One hundred and sixty-two years ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his famous essay “Self-Reliance,” a treatise on the crucial importance of self-trust. Here's a bit of it: “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. . . . Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. . . . I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. . . . My life is for myself and not for a spectacle. . . . Insist on yourself; never imitate. . . . Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
Inspiring words, but somewhere along the way from then to now, we've lost our sense of their importance. So much so that when I proposed self-trust as the topic for this book, some people questioned whether it was a concept that readers would even understand! We have been so indoctrinated into looking outside ourselves for the answers and to consider ourselves unreliable that we have very limited notions of what it means to approach life from this perspective. As author Jaya Sarada writes, “You can observe how deeply conditioned the self is to seek the stamp of approval from outside sources. From an early age we are told we are good or bad according to the judgments of others, so life begins a cycle of imitation.”
Given the training we've had in listening to everyone but ourselves and believing we are broken and bad, how do we begin? We start by understanding that the capacity to trust ourselves is not a fixed state we either have or don't, like straight hair or violet eyes. Rather it is a quality of heart and mind we can cultivate. Like a muscle, it grows or shrinks with practice. Trusting ourselves will wax and wane depending on life's challenges. For each of us, particular things will shake our sense of self-trust, but each time we realize we've lost faith in ourselves, we can incorporate what we learn and grow our capacity to trust ourselves more.
To begin to cultivate greater trust of ourselves, we must turn inward and look at ourselves without fearing what we will discover, without minimizing our gifts—oh, that old thing—or beating ourselves up for our learned self-destructive patterns. The good news is that we can begin right where we are, as we are. It doesn't matter how much the world has told you you're wrong, stupid, screwed-up. You don't need to bring anything except all of who you are, because every scrap can be used on behalf of what you want in your life and who you want to become.
The Promise of Trusting Ourselves
To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you that you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Unlike the other virtues I have written about—kindness, gratitude, generosity, patience—self-trust is not something I went in conscious search of. Rather, like the rest of us, I was focused on my flaws and looking to be cured of what was wrong with me—my worrying, my fear of the future, my inability to be alone with my feelings. Therapy helped a lot—now I understood why I had the problems I did—but I still suffered from and with these issues.
Then I met a wise woman named Dawna Markova. She uses what she calls an asset-focused approach to life, which is about looking at what is right and strengthening that, rather than focusing on what's wrong. I have studied and worked with her for almost fifteen years now, and this approach is now virtually part of my DNA. I use it for myself, with family and friends, and with the executives with whom I am privileged to be a thinking partner. This book is my understanding of her approach as it applies to adult happiness and well-being, and many of the concepts and practices originated with her.
Looking back on what has happened to me over the past fifteen years, I see that I've really been on a journey of coming to more and more deeply trust myself. And with such trust, I am more peaceful, more joyful, more worry free. I'm more comfortable being with myself and by myself. I'm living more in alignment with what deeply matters to me, more able to make decisions for myself. I'm much less overwhelmed by life. And when it all does get to be too much, I know what I need to do to get back on track. It's also easier for me to accept others for who they are and not condemn their choices, values, or attitudes.
Trusting ourselves offers many other rewards. The one that's been most freeing for me is that I can stop trying to control life and instead place my faith in my capacity to respond to it.
What an immense relief! Rather than fretting over everything, we're able to move through life with confidence that we can handle whatever comes at us. Life is exciting rather than threatening because we know what we want to say yes to and do it often. We also know we have worthwhile gifts to offer others. So we reach out in delight to give what is ours to give, do what is ours to do.
Trusting ourselves also helps when we go through difficult inner times. We learn we can survive—depression, sorrow, a sense of meaninglessness—and we learn what helped us make it, so when hard times come again, we're better prepared. We aren't afraid to stop moving and just be with ourselves because we know ourselves to be a source of wisdom. Our feelings are no longer so threatening to us, and we are able to serve as guides and mentors to others who suffer.
I believe that the same rewards can happen for you when you make this inner shift. You'll know you trust yourself when you feel less tense and more positive, when you feel lightness in your daily circumstances, when you feel more accepting of yourself and others, when life is less drudgery and more joy filled. But don't take my word for it—try a few of the attitudes and practices in this book and see for yourself. It's your capacity to trust yourself that interests me, not your trusting me.
If there is a through line in my life, both personally and as a writer, it is to identify and develop those qualities that help us grow individually and collectively in wisdom and love. That's ultimately why I'm so interested in self-trust. “Wisdom,” Buddhist monk Khandro Rinpoche says, “is innate in us; it is not something that can be bought, heard, or received from the outside.” In other words, we must look within to find it. It can't come from anyone but us. Without self-trust, we can never become wise because we will continue to look outside ourselves for the answer. As for love, it is only when we are grounded in our own beingness, comfortable with who and what we are, that we can enter into a truly loving encounter with another human being. Otherwise we are using the other person to meet our needs for security or approval rather than entering fully into the soul-growing encounter that a real loving relationship promises.
Ultimately, the greatest rewards of trusting ourselves are to be found at the soul level, the place where we are called to discover and express the wholeness of who we are for the benefit of all. “A self is made, not given,” says author Barbara Myerhoff. “It is a creative and active process of attending a life that must be heard, shaped, seen, said aloud into the world, finally enacted, and woven into the lives of others.” We can't do that if we are looking outside ourselves for the answers. As that wise man Carl Jung once said, “He who looks outside dreams. He who looks inside wakes.”
This book is an invitation to look inside in a new way and awaken. Not to detail what is wrong, but to come to deeply treasure what is right. And to use what you discover to make your way more happily in life and to offer the gifts that only you can provide. For the more you trust yourselves, the more you will know just what your place in the grand design of life is and what your matchless contribution might be.
TWO
The Gifts of Trusting Yourself
Doest thou reckon thyself only a puny form When within thee the universe is folded?
—Imam