Do you remember back to childhood, and how unsteady you were when learning to ride a bike? How it took a bit to balance, and so you were wobbly at first. Then suddenly you found your groove and balance and you could fly, or so it seemed. Such is self-trust, it’s wobbly at first. For those of us who didn’t come from backgrounds that taught self-knowing, self-trust and self-love it’s an essential trait to develop for a happy life. Self-trust may require development like a muscle. A muscle can be weak until it is worked and developed.
If you let other people make core decisions for you, and then you wonder why you feel unhappy, maybe it is time to develop self-trust. Self-trust takes a beat to learn and requires practice to develop. It may require the development of other traits like self-esteem or self-confidence.
It takes practice and sometimes study to increase our capacity to trust ourselves. You must love yourself and be gentle with yourself through the learning. It doesn’t help in the development of this new ability if you are continually criticising yourself, learn from the mistakes, celebrate the wins. Happiness is found in authenticity and requires truthfulness which requires self-love. See how it goes?
Self-trust is the result of working on yourself in a specific area and then growing that. You may have self-trust in one area of your life and not another. For example, you may trust yourself professionally and not personally, and that may show up in your life as discontent. So, if you are ready for more personal congruency, develop self-trust.
Self-trust looks like checking in with yourself, to see how something fits you, whether it be a friend or a dress. It is letting your truth live. It is less people pleasing and more pleasing yourself while considering the impact of your decision on self and others. It is trusting yourself to make decisions that are congruent. It’s knowing you have the power, and it has been inside all along. Start small, and as you are able begin stretching into harder decisions while staying connected to yourself. Wait to decide when you feel disconnected. One of my favorite phrases to pause is let me sit with it.
Learn to commune with yourself, for it is in that communion that you will find your truth. If you want your truth to rise, you must befriend it. One question I always ask myself is how this feels in my body, am I feeling tense at the thought, or relaxed. How does my gut feel, is it worried or calm.
Self-trust requires developing a relationship with yourself. The more real your relationship the more congruent your decisions. It works like a muscle, the more you understand your anatomy, the greater the likelihood your practice will develop your muscle as intended. The more you understand yourself, the more congruent your choices, the happier you become, and this creates more self-trust; interesting how that works.
Copyright L. Kay Smith 2025
Used with Permission, New Moon Sisters Inc./New Moon Sisters Digest
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