Maintaining a certain distance and trusting others

When you are in contact with other people, you will almost always keep a bigger or smaller distance, not only between your bodies, but mentally as well. Chances are that this is fostered by the fact that your personality does not trust the other person for the full hundred percent. And by trusting I mean: you are not completely sure that the other person will say or do or forget to do something that will hurt you more or less, or will not be a pleasant experience. And when you do not have a certain distance to this person, then the hurt will enter fully, without any defense, with all its consequences, you know that from experience. So you keep your distance, and do not show too much expression in your face, as you do not want the other person to see the hurt that he caused in you, as that would make you vulnerable.

This is the picture that your personality wants you to believe is the ultimate truth, and he can explain it to you in full. So you try to avoid unpleasant experiences and hide your vulnerability. The fact that this has a price in itself, is conveniently forgotten: you now miss the sparkling joy of an open contact between yourself and another person.

Now is this really true? You might for a change look at cause and effect in a different light here. It is the principle of judgment itself that makes you interpret anything another person says, does or neglects as unpleasant, hurtful or unwanted, and only then the need for a defence mechanism arises. This is indeed the working space of your personality.

There is another option as well. You can learn to no longer strengthen the idea of judgment that your personality entertains, and no longer see it as a truth in itself. Simply make a conscious choice to no longer see any value in interpreting. Thus you no longer have the need to keep a distance or not trust other people, as the "reason" to do so, has disappeared.

Now what when someone betrays your trust? This would imply that you say that when you trust someone and the other person does not meet your expectations, he would be wrong somehow. This too is a judgment, and so it stems from the thought system of your personality. Your personality wants you to believe that he is the only one capable to prevent you from being hurt or taken advantage of, and his tool to do so is: control. To him it is much more interesting to deal with distrust, and building walls. And he conveniently forgets that whatever you strengthen in yourself, you call forth in others. So when you strengthen distrust in yourself, then you can count on it that you will meet distrust in return.

Dare to make a choice to open up to your inner Self and to trust it, so you at least strengthen these aspects in yourself and others. Whether that will bring some "pleasant" results is not the issue here, as pleasant is a judgment in itself. The choice for your inner Self and the moment in which you do so, will bring you a gut feeling in itself. You make a choice here for a different approach, which does not depend on the other person involved. And when the results cause stress in you, then take a look within where you have strengthened your personality, rather than blaming other people.

Especially when you are at work it is very tempting to repeat that you have to be in control. As you have a deadline to meet, responsibilities to take care of, have to perform, etc., and you cannot let that go. Take it easy on yourself, and learn to trust the experiences that it brings you. Start with something small, maybe in your private situation, and deal with it in this new way. This will help you to open up to this new yet so familiar aspect of yourself, you will learn to trust it, and you can then increase the number of times that you choose for it at your own pace.