The Language of Letting Go

[Guest guest]

We Can Trust

Ourselves November

27

For many of us, the issue is not whether we can trust

another person again; it’s

where we can trust our own judgment again.

“The last mistake I made almost cost me my sanity,”

said one recovering woman

who married a sex addict. “I can’t afford

to make another mistake like that.”

Many of us have trusted people who went on to

deceive, abuse, manipulate, or

otherwise exploit us because we trusted them. We may

have found these people

charming, kind, decent. There may have been a small

voice that said, “No – something’s

wrong.” Or we may have been comfortable with

trusting that person and shocked when

we found our instincts were wrong.

The issue may then reverberate through our life for

years. Our trust in others may

have been shaken, but our trust in ourselves may have been

shattered worse.

How could something feel so right, flow so good, and

be such a total mistake?

We may wonder. How can I ever trust my selection

process again, when it showed itself

to be so faulty?

We may never have the answers. I believe I

needed to make certain “mistakes” to

learn critical lessons I’m not certain I would have

otherwise learned. We cannot let our

past interfere with our ability to trust ourselves. We

cannot afford to function with fear.

If we are always making the wrong decision in

business or in love, we may need

to learn why we insist on defeating ourselves.

But most of us do improve. We learn. We

grow from our mistakes. Slowly, in

increments, our relationships improve. Our business

choices improve. Our decisions

about how to handle situations with friends or children

improve. We benefit from our

mistakes. We benefit from our past. And if we

have made mistakes, we needed to make

them in order to learn along the way.

Today, I will let go of my fears about trusting myself

because I made mistakes in the past.

I understand that these fears only serve to impair my

judgment today. I will give my past,

even my mistakes, validity by accepting and being

grateful for it all. I will strive to see

what I’ve gained from my mistakes. I will try

to look at all the good decisions too. I will

keep a watchful eye for improvement, for overall

progress, in my life.

J Matchinsky