Self Trust: The First Secret to Success
By Jen Louden
I wish I could claim that title as my own, but it’s from the illustrious Ralph Waldo Emerson. It may seem strange to start a post about self-trust with someone else’s words, but trust also means knowing when someone else can say or do it better than you can yourself.
Isn’t it amazingly weird that learning to trust ourselves actually makes us more able to take in useful guidance and learning? When we don’t trust ourselves, we often close down or pretend to know it all because we lack any internal sense of what fits for us and what doesn’t.
We’re living in a time when self-trust is assaulted at every turn. Think about how often you are bombarded with other people’s “expert” opinions, advice, thoughts, and input. There is this unspoken idea floating around that somebody knows better than you. My daughter was watching a reality TV show about dating in which a man told young women how to date. I kept asking her, “Why should they listen to him?” The assumption is that if he is on TV (or on the radio, or on Oprah, or has 100,000 followers on Twitter), then he knows best. When we are overwhelmed and confronted daily with unprecedented amounts of information and change, we grab for whomever and whatever guidance we can get.
There is nothing wrong with outside guidance—except when it is all you get. When everyone else knows better than you, you begin to distrust your own desires, your own opinions, and your own instincts. Not only does that make you vulnerable to late night infomercials promising answers to everything from improving your wrinkles to your sex life, but it is exhausting, which contributes immensely to the feeling of being overwhelmed. It becomes harder and harder to be present and know who you are.
I believe that you know what is best for you. I believe—no, actually I know from working with thousands of women—that by developing trust in what you know, you can build the fulfilling and joyous life you yearn for. It’s hard-wired into your DNA, just the same as your green eyes, love of poppy bagels, and your thicker-than-you’d-like thighs. The trick is to stop dismissing what you know, what you want, what you feel, and to quit thinking someone else knows better.
This idea of self-trust and living a genuine life is a deep one. It’s an idea that I revisit again and again on my blog, in my retreats, and on my membership site, the Comfort Cafe. In fact, one of my life projects is to show women how to find the good in their lives and in themselves, and live that goodness by trusting it daily.
Here are some simple ways to tune into that inner truth, right here and right now:
Turn off the noise. Shut off the TV, log out of the chat rooms, and stop reading the how-to books from the so-called experts. YOU are now the expert in your life. After all, no one knows you better than you know yourself. The first few minutes of quiet—even the first hour—may feel awful. That’s a good sign; keep it up!
Take a break from self-improvement. What if you were okay and perfect and good, right now? What would your life feel like if you didn’t have to change a single thing about yourself? Try to move into that space and own it, if only for a few minutes at a time.
Acknowledge what you know. This may mean, for example, that when you get an uneasy feeling about a new client, you stop and pay attention to it. This may mean that when you have a craving for Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream, you let yourself notice the craving instead of immediately making it wrong. This may mean picking a new pair of shoes without asking for input from your best friend. This may even mean asking yourself throughout the day, “What do I need most right now?” and then acting on that answer, even a tiny bit.
Building self-trust is one of the most radical ways to claim your life and find the good in yourself. It liberates energy, passion, and makes life a whole lot easier. Start by asking yourself right now, “What do I know that I need to do next?” and trust what you hear.
Jen Louden shares her wisdom, gained from 20 years of helping women find the good in their lives, through her blog, retreats, books, and kick-butt coaching. If you would like to find out more about how to build self-trust and live an authentic life, sign up for Jen’s free “Find the Good Booster Pack,” or visit Jen online.
