“Never trust a person who doesn’t like
chocolate.” Joan R. Neubauer’s statement was the featured quote-of-the day
for today on my desktop calendar. At first glance, I completely agreed with her
sentiment. Not only is chocolate one of my favorite foods and flavors; just
about everyone in my family and many of my friends are self-professed “chocoholics.”
However, I certainly know, work with and trust people who are not that fond of
chocolate. One of my dear friends is even allergic to it; since chocolate makes
her physically sick I imagine she doesn’t like to eat it or anything about it,
but I trust and adore her. So, there is one generalization shot down.
Trust
is a very personal emotion and experience. We tend to trust people we like and
with whom we share common interests and values. We evaluate and make judgments
about people and situations based on the subjective and/or empirical evidence from
those past experiences, or knowns. For
example, if you have a negative experience with someone outside of your regular
social group, you might automatically attribute this unpleasant experience to
the fact that he or she does not like chocolate (or any other factor). But is
this generalization truly accurate or fair? Maybe the true reason you didn’t
get along with this person has nothing to do with a preferred flavor but that
you do not share other values with him or her—or vice versa. Maybe, just maybe,
the other person didn’t trust you because you didn’t share one of his or her
core values, and that value had nothing to do with a sweet treat.
Like
friendship, trust—being trustworthy and trusting—is a two-way street. We learn
through the repetition of that behavior (trusting) and associating the outcome of
that trust (feeling physically and/or emotionally safe) whether the person or
situation is actually trustworthy. When we can and do trust the people with
whom we share important values, they are likely to deserve and reciprocate that
trust. The caveat of this relationship is that repeated exposure to a situation
also creates a known and reliable association (pleasure) between a behavior and
a situation or outcome which is not necessarily comfortable or pleasurable. For example, we often hear
about or even know individuals who continue to return to an emotionally or
physically abusive relationship. Even when we can’t trust a person to behave in
a nurturing way toward us, we may still derive some degree of security from the
fact that we can trust the inconsistency of that relationship. Maybe what we most
want and need is to be able to trust the consistency of someone’s behavior or
the likely outcome of a situation.
It’s
something to think about.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a
certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with
honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more
information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2014
