posted January 06, 2008 04:41 PM         

Trust Is The Bridge

Trust is the bridge between personality and soul. Are we destroying this bridge through our fear of differences between ourselves and others or are we enhancing trust in our everyday lives?

Homophobia, the fear of other human beings, has increased tremendously over the past few years. This is not a new fear as people throughout history have feared those who were not of their own tribe or community, laying the basis for wars, even in more primitive cultures. The problem today is that there is a diminishing homogeneity within nations and communities. There is an increasing mix of diverse ethnic and religious groups of people. Those who appear to be different are living next door. Many people fear their neighbours and feel unsafe in their own communities. In many cities people will not walk alone anywhere.

Children learn at a very young age not to trust strangers. Because of increasing crime, children are taught not to talk to or trust people they do not know. In other words, people that they do not know are perceived as dangerous, and perhaps even ‘evil’. This kind of childhood conditioning is taken into adulthood when we are constantly in contact with people we do not know. We will keep the same attitude as when we were children unless we have deliberately worked to change our perceptions and attitudes.

When there is a lack of trust there is usually fear. This fear of one’s brothers and sisters in the human family creates a great psychic tension within a person because the other unconscious force coming from soul is to love all people. Especially in our adult years our own deeper nature urges us to embrace others while our conditioning from our childhood, which exists in our feeling nature – the limbic brain – blocks us from doing that. The result of this tension is inevitably a pervasive anxiety of living in communities with other people, which everyone does to some extent, especially in this shrinking global community.

Perhaps the greatest danger of not trusting others is that, at the same time, we do not trust the urge to love that comes from within ourselves. It is lack of trust in soul that externalizes as lack of trust toward others. And when we do not trust the soul urges within ourselves we cut ourselves off from the greatest psychic source of strength, intelligence and love that exists.

When we do not follow inner soul promptings we are left with the only alternative there is – the personality and its conditioning. Deeper values then often get warped by self interest. Goals become more important than people. Quantity replaces quality. Winning is all important. I think of the values that are often portrayed in TV programs such as the now popular ‘Reality TV’. Strategies of deception are called ‘playing the game’. Lying and mistrust are standard ways of relating. Trust, in fact, is shown to be foolish.

Trust is about expanding consciousness and becoming more inclusive. Trust implies that we are willing to be changed, to be expanded into a more universal consciousness. We need to let go of narrower perspectives and prejudices. Of course, as soul we know this leads to greater freedom, but as ego we often find trust to be too unsettling or threatening.

Without trust we remain disconnected from sources of sustenance and sources of love. Trust enables us to make connection in order to be able to love and to contribute to life. Whenever trust is present fear diminishes proportionately. Whenever fear is present we can be certain that we are lacking trust – an indication that we are experiencing through the personality rather than through soul. It is fear that sustains insecurity and thereby blocks trust.

It is not possible to trust and still maintain a personality perspective. The movement from lack of trust to a trusting attitude requires shifting perspective from personality to soul. A soul perspective enables us to grasp the essence, see the meaning and sense a purpose.

The soul perspective of trust is a knowing that whatever is being experienced or about to be experienced is right, is meaningful and is purposeful – some greater good is being served, including your greater good. A lack of trust feels that what is being experienced or about to be experienced is wrong, potentially hurtful, and something to be avoided.

A lack of trust can be maintained by an unwillingness to accept challenges and change. This lack of trust also keeps a person from continuing to grow and expand consciousness.

Trust is a soul perspective that is expressed through the brain and personality. It can only exist, though, to the extent that fear is absent. Either you have to deal with the issue of your fear to enable trust to be present, or you can focus on the relevant soul perspective in order to diminish the fear. Working on both levels would, of course, be the most effective.

To trust more does not happen just by willing it, saying “I will trust more.” What is needed is a twofold strategy:

a.) Identifying and eliminating blockages to trust, most notably one’s fears

b.) Focusing on the benefits and support that can come from the object of trust – i.e., what you trust in.

By Soul Journey