Discovering Holistic Trust in “The Other”
Artist Credit: Elena Khomoutova
The Choice of Healthy Mutuality
Practicing Community – Part Four
Deep community cannot happen without trust. And trust is a tricky thing. How do we choose who to trust? How is trust built? What if we over-trust and naïvely subject ourselves to something harmful? What degree of trust is appropriate for relationships in spiritual community?
It is most often the case that trust comes in degrees and builds over time. We are regularly, consciously or not, gauging situations and judging whether or not they are safe, whether a person is trustworthy, and whether to take a step forward or a step back. Our instinctual encounters with “others” often come from a default place of caution, perhaps even mistrust.
And we often have good reasons for this. We have been hurt before and we don’t want to be naïve. Our evolutionary conditioning of threat assessment continues to serve us well in our lives in many ways. But we won’t make it very far into practicing community if this is our standard, default posture.
Stepping into community is always a movement of vulnerability. This requires us to be with our fear of “the other” and the unknown, while also embracing the risk that comes whenever we put ourselves out there, whenever we choose to love, whenever we open up. This is a step of faith.
Faith is akin to trust, but welcomes the unknown and the unproven. We should be discerning in where we place our faith, but our steps forward in faith often ask us to go beyond where we are comfortable, where we feel most safe, and into the mystery of “other.”
It’s a difficult balance to be sure. It’s what Jesus spoke of when he told his followers to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. It is the paradox of faith.
Holistic trust will first begin with a fundamental faith in God, which we must remind ourselves is not a celestial Zeus pulling the levers to make things work out or not, but a divine presence that is always with us in love. An inner being deep within that is always becoming through us. A great beautiful mystery that is always beyond what we know and can grasp. And we trust that God is at work in the world, in our communities, and in us—even when things don’t work out how we might have wanted them to. This is the common Source that flows under the space between us.
This trust also will need to be placed in ourselves as well. For some, this can be harder than trusting God or others. If we don’t trust ourselves, we will look for it in others and place too much faith in them. This might seem like trust in another, but it is not a healthy mutuality. Maya Angelou speaks to this by saying, “I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves, but say I love you.” She quotes an African proverb “Be wary of the naked man offering you a shirt.”
With a base trust in ourselves (not without our doubts of course) and trust in God present in the world, in others, and in ourselves (again, doubts welcome in the paradox of faith), we can begin to discover a deeper trust in “the other.” A more holistic trust born out of deep mutuality and communal resonance.
Recognizing that Which Sets Us Apart
In the traditional sense, trust is something that comes gradually and must be earned before it is given. This comes from a fundamental base understanding of separateness. Of something that doesn’t exist yet already but might come to be, given the right circumstances and steps taken by both parties.
It’s important to acknowledge that this is the assumed baseline. The forces of disconnection are so strong in our world today, especially in western culture, that we are constantly put in the place of being against and apart from one another. This posture is fueled by forces like narcissism, jealousy, egotism/pride, competition, deceit, nationalism, scarcity-mindset, fear, empire-building, and other pathological forms of ways of being so common today. Even most of our common spaces and forms, like our political systems, draw upon these forces and reinforce isolated identities that make our neighbors into our ideological enemies or competing adversaries to win against.
“Guernica” by Pablo Picasso
This is the “othering” that not only keeps us apart from each other but from ourselves as well. The other, whoever that is, becomes the scapegoat onto which we project the tension and conflict we feel inside ourselves. We see this happen across the lines of political party, religion, nationality, race, or any other division that might be called forth. It could be as benign as the neighbor’s messy or way-too-clean yard. Or the coworker who is more productive or slacks off too much.
There is always “the other.” And no community can be built around only those who have proven trustworthy, do everything right, or meet all of the standards we hold. If we try to “purify” the in-group, we simply come to resent the least common denominator or scapegoat the weakest link—according to whatever self-standards we have come up with, drawing upon those forces of disconnection.
As a common proverb reminds us, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”
And so we know that the answer is not through narrowing the tribal boundaries, dividing into another faction of identity through religion, politics, vocation, or nation. But to discover a deeper trust and mutuality that transcends these divisions—or rather lies underneath them.
Mystical Trust in Ultimate Wholeness
Far deeper and more powerful than the forces of disconnection lies the common pool of our Divine Source, the reality of our ultimate wholeness that we touch into experiencing through mystical awareness. We come to know our fundamental oneness with all things and participation in the vast divine web of interconnection and interbeing. When we have really known it experientially, even if with just a taste, then we understand our ground of being totally differently.
When we come from this ultimate reality, there is no “other.” The whole world is our tribe and our kin. Believing this helps take us to a new place spiritually. Experiencing it in our embodied lives gives us the capacity and energy to live out of this deep mutuality from a place of inherent trust. At the meeting point of our deepest being is a fundamental trust—for we are not separate.
This takes us back to self-trust and how we are all capable of hurting ourselves and others we care about. We also know that even in this unity there is distinction and healthy difference, which means that we are certainly still capable of harm and being harmed. Healthy boundaries and discernment are still very necessary.
It’s our starting point that makes all the difference.
Coming from Trust
Rather than trust being something that builds slowly over time, from the place of deep mutuality we come from trust. Relationships are born from the belief—the faith—in this ultimate wholeness.
Brené Brown speaks to this being a vital ingredient of any kind of trust through what she calls “assuming positive intent.”
The assumption of positive intent, according to Brown, “means that we will extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others.”
She says our lives are better when we work from the assumption that everyone is doing the best that they can, rather than critically judging or assuming otherwise. I’m doing the very best I can right now. And so are you. Do we believe it?
Taking on this posture is a direct choice, a decision of faith, to live and operate from a different fundamental source and orientation than the predominant force of disconnection sometimes known as pride. That place of subtle superiority, judging the motives and actions of others from our place of “knowing better.”
Even when it seems so much of the evidence appears to the contrary. Even when the forces of disconnection and their many effects on the world tell us the opposite. Can we assume the good in one another? Can we come from trust in community?
Healthy & Unhealthy Boundaries
Yes, we can and need to discern and judge truth and untruth, healthy and unhealthy. In situations and people.
Brown also talks about how holding healthy boundaries is essential to maintaining the posture of positive intent. This might seem counter-intuitive to the mystical participation in our underlying wholeness, but it actually is in keeping with how we live as mystics in the world—recognizing that we are all still in a process of becoming. Our fundamental wholeness does not mean there are not situations and people that we shouldn’t trust. Much religious abuse comes out of such misguided trust.
If an understood boundary is violated or threatened, then trust recedes. When there is a lack of honesty, conscious or unconscious, we can rightly lose trust. We can come from trust and assume the good, but when people show you who they are, believe them. Sometimes, hopefully, before they show you.
I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
It’s not an easy posture to hold. It requires wisdom, discernment, and community support. It requires our intuition and sensitivity. Our capacity to trust ourselves and the courage to believe our inner knowing.
At the same time, can we also seek to go beyond just the individuality of personal command and ultimate self-authority? For we know we can be operating out of shadow. Running away out of fear. Dividing off because of a wounded ego or conflict avoidance.
We might do this subtly, staying in the safe areas of engagement with others as a form of risk aversion. These “safe” ways of interacting often manifest as keeping the focus “out there” on an external topic—staying in the realm of ideas or concepts, discussing third parties in gossip or complaining, or even focusing on “God” as an object we learn about, discuss, and serve. These are examples of soft boundaries that show up in various ways in all of our relationships.
It is all too easy for a boundary to be a wall of separation born out of fear. And, it is easy not to set a boundary out of fear of separation. Safety can be a prime reason for “othering,” which sometimes is the healthier decision.
How do we learn to stay with and turn toward, growing in our capacity for connectedness, while also recognizing the places where we need to step away and create a healthy boundary? How do we do both from holistic trust and a loving honoring of our deep mutuality?
No one ever said practicing community was easy. Healthy communities will help us navigate these challenges together in open communication, honoring honest vulnerability and striving together toward authentic, generous mutuality.
Choosing Vulnerable Mutuality
To practice community in a deep sense is to come into a spiritual relationship with one another in loving mutuality. To love is to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable is a choice of trust that requires courage.
Brené Brown says that our levels of trust can grow with evidence—those who show reliability, the capacity to keep confidences, and other elements discussed above.
But we never truly know. Trust is always a choice.
She defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”
To practice community, we need to be able to choose vulnerability. To have the courage of faith in one another, discovering the holistic, fundamental trust at the heart of us all.
We discover it in the other by stepping into vulnerability with one another. Coming from the mutuality of trust that was always already there to begin with. From the start. At the core.
Yes, that trust can be betrayed and lost. We can be hurt. Harm can be done.
But we will choose to not let that define how we see and experience “the other.” We will choose to enter into our mutuality from the root of deep connection. From the radical trust of our interbeing. With the faith in our ultimate wholeness.
Even when there is difference and conflict, for such creative tension can be the portal to collective transformation, which we will explore next week.
Practicing Community:
Choose one or all of the following practices:
When you are present in a healthy community, make the conscious choice to come from trust. Choose to be vulnerable, offering something deeper or more personal than you usually would.
Choose to be mindful of any forces of disconnection rising in you. Notice when they come and why. As you seek to choose holistic trust in those moments, pay attention to what makes that difficult for you.
Reflect on your relationships and communities. Is there any situation that would be served by setting a healthy boundary? If so, do it with clarity and love.