yourself to make yourself worthy.
Disturbing neighbour: Another instance can be a nosy disturbing neighbour. Well, if he is not causing much of a disturbance to make your stay unfit, why bother about the noise he is creating. Instead, appreciate the beautiful life that you have, turn on some really good music and stay engaged in yourself to an extent that you can ignore his disturbance. Trust that it is his fault for disturbing you and has got nothing to do with you. Stay calm within yourself and be content that you are where you meant to be. Surely, you can resonate with either of these two instances because these are some of the most natural outcomes of not being able to trust others.
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Be in denial
When you don’t trust people, process and yourself, you think you are not at the right place. Especially when life throws you lemons, you go in denial that you shouldn’t have been in this place of challenges. Instead of making lemonade out of it, you get into a deeper hole of worrying about the struggle. What if the struggles are happening for you and not to you? These are challenges in what shape you into a higher version of yourself. These come with a whole lot of learnings and experiences to make you into a resilient and tough human being.
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Not getting to the meaning of life
When you have unrealistic expectations from others, you tend to sit in front of an empty stage waiting for others to do you good. Why not take charge of your life and set the stage yourself? Instead of waiting for others to give you the meaning of life, why not create it yourself.
Effects of trusting people
With trust, you end up being a stronger and better version of yourself. You grow resilience, positivity, optimism, strength and acceptance in life. When you embrace these values, nothing can hit you any further.
How to start trusting others?
Now, you really can’t spend your life in disbelief and mistrust. You have to start trusting people and process for none, but yourself. You do not need to head out trusting every random stranger you come across. But you need to trust that you meet them for a reason. You need to trust the entire process, even if it involves challenges because they are happening for you to make you a stronger individual.
Trust others to be at peace because only when you have faith you realise that every other person is also on a journey. Even when someone is causing trouble to you or being impolite, let it be. Trust that it's their ignorance and immaturity and has got nothing to do with you. Instead, be in a space of acceptance and grow your resilience. You will see that you have reached a stage in life where nothing bothers you.
- Start small: You cannot take a big leap of faith all at once, but you can start slow. Work on yourself and start building your resilience inch by inch every single day and grow your sense of acceptance.
- Be careful about whom you trust: The entire crux of this read is to learn how to trust. Literally, be very careful about whom to trust so that you don’t end up being hurt. If you spot the smallest red flag, be careful.
- Be positive: One of the biggest learnings of life is to be optimistic. Stay positive that you are heading for a brighter future. Everything works together for good. Approach situations with an open mind and you will feel less of botheration.
- Talk to a hypnotherapist
If lack of trust in others is causing distress, impairing your normal living, you need to head to a therapist. Talk to a mental health professional who can guide you with the best techniques to overcome it.
Now, does hypnotherapy interest you as a career option?
If you are an aspiring hypnotherapist, go for hypnotherapy certification in India with Matrrix. Dr Paras, is a renowned best hypnotherapist in India in this field with a Diploma from the Hypnotherapy Training Institute, California, U.S.A. He is an expert in human psychology with over 18 years of industry experience and is your personal guide to explore the realms of the human mind. The sound hypnotherapy training at Matrrix is approved by ACHE – American Council of Hypnotist Examiners based out of San Diego USA.
Check out the Matrrix site to know more about the 4 levels of hypnotherapy certification in India along with certifications of Mindfulness, NLP practitioner and others.
