And right now, I am not talking about the obvious kind of trust we look for in our significant other not to cheat on us.
There is another kind of trust that we don’t really consider:
Trust that a two year old will have a tantrum because while he knows what he wants, he doesn’t have the language or the tools to fully express them yet, or because his parent is too preoccupied with something else and he needs to feel seen.
Trust that when a teenager thinks her parents may get really angry about something, she may lie about it. It doesn’t mean she can’t ever be trusted again. We’ve all done this, as teenagers, and as adults.
Trust that that person’s initial response to any non-positive feedback will be to get overly defensive only to open up to it the next day but also never admit to it.
You can trust a person to be who they are, or to be their habitual self. There are rarely surprises once you understand that, and you get to decide what you will do with that and stop losing your mind every time it happens.
You don’t have to take it. But understand also that most toddlers behave a certain way, and most teenagers do too. And so do most significant others. And friends. The difference is in how you decide to shift the situation based on the information you have. It’s in understanding that you have more control than you think.
Savitree Kaur 