I have gotten this wrong a lot in my life. Placing my faith precariously in people who were not capable of appreciating the trust and honor it is when someone gives you their word, their heart, access to their interiority...
And I have also been a bad choice in this department, mostly when I was younger and drunk and stupid. I have gotten wiser with the advancing years but I have sometimes failed to appreciate the level of faith and what that actually means in this life.
I have been the hunter and the prey. And of the two, I cannot actually say which is worse. I mean, I would absolutely tell you the hunter was better, but honestly, having had more than my share of this type of behavior, it doesn’t feel all that great either. I mean, my ego loves it, but me, the real me, feels, well not marginally better at all.
I think I see the error of my ways now. I wanted to trust people, to have faith in them, allowing for them to be worthy of the effort, but I also see that I fronted a lot of things to a lot of people who were not worthy of ten minutes of my time, and I allowed them entrance and then a place at my table.
People lie. It is what we do. Some lie indiscriminately. Most do not. In my experience, most of us lie when we are afraid, afraid we will lose something we have or not get something we want. Finding our own balance and stability on that continuum goes a long way to resolving the lying issue. Self respect helps also.
It occurred to me while hiking the other day, the biggest mistake I made for years was that I took your word over my own gut check. Every time I have erroneously placed my faith in someone who proved to be a very poor choice on my part, it was because I allowed their version of reality, their veracity (or lack thereof) to trump my own feelings, intuition to the contrary.
And I cannot explain now why I did this. I mean why would I take your word over my own experience??? Why would I trust you more than I trust myself? But that is exactly what I did for eons. And then I grew up. I stopped having this childish response to life. This child like faith in people whose behavior flew in the face of my own reality. And I began to check myself, and you.
That placed me in this weird and not comfortable place of having to doubt everything and everyone. And I will tell you being the arbiter of everyone else’s truth is not only a full time job, it is exhausting. I had to find another path.
So I made a decision. And it really was a decision. I decided that I would just believe you. I would believe what you say regardless of whether or not it is “true”. And that I would accept at face value the reality others present. Until, until, your reality clashed with mine. Then I was going to believe mine. I don’t need to argue you with you about yours, I am just going to live according to my own and allow you to do the same.
I see now, which I didn’t for a very long time, trust and faith are two things that must first exist within yourself. Without them residing there, they really cannot reside with anyone else. And earlier in my life, I just wanted what I wanted and didn’t really give a shit about the karmic boomerang. Now, being considerably older and having been walloped good by that fucker, I know better.
So the placement of faith in another human being has to come from a place of faith within ourselves. We cannot trust others if we are not trustworthy ourselves. We cannot be faithful and true and honest with others if we accept bullshit from our own interior. And when we are accepting bullshit in our own minds, we are that much more susceptible to accepting it from others.
Today, I see the placement of faith as one of the most spiritual things I can do. And it is a process that takes time. I don’t front people faith anymore because I have faith in myself and therefore kind of treasure the inner peace that brings. I am not willing to give that up anymore, for anyone, ever. And because I have that within me, and am in touch with all the ways I myself have fucked this up, I am better at spotting it in others.
Trust but verify. Not necessarily with outside sources, that is a rabbit hole that I do not enjoy traversing. But verify within yourself whether or not this person that stands before you is worthy of the effort of placing faith. It is a monumental exercise really. I mean, safety, emotional, physical, sexual safety, is perhaps the greatest things we can give to others.
Today I know, without a doubt, providing a feeling of safety to others can only come when I feel it within myself. And that when I make a choice to place my faith in someone else, I am the one responsible for making sure the other person is worth the effort. Faith and safety are inextricably intertwined. And my insistence that this could ever be otherwise, just pure folly.
I know today as I become a more faithful person (it is a daily thing really) I also become a more trustworthy person. And my ability to accurately assess your ability to match my effort increases exponentially. Like attracts like. It is just how it works. So if I want to attract better, I have to be better first.
Again, still...
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