Nickles and Dimes: Trust

(Part 1)

Trust. It is earned. Sometimes freely given until required to be revoked, but once it has been damaged...... only the few strong bonds of love can mend it.

Continually strengthened trust is the evidence of investment. One of the dividends that is paid when effort is exerted and maintained and continually present between souls.

And yet, it is fragile. It can take an unintentional act to shatter it.

Loyalty goes hand in hand with trust - and both of those are cultivated, to say, in the soil of the entirety of a being.

But the thing with soil is that it can start strong..... but those in agriculture know, you plan corn in nitrogen rich soil for too many years straight, and the crops will waste away for lack of nutrients in the soil. It's why every few years (we hope) fields that were filled with stalks soon find the low bushy masses of legumes growing in them - refilling the soil with the needed nitrogen naturally.

It is the same for us. What can start off strong in our lives can quickly become co-dependencies - everything from relationships that are full of drama and tear our souls apart, even though we love them dearly; to our jobs; to our civic and volunteer duties that were of good use - over time we can slip into routines that go from healthy to killing us slowly.

And we won't realize it until the aspects of trust in our lives start failing.

Maybe we stop trusting the employees around us that are on our team because we need the added work to keep us from having to deal with the parts of our lives we quietly slip away and if we just go from day to day not knowing what week it is, we never have to come full stop and deal with the reality of how far we've sunk - until we're having a good solid fugly crying metldown at a stoplight on the way home, hoping no one next to us sees us.

Maybe we start second guessing ourselves - decisions we once made without a second thought now become arduous and nearly paralyzing because we aren't sure if the next step is the one we need to make.

Maybe we stop putting ourselves near our closest friends because they'll ask how we are, and look us straight in the eyes - and deep into our souls - and know we aren't ok and refuse to take a bullshit answer when we look away and say we're 'fine', because we're on the brink of breaking and we're too afraid to let them know that. We're not the ones that break. We're the ones holding the broken. The tables cannot be turned for us.

That good soil creates the environment for everything in our lives to thrive, and when it's sucked dry, so goes everything else. Including that bond of trust with ourselves and others.

If we cannot trust ourselves, all other bonds are damaged. Like green peppers in a dish, it taints everything around it, and you can't kill the flavor's saturation, no matter how much you try (even in Thai food's spices).

Trust is the basis for friendship. For partnership. For business. For accelerating and promotion in all areas of life.

If we do not address the environment we've created for ourselves, we will never restock the soil of our lives that have been depleted. And we will always have damaged trust aspects in our lives. And the resulting crops yielded in our lives will be weak, damaged, failing, without nutrition to the body - on any level.

And that, will prevent us from being the greatest assets for ourselves and others. We will miss out on the greatness life has to offer us. Because the beauty that is found on the two-way street of trust is not one to miss.

Be real. Full stop and heal as needed. Reality check our selves so we can find ways to shift and be better - for ourselves and others.

Should not our goal in life to be trusted by those we care for? Should we not look to be the safe place to incubate their dreams?

Part 2 to follow......