 Good morning, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thanks so much for joining me here today. Trust is a fun word. It's a painful word. It's a wonderful thing. It's a miserable, heartbreaking, life-giving thing. I wanted to talk a little bit about why I still trust people today, because like you probably watching this video, I've got some trust issues. And whenever I say that, I feel like the most cliche, unspecial person in the entire universe because I kind of believe that we all have trust issues because once you've lived past the age of 12, someone's betrayed you, someone's hurt you, someone's shattered your confidence. When you told them something, they told someone else they weren't supposed to or a lot worse. I mean, we've all had bad experiences with trusting someone and something goes wrong, especially those of us who have experienced trauma at the hands of someone else or anything along those lines. Trust becomes this really sticky, difficult, sometimes ugly subject. I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other night where in the middle of the conversation he asked me, why would you ever trust anyone? Like legitimately, what's your rationale for ever trusting anyone on the planet? Because basically you can never know anyone. And the thing is, that's accurate. I don't think you can ever know anyone. I don't think I know anyone around me fully. But there's one thing that I've learned over the past few years that I try to put into practice and it's the only reason that I still trust anyone even after multiple negative experiences with trusting people. So let's talk a little bit about that. I never know really how to tell this story because it's the only one that I'm not comfortable giving specific details of here on the internet. I've mentioned this in passing before, but as many of you guys know, I was sexually assaulted by someone just about eight or nine years ago. And there was a lot of trust broken in that situation because it was someone that I knew. And then there was a lot of trust broken after the fact with other people that I knew not knowing how to properly handle it and not treating me the greatest. So it took a few years of going through therapy, of recovering, of getting back to a place where where I trusted some people around me, I trusted family members. I was in a great relationship with my now husband and trust was kind of repairing. It was healing. I was thinking maybe I can do this thing. And then something happened with a mentor of mine, someone who was very close to me during that whole healing and recovery process where I found out he was not the person I thought he was to say the very, very least was a predator himself. He didn't perpetrate anything against me, but it's a very complicated, difficult story. And a number of people who were extraordinarily close to me fractured my trust at that point as well. And the summer after that, which is a summer I've mentioned before where I got to perhaps the darkest place in my life, I pretty much resolved to never freaking trust any human soul ever again, because all of the people I had placed an immense amount of trust and confidence and everything in hurt me so badly. I trusted my husband at that point kind of out of a matter of necessity and like I trusted him because he's trustworthy, but also there was no one else around me that I felt like I really could trust or really knew just because I thought I knew this person and everything went to shit. That summer I got to the darkest place I'd ever found myself in. I was sitting there thinking nothing is safe, no one is safe, no one will ever be safe. I will never be safe and nothing and no one is trustworthy. And that mindset, that feeling became so incredibly suffocating and isolating, it honestly felt like there wasn't any reason to stick around here anymore. And I've talked about this before as well, but that's when I took getting help really seriously. I talked with my husband about what was going on in an honest way, which was terrifying to do, was very painful to talk about the darkness that I was experiencing. And then I was very serious about getting professional help as well. And over the next few months, you know, I talked through a lot of things, I worked through a lot of things, but trust was kind of always at the back of my mind of how am I ever going to repair this because I know the truth now, right? I know the truth that no one and nothing is trustworthy and no one and nothing is safe. So how can I ever close my eyes to that? Like that seems like the stupidest possible thing to do because I now know it. It felt like almost betraying myself to try to trust anybody else. If I ever had a moment where I was comfortable with someone, I wanted to like slap myself and be like, what are you doing, Joe? How would you be so dumb? How would you be so stupid as to place a tiny amount of trust in this person? What I have come to realize and a principle that I now live by is, well, frankly, that's true. You don't ever know anyone. Trusting people can often lead to a lot of hurt and a lot of pain and can leave you feeling broken and shattered. However, when I didn't trust anyone, I also didn't want to live. I also didn't want to be here anymore because there was no way I could feel connected to anyone if I was always questioning every single thing that they did and always being on guard, always keeping myself safe and keeping myself safe. I sacrificed all joy, all happiness, anything worth sticking around for. So what I've come to realize is that trust is a very conscious choice. I didn't used to think about it that way. I thought that it was something that just sort of happened like you trust someone and you don't trust someone, right? It's just something you feel. And I think gut instinct comes into play often, but at the end of the day, trusting someone is an incredibly conscious choice for me. If I am spending time with you, if I am telling you details about my life that could be used against me or could be painful, it's not something I do offhand. It's something that I do fully knowing this could lead to hurt, fully knowing that I am putting myself at risk here, that this is a point of vulnerability. But all I can do, all any of us can do is look at a situation, assess it given the details that we have and hope that someone doesn't hurt us with it. It's really hard to trust yourself, to look at the information you have about someone and decide that you're going to trust them because you've been wrong before, but it's something that I've had to practice and make myself do sometimes because I don't want to live life disconnected from everybody. I don't want to live life feeling like nothing and no one will ever be safe. And that's something I haven't quite figured out yet, but I'm working on it. I don't want to live life being untrusting. I think I do a good job of making everyone think that I trust them, even if I don't. And I don't want to go through life faking it. I actually want to build connections with people, build relationships. I want to practice vulnerability and deepen connections. I don't want to get hurt again. I don't want to be wrong again, but it's a risk that I personally feel like I have to accept if I want to live a life that I actually want to be around for. The reality that I can't ever close my eyes to is that trust is not safe. It's the opposite of that. It's a risk. It's a chinking your armor. It's an area where someone could hurt you. But at the same time, where you trust people, where you exercise vulnerability, where you put yourself out there is also the biggest potential for joy, for growth, for real connection, for those moments that make you feel human and alive and like maybe things will be okay and like maybe people don't suck. I want to experience those moments. And so when I trust someone, it is a choice that I think through and I realize it's not a given. I realize it's a point where I could get hurt at, but it's a risk that I'm willing to take. Like I said, I go off of gut instinct mixed with the information that I have about someone and make the best guess that I can. I sort of think that that's all any of us can do. You look at the situation from the information you have at that time and decide if you want to trust someone with whatever it is. It's really difficult to do, especially when you've been hurt, as most of us have been to some degree. But I personally think it's a choice worth making. I think it's worth choosing to trust. I think it's worth choosing to be vulnerable, even if you get really, really hurt sometimes. I think it's what makes us human to some extent. And that's how I have started looking at trust. Let me know how that sounds to you. I'm honestly curious. It's not something I've talked about a whole lot, but it's a principle I do try to live my life by. I'm still very guarded with people and with myself, but I'm trying to slowly, gently, hopefully, compassionately towards myself work on that. So how do you look at trust? Is trust something you think about? Is it something people have to earn? Is it something that's just given? I know people have all different kinds of mindsets and beliefs around this, and I would really like to hear what yours is. I'm always open to expanding my definition of trust and how I view it. So let me know in the comment section down below if you feel like it or send me a message over on Instagram. I read all of them. I do not have a chance to respond to all of them, but I do my very best. Thank you guys for spending a few minutes out of your day here listening to me today. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything, and you chose to hang out with me for a little while, and I really appreciate that. Huge thank you to all my patrons over on Patreon for all you do for me, for the support that you give me in many forms. I'm very grateful for it. Thank you. I hope you're hanging in there. I hope you're staying safe and healthy wherever you are. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you, and I will see you in the next video. Bye, guys.