Only through trusting ourselves can we trust another

That was inspired by a repost on The Sub Guide today. The article, a very good one I should say, discusses how common sense and “trusting your gut feeling” can protect you not just in your submission but in any relationship. The one thing that makes me fall in love with This Thing We Do, is the fact that no matter how long you’ve been doing it, no matter how much you think you’ve learned....every day something comes along and teaches or reaffirms such simple/basic things.

Common sense and trusting yourself should be extremely simple. But when you throw life, in general, into the mix much less into a D/s or M/s situation...well, the water tends to get muddy. We all learn from the get go that one of the biggest, if not the biggest thing, is trust. We, as partners, must trust each other in order to have a healthy, happy exchange of power. We are taught that in order to have a healthy relationship of any kind, we must trust each other. And that is true, extremely so. But I think that truth is actually learning to walk before we’ve crawled. Why? Because before we can trust someone else, we have to be able to trust ourselves.

I know, you are all thinking “Well of course I trust myself....that is so stupid to say.” But in reality it isn’t and it is something that happens every day. Not trusting yourself so often lends to us being “unusually blind” to things that are not right which usually leads to us being hurt. And not just our feelings, but physically as well. We’ve all been there...we see something or someone tells us something and instantly you get that “not so great feeling” pulling at your stomach. You falter for a moment as the thought “Hmmm, that doesn’t seem right” passes through your mind. But in so many cases,instead of trusting our self, we use the excuse of “trusting the situation” or ”trusting the person we are with” over that.

We trust the ones we are with, Dom or vanilla alike, to treat us with the same love, respect and devotion we have for them. We trust them to be open and honest with us. In a D/s relationship, it is expected...it’s part of the “agreement.” But sometimes, that trust is misplaced. We ignore the signs that, more than often are there all along, our gut is warning us about and instead trust the image we create. This is even more true when it comes back to “going back” into the same situation. They hurt us, break our hearts even, but they come back with pretty words and promises of being better, of loving us more than before. And, despite the fact your stomach is mule kicking you in the face, we trust them over ourselves.

Trust and the ability to identify trustworthiness are not the same thing, although trust and trustworthiness are logically linked. - Robert C. Solomon

That statement is so incredibly true and incredibly common sensical. But it is a lot easier to do if you keep the core value of trusting yourself, trusting your instinct. No, I am not saying that “once a cheater/liar, always a cheater/liar.” I know, every situation is different. But before you go jumping in head first...trust yourself, trust your gut to tell you if it’s right or not. You and your submission depend on it.