How To Stop Abandoning Yourself And Build Self-Trust

In this track, you will learn what it takes to build self-trust. Trusting yourself is the key to healing self-esteem, making better decisions, and healing unhealthy relationships. Learn what it takes to trust yourself here with me!

Transcript

In this week's video, I'm talking about how to stop abandoning yourself in relationships and build self-trust. Because when we can trust ourselves, We can pick healthier people to be in relationship with, And our self-esteem improves. But first, My name is Michelle Ferris, I'm a psychotherapist, And I love helping people create relationships that work. So, What is self-abandonment? It's basically when you're dismissing your own experiences because you think they're wrong or not important enough to share. So when you get a bad feeling or have a different opinion than other people, Instead of letting yourself express it, You hold it back, You suppress it. So you go with the flow and you end up being a little bit of a people pleaser. And even when you do have a feeling about something that's strong, You may have to ask several different people if it's right. That's a sign that you're not trusting yourself. And a lot of us have this because when we grow up, Especially if we grew up in dysfunctional families, Didn't validate our thoughts and feelings as being important because we're kids, Because maybe they had too many other things going on like addictions or mental health issues. And it's really hard because when you're growing up, A child has their own perception of the world, Right? We all do. But if we don't get that validated and in turn, We actually get it dismissed, We learn not to trust ourselves. So for instance, If you grew up with a rager or an alcoholic parent and nobody talked about it, It kind of makes you feel crazy. And this is what gaslighting is about is when a child or anyone's reality is denied. Because when our reality is denied, We learn not to trust it. And we start to feel a little crazy because the sky we think is blue, But everybody else is saying it's red. And that's really painful because oftentimes if our experiences are denied, That does more damage than the actual abuse or trauma we've suffered because it's really important to have our experiences validated. But if you can't do that for yourself, It's going to be really, Really hard when you go into relationship. So we learn as kids to stay quiet because maybe our parents didn't want to hear what we thought and we felt. Kids should be seen and not heard was a really common belief back when I was growing up. Not because parents were wrong or bad, But because they just didn't have the bandwidth emotionally to know how to help us honor our feelings and thoughts, Especially if our parents didn't know how to that for themselves. So how does not trusting ourselves hurt us in relationship? For one thing, It creates dishonesty because when we don't trust our own perceptions, That doesn't mean they go away. So in our relationships, We're not telling the truth. We're not sharing our own perceptions because in relationship, We all have our own perceptions of certain events. It's not right or wrong. It's just everybody has their own view of the world based on where they come from. So to assume that our experience is wrong, Because somebody else's is different misses the point. Your experience is based on your thoughts and your feelings. So the key to stop abandoning yourself is to build that self-trust. And here's how you do it. First, I want you to identify what is preventing you from trusting yourself. So often these are negative self-talk or negative beliefs that we grew up with. Those negative thoughts about ourselves, Which I call negative self-talk, Really impacts our ability to trust ourselves. If we're telling ourselves we're not worth it, Or we're not smart enough, Or we don't deserve to express an opinion because maybe somebody's going to be mad at me if we do, That's a really tough way to live. But we need to uncover what's in the way. Now, The next one is people-pleasing. Often, If we grew up in families where we didn't get our feelings honored, Then we are going to likely become a people-pleaser. Because we can read the room, We can take the temperature of what everybody's feeling, And we can adapt our behavior so that we stay safe. So part of what gets in the way of self-trust is we would rather please others than please ourselves, Okay? And it doesn't have to be an either-or. Sometimes you can choose to please others, But I don't want you to abandon yourself in order to do that. I want you to be able to honor what you think and what you feel, Even if it's different than someone else's. The third way it hurts our relationships is that it really impacts our ability to identify relationship red flags. If you don't trust yourself, You're not going to know what a healthy relationship is and what's a toxic relationship. So you'll end up getting into relationships ignoring that gut feeling that, You know what, They got drunk on the first date because you're going to assume that it's wrong. But if you can trust those initial red flags, Like, You know what, That person isn't treating me well, Or they don't call me back, Or they seem not to have any friends, Those can all be really important red flags for you to honor. When you can honor what you see, Then you can have healthier relationships because you're going to be able to say no thank you to someone early on versus getting too invested in the relationship when they're probably not a good fit for you. But when we're picking new people to be in friendship with or in an intimate relationship with, We have to be able to trust our own perceptions. So those early red flags are really important to consider. And one way to do that, Go to a trusted friend for feedback. And say, Hey, Listen, I went on this date, This is what the guy did, What do you think? Now, I don't want you to ask 10 people because that's part of self-abandonment, But I want you to be able to get some feedback initially. But I also want you to include your own experience first, Because the more you listen to that gut reaction, That's going to build self-trust. So the next step in building self-trust is to cultivate your intuition. And that means when you're out in the world, When you're with people, Start paying attention to your feelings. Because your feelings are gonna tell you what's happening. For instance, If I go to a party and there's somebody that I feel really uncomfortable next to, I'm gonna honor that and I'm gonna just say, You know what, For whatever reason, This person has some really intense energy and I'm just gonna honor that versus, Oh, I feel bad, I should go to them and see if I can fix it. That's not going to help. What I want you to do is just notice how you feel around certain people. Who feels safe to you? Who doesn't feel safe to you? That's the start of listening to your intuition because you probably already know what a safe person feels like. Somebody that you know isn't going to deliberately hurt you. You have some trust with. Those are the people I want you to model this after because if you can start to develop that self-trust with strangers and new relationships, That's going to increase your confidence, But I want you to notice how does that person make you feel? Do you feel respected or does it feel a little uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable? Are they mean to you in any way? Do they dismiss your thoughts and feelings? Do they have such big energy that there's no room left for you? Those are some really important red flags. So the last thing I want you to do is I want you to practice the skill of listening to your thoughts and feelings and honoring them. Don't think that they're bad or wrong because they're not. Part of how you build healthy intuition is to listen and honor your own experience, Even if you don't have any concrete evidence to back it up. Because I guarantee, I've done this so many times, If I follow that gut reaction, Even if I don't have evidence, The evidence eventually appears and I realize, Oh yeah, There was a reason I felt uncomfortable. And it doesn't make you bad or wrong. The next thing is assess your results. Notice what happens when you don't listen to your intuition because that's going to be full of lessons and then I want you to track and assess what happens when you do because I guarantee you're going to have very different experiences but that's how we learn, Right? We're not going to immediately do the right behavior all the time. I want you to even go back in your past and if you can look at times when you had a gut feeling about something and you ignored it, What ended up happening and how did that hurt you? Because that's what I want you to do is look at how you can start to develop your intuition and really honor it even when there's no evidence to back it up. Because with time and with practice, This gets easier. And the more you do it, The more you're going to feel good about yourself and you're going to be able to pick healthier people because you're going to trust those relationship red flags that don't feel right to you. And you're not gonna need to ask everybody on the planet what they think because you're gonna honor what you think. Thanks so much.