We talk about self-care, self-love, self-acceptance.
What about self-trust?

Do you struggle with self-love, self-care or self-acceptance?

You see people talk about it on social media, your friends talk about it, but you just don’t feel it for yourself. You know you should love and accept yourself, but you don’t FEEL it.

I get it, self-love, self-care and self-acceptance don’t always come easily.

Let’s look at it from another perspective.

Self-love, self-care, self-acceptance is about the relationship you have with yourself. And sometimes relationships are hard, even our relationship with our self or ESPECIALLY our relationship with our self.

Let’s check in.

How is your relationship with yourself? Is it one that you work on? Do you check in with yourself when you’re not well? Do you express love or gratitude for yourself? Do you nurture your relationship? Do you trust yourself?

Asking that last part again, do you trust yourself?

You know that relationships without trust are a challenge. Some would say that there is no relationship without trust.

Why do we leave out self-trust when talking about self-love, self-care or self-acceptance? We should begin talking about our relationship with our self by talking about self-trust.

Instead of focusing on self-care, self-love and self-acceptance and skipping the trust part of the relationship, let’s step back and consider this:  Are you’re challenged to love yourself because you don’t trust yourself?

Maybe your challenge isn’t self-love, self-care or self-acceptance. Maybe it’s that you don’t trust yourself because you have yet to create that part of the relationship with yourself.

What is trust? 

Recently, I heard Brene Brown talking about the definition of trust. She was talking about it in the context of our relationships with others. But I also think that her definition applies to our relationship with our self.

Brene Brown uses the word BRAVING as an acronym to describe what trust is:

B – boundaries to your time and energy must be set and honored for yourself

R – reliability, be reliable and show up for yourself

A – accountability, hold yourself accountable for your actions towards yourself

V – vault, what goes in the vault stays in the vault

I – integrity, show up fully and wholly for yourself

N – non-judgmental, stop judging yourself internally and externally

G – generosity, be generous with yourself, for yourself

Let’s go a little deeper by considering these questions:

Boundaries - Are you setting boundaries with others for your time and energy? Do you honor the boundaries that you set?

Reliability – Do you reliably show up for yourself? Do you keep promises to yourself?

Accountability – Do you hold yourself accountable for your actions towards yourself?

Vault – Do you protect yourself? Do you have a sacred inner space to be in?

Integrity – Are you showing up for yourself fully, wholly, consistently?

Non-judgmental – Do you judge yourself? Do you have a judgmental inner dialogue?  

Generosity – Are you generous with yourself? Do you give of yourself to yourself freely?

What did you learn about yourself by considering these questions? Are there areas of your relationship with yourself that you can improve upon?

Maybe what we’ve been missing in the self-love, self-care, self-acceptance realm is that the relationship with self must begin with self-trust.

What can you do today that will foster trust in yourself?

Be well,

Nikki