There are four different dimensions to Trust

Second part of "To Trust is to Risk" entry...

THE author Ravi Dykema has an excellent piece of advice for those who are thinking of getting into a serious relationship: “If you were about to get on a ship and you knew that there was a better than even chance it would sink, wouldn’t you interview the captain first? Wouldn’t you make sure the lifeboats were in shape and have a working life preserver with you just in case there was a disaster? The same is true of romantic relationships. If you know there’s one out of two chances that your marriage will end in divorce, then it makes sense to protect yourself financially, sexually and emotionally.”

That makes sense, but you might even decide to check out other ways of getting what you want (happiness). In short, romantic relationships, even the most solid ones, entail risks. The kind of risks you take will be based on your trust level. If your judgement is correct, you stand a better chance of winning in the end. If, on the other hand, you decide to throw the dice, you could end up a very unhappy person.

Understand that trust takes time. Even the wolf in sheep’s clothing can look good at first glance. First impressions can be very far from reality. All of us are quite good at hiding our true self. We have years of experience at covering what might turn others off and projecting the good that is in each of us. So, the longer you know a person, the better are the chances that your trust will be vindicated.

There are four different dimensions to trust. The first is perfect trust, which we give to our caregivers, our parents when we are little children. We trust them perfectly because we believe everything they tell us. We trust that what they do to us and for us will benefit us.

As we grow through childhood, however, we learn that those we trusted did not always keep our trust. There were times when our trust was betrayed. The perfect trust we exhibited as little children is gone. Now we move to a lower level of trust. It is called damaged trust. When those we love betray our trust by lying to us, withholding vital information, sending us mixed signals, refuse to negotiate with us and deal with us, in insincere and dishonest ways, our trust is damaged, but still intact.

When, however, a trusted one behaves in a totally unacceptable way, then our trust is broken. It is called a devastated trust. Devastated trust causes a serious crises. It creates a deeply hurtful wound that bleeds emotionally and threatens to completely destroy what was once a good relationship.

Under the right circumstances, devastated trust can be restored. Then it is called restored trust. It is always difficult to restore lost trust. The awful memories and excruciating emotional pain conspire against rebuilding a broken trust. If that fails, then it’s over forever. The relationship is something of the past.

To trust is to risk

I got this article from "The Manila Times" by Bob Garon... I really like every entry of his articles because it has a real meaning... Try to read...

First part:

TRUST. It is the foundation of love. When trust is guarded and kept well, love grows by leaps and bounds. When it fails, the relationship is in danger of collapsing.

When you trust someone, you are saying to him that you feel safe and secure with him. When your trust is betrayed, you suddenly feel insecured and you become fearful of losing the friendship, the love that you have invested in so sincerely. When your trust is damaged, love begins to shake and become unwieldy. You don’t know which way it will go. Can you repair a damaged trust? If so, your love can get back on track. If not, the future of your friendship, your love too will look bleak.

To trust is to risk. All of us who have lived have experienced the betrayal of trust at one time or another. And the memory of a betrayed trust is deeply painful. So, when you get close to someone you care for, you are taking a risk of being rejected, of being fooled.

Perhaps you believe that this person is a high risk, but your love, your feelings of affection are so strong that you are more than willing to take the chance of being betrayed. Even if those who love you are warning you that you will most likely get hurt, you insist that the returns are worth the risks. So you go ahead and open yourself to the one you love. You trust him and make yourself vulnerable to him.

Sometimes trust is the result of knowing the person over a period of time. At other times, however, trust is instinctive. You hardly know the person and, before you can pronounce his name, you trust him. It’s trust at first sight.

It may happen that trusting too quickly ends up in a disaster for you. The guy you thought was so nice ends up being a beast. But it often happens too that the person you have known a long time ago also betrays your trust. You are stunned and shocked because you were so sure of him and yet so wrong about him.

Trusting is not a science where the outcomes can easily be predicted. It is more of an art where intuition, born of experience about how people behave, is most important.

Then again, there are different levels of trust. At the beginning of a relationship, the trust level is low. Both friends are careful about making themselves too vulnerable. They dance around and try to make a judgment about whether or not they should risk increasing the trust level by exposing themselves even more to possible betrayal.

The direct opposite, the destroyer of trust is betrayal. And that is what everyone is afraid of. We fear rejection. We choose carefully what we say what we don’t say. When the level of trust is low, we are very calculating with our words and actions. As the level of trust rises, however, we can relax and reflect more of our true selves.

Me and my couz glad's

This was taken last weekEnd when I and glad'z was at the js gaisano... Look at our smiles???...

We were then at the food court. . . since we love to eat... hehehe

Shouldn't have notice??? we make it sure, that were wearing our cutest smiles... isn't it?

Getting bored at the house so we decided to go out and have some fun..... Try to look at the pics, were so happy...

Cutting words can hurt more than sticks and stones

While I was in the middle of my blogging, I came across this article written by Bob Garon.... I just wanna share....

ISN’T it amazing how a few hurting words have the power to make us sad? How a cutting remark can turn a beautiful morning into a dark and cloudy day? Isn’t it strange how one person’s words can affect the life of another so strongly and so quickly. In the wink of an eye, you can go from happy to sad just because somebody hits you with a word that cuts into your heart.

Worse, what is said to you might be completely off the wall, but still, you get hurt and are having the greatest difficulty shaking off the pain and getting yourself back on track. If you’re not careful and you cannot contain the damage to your self-esteem, you might even strike out and hit a few innocents (even loved ones) with a few choice of words of your own because of your anger toward the one who offended you.

I think we can handle all kinds of pain better than we can deal with hurting words aimed at our self-esteem. We can suffer physically and bear the pain more graciously than we can the emotional darts that people (especially those who mean much to us) throw at us. Hardest of all to bear is the sharp put down remark from the person we love most. That hurts like a knife in the heart.

What I want to focus on at this time are those hurting words that come from strangers and people we do not hold in high regard. We need to talk to ourselves and not allow ourselves to get knocked overboard by people who don’t mean very much to us and whose remarks lack truth and insight.

Remember that often people who hit you are the ones with problems. This is why, in order to protect yourself from needless hurt, you have to look carefully at who is the one who is speaking the offensive words and where is he is coming from.

I remember a friend of mine who had a picture of our family displayed in his little store. He told me that some of his friends expressed some negative remarks about me when they saw the picture.
“Are they using drugs,” I asked? When he told me they were, I understood and smiled. My work in the field of drug addiction has not endeared me to addicts. I was not offended.

So look at the source of the hurtful words and think of the reasons behind them. That could quickly ease if not totally erase the initial pain. If the sharp remark comes from one you love, its best to sit with the person soonest and explore more fully what it is all about. If you need to apologize, do it quickly and sincerely. The pain you feel will soon fade. If your friend or beloved accepts that his words were not fair and says sorry, then your hurt will also ease and the whole unpleasant episode might even cause you to bond even more because of it all.

It is important to guard against hurtful words and sort them out to be able to make sense of them if we cannot avoid them. Mostly though, we need to understand just how great is their potential to hurt us and then take measures to deal more effectively with them.