This week we will return to the Unlocking Us podcast by Brené Brown. The episode on trust caught our attention in particular.
https://brenebrown.com/podcast/the-anatomy-of-trust
Brené begins by expressing her gratitude to her guest, a member of the podcast team. She then transitions to introducing the topic: the anatomy of trust.
She highlights the utility of breaking down the different elements and behaviours of trust. Trust as a bigger concept can be difficult to understand, so breaking it down into smaller pieces can help us know it better.
Brené tells the story of her daughter coming home from school and breaking into tears, as her friends had shared very personal and vulnerable information with her classmates, who then teased her. Her daughter then looked at Brené and said that she would never trust anyone ever again.
After recalling all of the emotions she felt upon hearing this, Brené then wondered how to explain trust to her daughter, who was in grade 3 at the time. She explains the building of trust between two people through the accumulation of little kindnesses.
While Brené wanted trust to be a broader, grander thing, through her research she found that trust is built in very small moments. Two of these moments that really stood out within the data were a trust of those who attended a loved one’s funeral, and of those who asked for help when they needed it.
In defining trust, Brené looks to the work of Charles Feltman, who described trust as choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else. Distrust, then, is having something that is important to you and you have shared not being safe.
From this, Brené developed an acronym for the parts of trust: BRAVING
B – boundaries – clear about own and other’s boundaries and hold them and respect them
R – reliability – do what they say they are going to do over and over again
A – accountability – when a mistake is made, they are willing to own it, apologise, and make amends, and you are able to do the same when you make a mistake
V – vault – what is shared is held in confidence, both your secrets and all others
I – integrity – they act from a place of integrity and encourage you to do the same
N – non-judgment – able to fall apart and ask for help without judgment
G – generosity – you can assume the most generous thing about their words, intentions, and behaviours, and check in with them
By breaking trust down into these components, we are able to understand both trust as a whole, and the points in a relationship that lead to a failure of trust.
This also applies to self-trust. Trust in relationships with others is braving connection. Trust in our relationship with ourself is braving self-love and self-respect.
Self-trust is a vital place to start. If you can’t count on yourself, it is more difficult to count on others.
Brené ends with this message. We can’t ask others to give to us something we do not believe we are worthy of receiving. You will know you are worthy of receiving it, when you trust yourself above everyone else.
Thank you for joining us for this week’s blog.
Wishing you a wonderful week,
TCS Team
Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@marekpiwnicki
