#26: Trust and Fear and Danger
I have the following whacky counter-cultural thoughts and then a vulnerable story about my vulnerability.
++ Trust is scalable because of its transitory property. If persons A and B trust person C, then A + B can trust each other immediately.
++ Trust can be generated in an instant. It doesn’t have to take time to build.
++ Transparency is NOT trust. Transparency is a method for accommodating the lack of trust.
And on Fear vs. Danger:
++ “Fear” to me is more so a state of mind while “danger” is more so linked to real world possibilities.
++ Sometimes my fear-level is below the real danger – For instance, when I unwittingly nearly stepped on a rattle snake two years ago on a hike with JB in Utah as it slid between my legs.
++ Far more frequently my fear exceeds the real world danger.
OK…
In early 1995, I walked into a confidential 6-person internal facilitated weekly meeting.
Confidential.
The group was about personal development. Fantastic.
Confidential.
On that day I was horrendously upset. A very dark day for me and Kelly. We had just learned that we likely wouldn’t be able to have children. I shared this in the group. I felt very very heard by these great people. Supported. Sharing something so core to me even in such a safe space would have been so so out of my zone even six months earlier. I kept most everything in! I viewed keeping things in as “strong”.
This was my stance I suppose from age 10 to 29.
So with that backdrop… I STILL decided to share this really really upsetting experience with my colleagues.
Confidential.
A few days later, I learned from a friend that my news had made the rounds.
This safe space wasn’t safe. Wasn’t so…
…confidential.
Here is the GREAT part:
I wasn’t upset… at all… I completely let it go…
I really had zero desire for the world — or everyone in my company — to know what was going on for me and Kelly and I truly thought this space was safe.
It wasn’t.
But… I wasn’t upset… I think because…
I truly didn’t think anyone was intentionally trying to hurt me…
…and I thought after the fact that maybe my fear in sharing this experience and my emotion was much higher than any possible danger. Maybe what seemed to me like “vulnerability” to being hurt had zero vulnerability at all. Maybe this form of “strong” was just sorta “dumb”. J
I offered this story of a traumatic moment. More so, however, I find my life seems filled with hundreds and thousands of far less noteworthy and yet wonderful micro moment opportunities when at some level I have a choice to assess mini-little fear vs. danger and trust generating considerations. The compounding cumulative effect of all these choices across years to extend myself has lead me to consider this:
Maybe most of the time when I fear “vulnerability” I am not really vulnerable at all. From that space perhaps I can share my life and get to deeper trust with other people far faster.
As a human I find nothing more satisfying than generating deep trust.
Oh… so… with that in mind here is my bank account password: * * * * * * *
;)
pip
Oh #2!!! Kelly and I wound up with triplets – Bailey, Tucker and Eamon – two years later on October 14, 1997… 8:45am, 8:46am, 8:49am.
YAYYYY!!!
