Build your self-trust with these 3 steps

Welcome, dear human.
Let me tell you about the time I felt so empowered, liberated and lit up when I left a beer festival - where I was actually having a blast - early and how you can build your self-trust and experience this, too. (It will all make sense in a sec. 🙃)

The beer festival was fun. The state my body was in, not so much. And at one point I noticed that I had started hoping with each beer my boyfriend (and the other people we were with) ordered that it would be his last.

Because of the many(!) times I’ve practiced this, whenever I become aware of an internal desire fixated on someone else’s actions, I know there’s some digging to be done. And so it began …

Step 1: Self-trust always starts with some self-honesty

This is step one. Finding the need behind the need. Ask yourself: If I knew for sure this is not my real want or need, what is?

In this case, it was pretty obvious: MY BED. Not any action on my boyfriend’s part or him being able to read my mind or feel my pain. Just me, taking this body of mine home.

Step 2: Express to impress – yourself, that is

Once aware of my real need, the next step was to communicate it. So I did. I let him know that I would be leaving soon, and nobody died, just the people pleaser inside me when he replied that it would be more fun if I stayed.

Step 3: How you actually learn to trust yourself

Onto the last step and the only thing there was left to do: actually leave the festival. Easy, right?

Well … Not that long ago I would have still given my power away by making what happened next completely depend on the (re)action of the other person.

And if there’s just two things you take away from reading this today, I hope it’s 1) that you’re awesome (😙), and 2) that even when we communicate our needs, clearly and respectfully, we are still the ones responsible for getting them met.

So, I kissed my boyfriend goodbye and took myself home – feeling on top of the world.

‘‘I understand now that no one else in the world knows what I should do. The experts don’t know, the ministers, the therapists, the magazines, the authors, my parents, my friends, they don’t know. Not even the folks who love me the most. Because no one has ever lived or will ever live this life I am attempting to live, with my gifts and challenges and past and people.’’

– Glennon Doyle

Integrate these 3 steps into your daily life to build your self-trust, too:

1. Uncovering your actual need (like, do you really need this friend to listen more carefully to your super incoherent story or do you just need a hug?)

2. Communicating THAT need

3. Enlisting the help of ‘me, myself & I’ to get this need met

You’ll not only learn to trust that you can always count on yourself to meet your own needs (which makes life a lot less scary), also, because you’re not secretly blaming them for things that were never their responsibility in the first place, you’ll stay more connected to the people around you (which makes life a lot easier AND much more fun).

PS. Do you like reading stories about me at festivals or do you just want to know how to increase your sense of belonging? Here’s my latest post over at my other publication:

Increasing your sense of belonging with the 3 of Cups