Learning How to Trust For a Deeper Romance
By Johanna Lyman for GalTime.com
I often say that if you don't have trust in your relationship, you don't have a relationship. The ironic thing about that statement is that trust is the biggest lesson we learn in romantic relationships. We learn to trust by experiencing its lack first, navigating our emotions and thoughts through the murky waters of mistrust. A more accurate statement might be that the pinnacle of a romantic relationship happens when we learn to deeply trust our partner and ourselves.
There are many layers of trust to move through as you forge your way deeper in relationships. Here are the three most common.
Related: 6 Steps To Turn Insecurity Into Growth
1. Trusting your partner. This is the most basic layer of trust, and there are lots of couples that never make it past this. You learn to trust your partner when they consistently keep their agreements. The primary reason people don't trust that their partners will keep their agreements is that the agreements are assumed, not clearly stated. The second reason people don't trust at this level is that many people make agreements they really can't keep. For example, traditional relationships make monogamy agreements that most people find difficult, if not impossible, to keep. Trust is betrayed when the agreements are not kept, regardless of whether the agreement is explicit or implied.
2. Trusting yourself. When something goes wrong in a relationship, the body gives signals. The body has a wisdom deeper than the mind, and it can't be fooled. But we don't want to believe the signals because it means facing the truth of a betrayal and having to deal with the consequences. Learning to trust yourself is perhaps the most important step you can take to cultivate a deeper level of trust. Listen to your body and learn its signals. Do you get butterflies in your stomach, intestinal distress, or pressure in your head? Those are three of the most common signals that something's awry. We all have access to intuition, and by cultivating it we learn to trust ourselves more deeply.
Related: Are You a Good Wife?
3. Trusting the process of love itself. This is the deepest layer of trust, and the place where all the magic happens. Most people think that the process of love is supposed to be all roses and sweetness. That's not true. The process of love, through the vehicle of romantic relationships, is intended to bring us closer to our true nature. Our true nature is love itself, uncovered and exposed by releasing all of the layers of unlove. Each time we learn something about ourselves, we uncover and release limiting beliefs that make us forget our divine nature. Our romantic relationships are mirrors that show us where we are forgetting. It's not always an easy process, and it's not for the faint of heart, but it can show us the way to expand our consciousness into our true nature.
Delving into the three layers of trust, whether in one relationship or through a series of successive ones, helps us to navigate the layers of our consciousness to find the pearls of wisdom and the diamond of enlightenment. It's a model for romantic relationships that has the capacity to heal all of our childhood wounds and bring us deeply into our hearts. The world is changing rapidly, and for those changes to be positive, we need more people to live deeply in their hearts.
More from GalTime.com
Follow Us:
GalTime on Facebook
