Trust, like loyalty, was something I gave to someone fully or not at all. It was another way I showed that I loved someone. I bestowed trust upon someone based on our relationship type. I believed that I was supposed to trust family fully, friends somewhat, community members less and strangers not at all. Without an alternate framework, I was at a loss as to my next step.
Allah is amazing.
He gave me one.
Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, who has studied courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy for over the past two decades. Her books and talks are funny and amazing. Out of some of her research, she found what makes up trust and how we determine or discern whether someone is trustworthy. We unconsciously look to see to what degree a person is:
Boundaried: a person is able to not take things personally. Does this person have boundaries? Do they know where they end and I begin and where I end and they begin? Can they respect the space between us, or do they attempt to merge or enmesh? Do they hold their line or are they wishy-washy with their boundaries? Brené Brown says “There is no trust without boundaries” – a clear and strong statement.
Reliable: does a person follow through on what they say they’ll do? Repeatedly. Consistently. Can I count on this person?
Accountable: does this person take responsibility for their failures and successes? Do they own their mistakes to me, and address them? Or do they pretend like nothing happened and expect you to do the same? Am I allowed to do the same with this person?
Vault: a person respects privacy. Do they share other people’s private information? If so, they likely will share my private information as well with others. Gossip, backbiting, and slander fall into this category.
Integrity: a person respects their own code of conduct. If this person believes lying is unconscionable, then does this person refrain from lying in their own life? Does this person live in integrity with their own value system? Or are they hippocrites?
Brene Brown’s definition of integrity:
Choosing courage over comfort
Choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast or easy
Practicing your values, not just professing your values
Non-Judgmental: am I emotionally safe to share my reality with this person, or will they judge, or criticize me? Is my reality accepted as my reality or will this person attempt to “fix me” or show me how wrong I am according to their beliefs and value system? Do they know and ask for my help too? Do they feel and know they are not judged by me as well.
Generous: a person is emotionally generous. Does this person see and accept how much I care? If so, do they assume the best of my intentions? They’ll know I didn’t mean to forget their birthday, and even address it because they know I care and would have totally wished them a happy birthday if I could have been more present to what’s going on. This isn’t about material generosity, such as generosity with money.
Brené Brown is so great, she even presents an acronym to help remember these basic factors of trust: BRAVING: Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Non-Judgment, Generosity.
When I first watched her video, “Anatomy of Trust” it broke my heart and kind of emotionally destroyed me. It hurt to come face to face with the reality, again and in yet a new way, that the people who were supposed to help, nurture, support and protect me, were the people who I needed protecting from. I was raised and trained to trust based on relationship type. But what do you do when your trusted clan are the one who betrays you? I had no answers until I watched this video. Family members, for instance, are like anybody else. Family members are human and make human choices. To treat them otherwise is a fantasy. So, family members, like anyone else, start on the same field as everyone else to earn and build trust.
family members
for instance, are like anybody else. Family members are human and make human choices. To treat them otherwise is a fantasy.
What if a family member, or two, are just flat out not trustworthy? As a Muslim, I was clear, I didn’t have permission to cut my family out of my life. Slowly, one step at a time, I had to learn to accept them and where they were at, readjust my expectations, grieve the loss of the hopes and dreams that someday it would be different and learn to live in the gray with it. No one is perfectly trustworthy, except Allah, and no one is perfectly untrustworthy, except Iblis. Every other relationship must exist in the gray. Some darker gray, some lighter gray. If I want to learn to live in what Allah has made, in reality, I need to accept that. If I don’t, I’ll continue to build friendships, even romantic relationships, with people that are not trustworthy, because that’s what I consistently did before doing all this work.
Just five years later, after really taking this information to heart, I am surrounded by amazing, loving and supportive people. No one criticizes me. I don’t experience other’s judgment, nor any shaming behavior. Even in historically toxic relationships, I’m treated with significantly more respect and there’s some level of acceptance that I live by a different value system than them. I have grieved a lot and I continue to process self-betrayal at all the behavior I used to tolerate, and even believed I deserved. That gives me ample opportunities to practice self-forgiveness, self-compassion, mercy and self-love.
When some people from my past came after me legally, and continuously attacked my character for money (money I didn’t even have), it didn’t destroy me or tear my world apart like it would have in the past. Yes, it hurt, but they hadn’t earned my trust to have access to my inner world, so I wasn’t destroyed by their betrayal. I processed the pain and whatever it brought up. Then I learned about evil. Their behavior had nothing to do with me, and there was enough space for me to see it. My healthy support system helped remind me, and my spiritual practices kept me on track, looking in the right direction, at Allah, at actions that please Him and toward the love in my life. I turned my attention away from the hate.
This information continues to empower me to make loving choices in my life. I believe it can do the same for you.
Peace and Light,
Mariam-Saba
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