Trust Me.

[ThunderMaverick]

The following was not written by me. If I were a more productive man (and much more eloquent with words) I would have written something uncannily similar.

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Trust is the foundation for everything that matters. You can only be intimate to the degree that you can make yourself vulnerable to anther person. You can only make yourself vulnerable to the degree that you feel safe. And you can only feel safe to the degree that you can trust.

With my true love, Anne, my wife and beloved partner, I've learned that being totally trusting and totally trustworthy is the most liberating way to live. In trust, all degrees of freedom are present and all possibilities exist. Our recurring mantra has been: Yet again like never before. We have experiences that are familiar because we're having them with the same people, but they're completely different because many degrees of freedom are possible when you have complete trust in another person. It all comes back to the sense of intimacy that complete trust makes possible.

Intimacy is healing. The root of the word healing is to make whole. We are clean mirrors for each other. We stay on track and get back on track quickly when we hold that mirror up to the other person in a clean and non-judgmental way, so they can see themselves again as a whole person. This process becomes part of our growth and creates even more trust. We reach a certain level of trust and intimacy; then we go to the next level, where the trust and intimacy is even greater, where the joy is even greater, and that makes us want to go to the next level. Because of that commitment, I am totally trusting and totally trustworthy. Because I am trustworthy, I love myself more. The more I love myself, the more love I have to give to Anne and to others, and the more I model and embody what I teach. It becomes self-reinforcing over time.

People think they have to choose between being vulnerable and weak and being strong and well-off, but walls that protect us also isolate us. It's important to have defenses, but if they're always up, then those same defenses that are designed to protect us isolate us, and if they isolate us, they actually make us more likely to get hurt and more likely to get sick and die prematurely. Ironically, then, the very thing we think protects us harms us.

Vulnerability emerging from strength and confidence allows us to choose to let people into our life. To the degree that we do, life is so much more beautiful, joyful, meaningful, and fun.

-Dr. Dean Ornish


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I think a lot of people who start to get to know me mistake my honesty for conceit. In actuality it's me talking to you with open and complete trust --I give everyone I meet the benefit of the doubt that they will treat me with the same openness and kindness that I try to show them...it's me not hiding who I am and not playing a representation of myself, like a lot of people who have come and gone in my life have done.

I'm not going to pretend to be stronger than I think I am. I know my strengths and weaknesses and even from the start of getting to know me I drop obvious hints at that. One time I got a bit defensive with this person I met at work. Good looking guy. Actor. Nice smile. Sometimes I get guys who will think I'm trying to be an Alpha male and make attempts to emasculate me or make me look stupid in front of others (I can make myself look stupid all by myself, thank you very much!)

Anyhoo after 30 minutes of just meeting him makes a joke about me and I say "man, why do some guys always try to 'alpha' me?" He seems kinda confused and says "I'm not trying to do that. I just made that joke because of the way you talk and carry yourself."

Me being MYSELF left me totally open, and he felt comfortable enough to make a few jokes. I didn't see it at the time. I checked myself and carried on.

No matter who comes into my life for whatever reason, no matter how many friendships fail or lovers disappear I have always been myself and I will always trust you if you want me to. (Don't mistake me for a sucker. My tolerance for bullsh!t and bullsh!t people who make a living on gossip and deceit get dropped with 0 respect or return from me. Trusting someone is so precious to me that it's like killing a kitten when you break it. I fu<king LOVE kittens.) and because I was myself I found others who I have been compatible with. The friends I've made through being me are truly my friends for life.

You can't learn to love and live if you don't have trust in life or in yourself. You are going to get hurt more likely than a couple of times.Growing callous and cynical towards potential friends and lovers because of previous disappointments is counter productive and sets the frame as YOU being the one with ulterior motives, always waiting to react with insecurity at the first sign of trouble.

Wisdom comes from accepting that people are people and you're not going to get along with everyone. You can't find the people who are compatible with you if you're not yourself, and you can't be yourself if you're always paranoid. And as I said above, when you're paranoid, you're unable to let intimacy in.

Snarf snarf.

 

[Scaramouche]

Dear Thunder,
Yeah sure and for some years it was like that in both my marriages,then you both change and you can grow apart....But then again,don't we all enjoy Mums apple pie?...And yeah I suppose There is much that I would empathise with in this,but at the end of the Day,I have been there,and these days always spin plates just to be on the safe side.

 

[ThunderMaverick]

Yes, people change and sometimes they grow apart. Do you think you had complete trust with both of them during the time you were together? Was it a good experience overall?

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

TMAV, no disrespect, I fully appreciate the value of trust in a relationship, but whenever I read holistic stuff like this it always comes off as self-serving. This little diatribe is more of a confessional meant to flatter Ornish's wife (to get him laid) than any real study of trust.

The reason I look at declarations of trust with a critical eye is because Desire trumps trust. Hear me out:

Trust is the foundation for everything that matters.

There's no denying the importance of trust in relationships - family, romantic, business, etc. - but it takes a genuine Desire to BE involved in that relationship in order for any trust to develop. Desire to engage in a relationship with a person or an organization or a belief system, PRECEDES the establishment of trust. Trust is based on the faith that others will behave and essentially think in the same manner as you agree to. However if the Desire changes so too does trust. No amount of negotiating terms of trust will ever effect genuine desire. This is the primary pitfall of marriage counseling; it's not issues of trust, vulnerability or intimacy that are at the root of most marital problems, but rather it's the lack of genuine, uncompromised and unsolicited Desire to be so with another party that is the real issue. Rebuilding trust with a cheating spouse is less difficult to achieve than inspiring the genuine desire that spouse lost before the infidelity.

You can only be intimate to the degree that you can make yourself vulnerable to anther person.

If there is no genuine Desire for that other person, determinations of degrees of intimacy and vulnerability hardly matter. The hot young co-ed ƒucking that cute guy in the foam cannon party in Cancun on spring break isn't concerned with issues of vulnerability, she's concerned with issues of desire. It becomes a risk-to-reward scenario at that moment. Intimacy and trust may develop as a result, but desire is the first necessary element. That same co-ed will filibuster the advances of a less desirable suitor by saying she needs more time to feel comfortable with him prior to sex, all while assessing the risk-to-reward aspects of him vs. other suitors.

Comfort and familiarity (for better or worse) may be elements of trust, but it's urgency, anxiety and sexual tension that make for genuine desire.

 

[Ridingthelightning]

Wow, this post is hitting home. And it came at the perfect time too.

 

[squirrels]

Rollo, I don't think the point of the post is to detail how to "create desire" in women.

The point is more directed toward sharing of and being open to experiences. This assumes that "attraction" is already present.

I've always believed that "brutal honesty" is the best policy. I will tell people things about myself that would be embarassing to anyone else, just because I feel like their opinions of me cannot hurt me. Of course, I talk about them in a joking way, and I don't just open up to anyone before having some kind of rapport. But the point is that if you can share fully with other people your innermost thoughts, they can share theirs with you as well.

It's the same way that fraternity "hazing" events put pledges in embarassing situations...because the fact that they've been embarassed in front of their friends builds TRUST between those friends. There's nothing you can do in front of these people that's worse than that, so there's a complete understanding and mutual lack of fear and shame in sharing with each other...it encourages people to take risks to support each other.

Same way people who have gone to war together have seen each other at their worst. From a full sharing of oneself comes a level of honesty that sets aside all potential for "drama".

You can tell a lot about someone by what they choose to share and what they hide.

Everything they choose to share with you (unsolicited) tells you something about them. Everything they choose NOT to speak about (even when asked) tells you something about them as well.

I'm fortunate to have a couple of friends who I am close enough with that I can share pretty much anything I happen to think, no matter how ridiculous or deviant or embarassing...and by doing so, they feel just as comfortable sharing such things with me.

If you can share your sexual thoughts with a woman and make it seem comfortable and natural to do so, it encourages her to open up and share hers with you. And yes, you want that. Women are more sexual than men, but they are repressed due to a lack of "trust".

 

[5string]

You can tell a lot about someone by what they choose to share and what they hide.
Squirrels gets it.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

Law 32: Play to People's Fantasies
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.

No matter what a woman TELLS you about opening up, expressing your feelings and being communicative, always remember, they NEVER want full disclosure. When a man overtly confirms his character, his story, his value, etc. for a woman, the mystery is dispelled and the bio-chemical rush she enjoyed from her imaginings, her suspicions, her self-confirmations about you are GONE.

Familiarity is anti-seductive. Nothing kills Game, lust and libido like comfortable familiarity. Despite their common bleating filibuster tactics, women don't want to be comfortable with a potential sex partner, they need their imaginations stoked to be excited, aroused and anxious to want sex with a potential partner.

My point wasn't to educate anyone about how to create desire, but rather that Desire precedes trust.

Women are more sexual than men, but they are repressed due to a lack of "trust".

Patently false. Men produce 17 times the amount of testosterone a woman does. It is a biological impossibility for a woman to want sex as much as, or as often as men. Trust me, when a woman says, "I don't understand why sex is so important to guys" she's speaking the literal truth. No woman will ever experience 17 times the amount of her own testosterone levels (barring steroids). Even at the peak of her menstrual cycle, when she's at her horniest, she'll never experience what men do 24 hours a day. So lets just dispense with the mythologies that women would love to have us all believe and parrot back to one another.

 

[zekko]

Patently false. Men produce 17 times the amount of testosterone a woman does. It is a biological impossibility for a woman to want sex as much as, or as often as men.

And yet women seem to enjoy sex as much as, or more than men do.
How many men have screaming orgasms?

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

Enjoyment is subjective. Does a woman who has silent orgasms enjoy them less than a screamer or does she just express herself differently? Guys like to repeat that myth because it gives them hope and women like it because it seems empowering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL61JreooRk

 

[LeftyLoosey]

Ahh... "The 48 Laws of Power." Rollo, you recommended that book to me 3 years ago when I was facing serious relationship issues. I never got around to reading it back then, and am only now halfway through, but it's one of the most important books I've ever read. Thanks again for the recommendation.

 

[squirrels]

My point wasn't to educate anyone about how to create desire, but rather that Desire precedes trust.

Desire precedes trust, but I don't consider it a necessary element for trust.

I think it's predictability that breeds contempt, not familiarity per se. Fantasies are great when trying to seduce a woman in the short-term, but if you're gonna be spending time with her, eventually she'll see through the fantasy. The better approach is to occasionally do things differently and act out-of-character. This will not only give women some break from the boring routine, but it also helps YOU grow as a person.

Plus, there's a difference between leaving something to the imagination and outright lying. I don't share all of my thoughts all at once with anyone. But I do enjoy "pushing the limits" of what people expect.

 

[ThunderMaverick]

Rollo, the only reason I posted what Dr. Ornish said was because what he said about trust applies to friends and family as well -- that's why I expanded on it.

I never said anything about creating desire through trust. Desire is physical and tangible. Trusting is a whole different animal. It's in who you are and how you see people.

I wish I could expand on this more but I don't have the time. Squirrels pretty much said what I wanted to say though.

Besides, anyone who's studied Robert Greene and his 48 laws of power knows what's genuine and when they're being played. When you reach a certain level of self awareness, trust and truth trumps being glamorized. Even you, being who you are and seeing what you've seen would be more attracted to someone who's genuine rather that someone who's deliberately deceitful.