Publications
Partners
- Author and former monk Jay Shetty recently shared his thoughts on trust in an episode of Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk.
- Clinical psychologist Dr Sabrina Romanoff says, "To trust means to rely on another person because you feel safe with them and have confidence that they will not hurt or violate you."
- Trust isn't freely given; it has to be earned.
We often hear, "there is no relationship without trust" perhaps that is why we give trust so quickly when in love.
Clinical psychologist Dr Sabrina Romanoff says, "To trust means to rely on another person because you feel safe with them and have confidence that they will not hurt or violate you. Trust is the foundation of relationships because it allows you to be vulnerable and open up to the person without having to defensively protect yourself."
READ MORE | Falling in love is easy but a good marriage takes work – 15 tips to make it last
Author and former monk Jay Shetty shared his thoughts on trust in a recent episode of Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk. He spoke about the stages of trust that we may blindly experience.
He notes that if we don't start at zero trust, we run the risk of eventually going through heartbreak. When this happens, he says that the challenge of heartbreak is not trying to get over it but understanding how you got there in the first place.
"'I want to get over them', and all the energy goes to that person, and it becomes about them. But if you focus on how you got there. You may find that you fell in love too fast and didn't follow the stages of 'did I know who I was?' 'Did I know who they were?'
READ MORE | 'Why do weddings succeed, but marriages fail?' - 7 things you need to know before you say 'I do'
Four stages of trust, according to Jay:
Zero trust: When you meet someone, no matter how impressive they are, no matter how well-spoken they are, no matter how attractive you think they are, start at zero trust. When we find someone attractive, studies show that we find them more trustworthy. We constantly trick ourselves into trusting people we meet. So, whoever we meet, no matter who it is in the world, we have to start at zero trust.
Transactional trust: When I do something for them, they do something for me. The reason we don't like this is that we want love to be magical. We don't want stages, we just want to feel love, and that is where we make a mistake because we don't want to say, 'I now can trust them transactionally'.
Reciprocal trust: Where it is like, you know when you love this person, you do something for them. You are not doing it to get anything back. They will do something for you anyway.
Unconditional trust: It is so rare and practically does not exist if I am completely honest. And we start there. When we are in love with someone, we give them unconditional trust and now the higher trust you give, the bigger the fall.
Trust isn't freely given; it has to be earned.
