Little Miss Can't Be Trusted

If you've read any of these last few blog posts you know that I've been strolling through my mind and digging up things that have been hibernating just below the surface. I have been working with Jessica Tomlinson to help discover how to bring my big meaningful dreams into the world. One of the first things we did in Bali was release the self-limiting, bitchy name calling voices in our minds that try to tell us we don't deserve to even have a big dream, and even if we did it isn't a good enough dream to have in the first place. I never really grasped the intimate, co-dependent relationship I had with my "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" ego, until these last few weeks. I thought she was the one who protected me for years with her various, mean spirited whispers :
"You are not the pretty girl. You're the funny one." (that's why you're alone, so it makes sense)
"You're not smart enough to have anything but an Associate's Degree." (I wouldn't even get into a BSN or MSN program anyway)
"Moving will be good because no one really considers me a friend in the first place." (I've been here for 3 years and I don't have close enough friends to exchange Christmas gifts with or who would want to help me if I needed something.)
"Maybe you should get a new job so that no one realizes you don't know everything." (One of these days someone will ask me something and I'll be expected to know the answer, but I won't)
"Sure, start writing that book, just like all the other ones you never finished." (Just like everything else you get excited about that goes nowhere, no reason to waste my time)
"No one would want to publish it anyway so you might as well stop writing that book." (They won't publish a new author unless the author has 2 or 3 manuscripts ready and I can't even finish one)

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong was the protector of my deepest fears, validating them and helping me foster these beliefs so that I would be prepared for the "I told you so" moments that inevitably always popped up because I was stupid enough to go against that bitch.

Do you know what "I told you so" means in my mind? It means I can't trust you. It means that I can't be trusted to make important decisions because they always end badly. Do you know what it means to me to hear "I don't trust you" in my mind? It means I can't love you.
And I wonder why I have had such bad depressive episodes.
And why I have believed for so long that I would never deserve a really good man to have and to hold from this day forward.
Why, now, I believe that I have never had children.
Do you know what it means in my mind to have no self-trust? It means I can't trust anyone else either.
It explains why my 2 closest friends live 3 -4 hour plane rides away, and not down the street.

Which is why Little Miss Can't Be Wrong was my best friend and constant companion for so, so long. She was the only 'person' I could trust.
Until I met God.
Charles Feltman says "Trust is choosing to make something that is important to you, vulnerable to the actions of someone else."
Brene Brown's research on trust shows that trust is built in the little, small moments. Of course there are the big moments-the moments when someone you trust answers "Yes, I'll come" when you call her during your darkest moments. Smaller moments like getting an apology when it is deserved. It's being able to apologize when you should and knowing that the other person truly forgives you. It's seeing in action what someone professes. It's broken when someone you shared things in confidence, tells you something that was told in confidence by someone else. It's saving a seat. Calling on your birthday. Knowing what your deepest heartbreaks are and making a point to be available when one might arise. It is built when someone is vulnerably honest. It's built when someone gives you the benefit of a doubt when you might have acted badly toward them.
A lot of these examples come from Brene Brown's Supersoul Sunday talk about Trust. She does not mention God.
Faith and trust- I think of faith as a belief in something unproven. Putting faith in God is such a difficult thing to do, I think, because of the belief that all that we assume we know, we assume is true. But faith quickly becomes trust when you live in God's word because you see His work in your life.
This healing insight is a manifestation of my trust in God. As vulnerability uncovered shame and shame uncovered trust I always had what I needed to understand, around these concepts, delivered straight to me. And that is good to my soul.
In praise of Him,
B.