How to Truly Trust Yourself: Everyone Tells You to Do it, No One Teaches You How. Those Fuckers! A Title That is Too Long.
I’m a teacher by nature. This means I give advice where none was asked for, and people have politely allowed me to earfuck them for years. I think because I can be funny and charismatic along the way. However, now that I’m aware of this pesky proclivity, I’m prepared to stop doing that and only give advice to myself. As Mathew McConaughey wrote in his memoir, Greenlights, I don’t write to remember, I write to forget. I want my life lessons to become part of the fiber of my being, so I don’t have to remind myself. I just know. So here it is. Advice to Paige Keane: How to trust yourself.
I’ve always wondered how people could trust themselves so certainly. When pondering a decision, I’ve often thought to myself, brow-furrowed and wild-eyed, “How can they know they’ve made the right decision?!???? &$@#%^*!?”
However, this is where those of us with the gift of uncertainty go wrong — we think trusting ourselves means we have to be right all the time.
Trusting yourself doesn’t mean trusting that you’re “right.”
As David Schnarch says in Passionate Marriage, “None of us is privy to knowing what we’re supposed to do. How we shape our lives brings risk and responsibility.”
That means you may not be right. But that’s what trust is all about isn’t it? If you knew you were right, you wouldn’t have to trust anything.
Trusting yourself just means this is how you think and feel right now. And having the balls to act on that.
Like the fact that I’m swearing a lot as I write this. I understand that a lot of people won’t like reading my sailor-speak. Shout out to my mom and uncle! But I trust myself that this blog is really for me, and this is what feels right to me, right now.
There is no safety, assurance, or money-back guarantee when trusting yourself. If you aren’t used to trusting yourself, and you feel like you should only do the “objectively right thing” instead of “your right thing right now,” be prepared to feel uncomfortable at first. (It feels awesome later though, so hold out for that).
There is no objective “accuracy” or “correctness.” Any asshole lingering nearby can point and say “You’re wrong! And you’re really going to regret this decision a few years from now!” And they may be objectively right. You may very well regret it, but that’s what trusting yourself is all about. Whether you’re right or wrong, you’d go down with your own sinking ship because you know it beats going down with someone else’s sinking ship any day. You do this because you know deep down that you’re the most important person in your life, and if you can’t trust yourself, you have nothing. You cease to exist.
So trust yourself, because you’re all you’ve really got. Do whatever feels right, right now, and take the risk and the responsibility for the fallout.
That’s what being a real, happy adult is all about.
Peace,
<3 Paige
