The Trust You Need Most

When people talk about trust, they usually mean trusting other people.

Can I trust my partner? My friend? My boss?

The relationship that gets overlooked is the one that matters most: the one you have with yourself.

For a long time, I didn’t trust myself at all. Everyone else seemed to have answers I was missing. Other people understood how things worked, and I was just trying not to mess things up too badly.

My instincts felt unreliable in every area of life. Friendships. Work. Money. When something felt wrong, I told myself I was being dramatic, paranoid, selfish, or ungrateful. I learned to override my own signals because being wrong felt scarier than getting hurt.

One memory still sticks with me.

I had a friend who worked as a life coach. Teaching people how to trust themselves was literally her job. When she asked to borrow money, every alarm in my body went off. My stomach dropped. My hands went cold. Everything in me said no.

But this was someone who made her living teaching self-trust. Surely she wouldn't take advantage of me. I said yes.

She never paid me back.

Losing the money was frustrating. What actually broke something was understanding what she'd done. Someone who taught self-trust exploited me.

That wasn't about me not being smart enough. That was her using my trust to steal from me.

Rebuilding self-trust after that wasn't about never making mistakes again. It was about learning to listen when my body sent signals. About acting on my instincts even when I couldn't fully explain them. About choosing myself even when it felt uncomfortable or when someone might be disappointed.

What It Looks Like When You Don’t Trust Yourself

You might recognize some of this, even if your version looks different.

Everything gets second-guessed. Not just big decisions, but small ones too. What to eat. What to wear. Which movie to watch. You need someone else’s confirmation before you can relax.

The apologizing never stops. For speaking up. For taking up space. For having preferences. Sometimes for existing at all.

Being alone with your thoughts feels unbearable. The TV stays on. A podcast fills the silence. Quiet means hearing yourself, and you don’t trust what might come up.

Boundaries exist in theory, but not in practice. You say 'yes' when you mean 'no'. You tolerate behavior that you would never accept if it were happening to someone you care about.

Underneath it all is the same belief: everyone else knows something you don’t.

What Self-Trust Actually Is

Self-trust is the ability to take your own experience seriously.

It means listening to your internal signals, believing they matter, and acting in ways that protect your well-being over time.

It isn’t about being right all the time. It’s about knowing that even when something doesn’t go as planned, you won’t abandon yourself.

Without self-trust, you end up outsourcing your sense of reality. You constantly check with others to see whether your reactions are allowed, reasonable, or acceptable. That way of living is exhausting.

Beginning to Trust Yourself Again

First, you have to practice believing you are enough right now. Not eventually. Not after you improve or fix something. Now. This often feels ridiculous at first. Say it anyway. Out loud if you can. The discomfort is part of the work.

Second, stop hiding from your feelings. Jealousy, anger, resentment, fear, shame. They exist whether you acknowledge them or not. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away. It just makes them harder to understand. Feeling what you feel is how you learn about yourself.

Third, be honest with yourself without being cruel. “I need a better system for this” is different from “I’m terrible at everything.” One leads to change. The other just reinforces shame.

Fourth, know your boundaries and follow through on them. Ask yourself what you actually need to feel okay, respected, and steady. Then decide what you will do when a boundary is crossed. The follow-through is where trust is built. Every time you keep a boundary, you show yourself that you can rely on you.

Your mind will push back. It will replay every broken promise, every moment you ignored yourself, every time you didn’t follow through. That reaction makes sense. You’re not trying to erase the past. You’re creating new evidence.

One kept boundary doesn’t undo years of self-betrayal, but it matters. Then another. Then another. Over time, those moments add up.

Spend real time alone with yourself. Not scrolling. Not distracting. Just you. It will likely feel uncomfortable at first. When you’ve avoided your inner world for a long time, turning toward it can feel overwhelming. Stay anyway. You can’t build trust with yourself if you never spend time with yourself.

Where to Start

Don’t try to change everything at once. Pick one thing.

Keep one boundary.
Tell yourself one honest truth.
Sit with one feeling instead of numbing it.

You can leave jobs. End relationships. Walk away from environments that don’t work anymore. You cannot leave yourself.

You can keep second-guessing every decision and asking others what to do. Or you can rebuild trust slowly, imperfectly, one choice at a time.

No one else can do this work for you.

Support for Rebuilding Self-Trust

At Healing Arts Center, much of our work centers on helping people rebuild self-trust in practical, grounded ways. This isn’t about forced confidence or positive thinking. It’s about learning how to listen to yourself again, set boundaries you can keep, and stay present with your own experience without abandoning yourself.

This process is allowed to be slow. It’s allowed to include doubt, missteps, and repair. What matters is that you keep showing up for yourself.

You can learn more about our work here:
👉 https://www.healingartsvb.com

If you’d like to explore working together, sessions can be scheduled through Vagaro:
👉 https://www.vagaro.com/healingartscenter

For questions or inquiries, you can also reach us directly at:
📧 info@healingartsvb.com