House of Cards

“Each betrayal begins with trust” - Martin Luther

A fictional story, but an interesting one.

Once upon a time, there lived a poor farmer and a baker, who had been doing business with each other for years. Every day, the farmer would sell a pound of butter to the baker, and the baker would sell a pound of bread to the farmer. Soon, they became fine friends.

One day, the baker suspected that the farmer was not selling him enough butter. He weighed his butter, and found the weight less than a pound. He was infuriated, and feeling betrayed, took the farmer to court.

When the judge confronted the farmer with the complaint, the innocent farmer simply replied, “My judge, long before the baker was buying butter from me, I was buying a pound of bread from him. All I do is this. I simply, use his bread as my weight on the scale and give him butter in the same weight! I trusted him but he has been betraying me ever since. If anything, the baker needs to blame his own self. I am the one who has been betrayed!”

?The trust of the innocent is the betrayer’s most effective weapon. Remember that.

Trust. It is only a five-letter word, yet one that carries the heaviest burden of expectations. A simple word that can wreak havoc, or plant hope in a hopeless life.

In fact, it is this very word that has been the cause of certain mental illnesses. Did you know that social phobias affect 3% of our world population? That’s 231 million people. One of them is ‘Pistanthrophobia’. Ever heard of it? It is the silent killer among people who suffer from trusting others because of past bad experiences. In fact, they cannot maintain relationships or learn to trust again because they have been severely bruised before. They cause their own ultimate loneliness and drown in their despair of dealing with people. All because of the word “trust”. 

Trust - A profound emotion?

Let me tell you. Because it is not a onetime event. It is built in increments. Moment after moment, it is built over time. Painstakingly, bit by bit, we learn to trust one another, one trustworthy moment at a time. But here is the catch. It is not the big moments that trust is built on, but an increment of small moments. You ask about a friend’s ailing mother, call a person when he calls in sick, and so on.

It is these very small moments where you get a chance to build trust or betray it. A culmination of these small moments makes you “trustworthy” in the eyes of others. If you trust someone and they turn out to be sincere to you, it is pure joy that can elate you and possibly help you believe in yourself again. The world seems to be a nice place. The skies bluer than before, roses redder than ever. You know what I am getting at. Everything seems to get a whitewashed new look that just a few days ago seemed dull and dreary. What power this one little word has on us.

The Betrayed

No wonder it hurts profoundly, that after years of trust, [what I call, the “house of cards”,] a single event or whiff of wind, can break our hearts and the cards come crashing down. The betrayers leave like nothing really happened, and you are left bleeding. The word “trust” becomes a chokehold instead of nice warm hug. The world will never be the same again. Everything changes after that moment of betrayal.

But this blog is not about learning how to trust. It is for the ones who get mocked, belittled, abused, assassinated. It is for the ones who get stabbed in the back when they least suspect it. The betrayed.

Betrayal comes in many forms. We usually think it may be a damaged relationship, but it can be a lot more. Spreading lies, abandonment, vile gossip, and being stereotyped can all be forms of betrayal we may face in our personal lives and at work.

One of the hardest lessons in life to me is to understand that you cannot control the loyalty and actions of others. No matter what good you have done to them, it does not mean they will treat you the same. No matter how highly you value them, they may not place the same on you. No matter how important they are to you, they may not see you in the same light. And inevitably, it is often the ones you care for the most, who get the ‘VIP Pass’ to breaking your heart and become the ones you can trust the least. And you question yourself. Why did I not see that coming? Your reality of everything is undermined.

It is the worst feeling in the world, to be vulnerable at the hands of someone who did or does not value what is so important to you. You live a defeated life. For me, your heart gets broken only once, every other time since then, it only bleeds. And it bleeds and bleeds as it keeps happening over and over again. Trust has become an unwanted element in life. A rare but priceless commodity.

The Aftereffects - Bruises and Scars

As for the ones who are slayed by the so called trustworthy, there are far reaching effects. Being betrayed means, you don’t just lose faith in others, but yourself as well. You start doubting your own judgments, opinions, and emotions. You are filled with unanswered questions that keep nagging you at the seams. “Why did you do this to me? Why did you play with my heart? Why did you betray me, when I was nothing but good to you? Who are you? Did I ever really know you? Why was I so stupid? Why was I so blind, when others warned me?” And it goes on and on.

You will not understand why, in a sea of happy people around you, you feel most miserable. The thoughts will pinch you at night, when you want to sleep so desperately. The memories and hurt will keep you up crying, till there are no tears left. Only a strange numbness, as you walk through life that is like a faint echo in the distance. Been there many times, so I understand. You are not alone in your pain.

It is when this innocence is shattered, that you want to shield yourself from everyone. But this is where I need to say, where we go wrong. Take your time to heal, but hold yourself back from being bitter. If you do, you will let betrayers win. The wise learning is this. Strength with Vulnerability.

Trust wisely and yet expect people will falter and make mistakes. But the ones, who really disappoint you, do not in any way hold power over you. Your world may be shaken up, but it is not destroyed. You forgive, not just to accept what happened, but to prevent it from your own destruction. You gather faith within, and have the internal strength to let go of the liars and the fakers. You become more humble and aware than before. You may lose hope in some people, but not in everyone and by far, never in yourself. In simple words, you take your power back and keep it with you.

Another learning. Some people will break your heart. When you open your heart to others, you open it to grace, happiness and pain. A heavy acceptance.

What I mean is that, we need to manage our own expectations and try to come out of a dream world that does not exist. We are humans and we make mistakes. Why set yourself up to get hurt in the first place? Stop expecting too much from others, and put those expectations from within yourself.

All I am saying is that, people will hurt you and break your trust. But what cannot be broken is a simple fundamental step that is missing in all of this. Your trust in you. Yourself. This holds unimaginable strength and power that cannot break you, in the greatest times of fear and hurt. I think when confronted with pain, we often forget our greatest power. Our own sense of self.

This is the reason I am writing this blog, on a red eye flight from London, instead of watching a movie and enjoying snacks. It hurts me to see others hurt owing to trust, and instead of having a long rant on how to trust again (which I know can take a lifetime to do), I rather we build our trust in ourselves. It might deflect the pain and make life more livable. It might help ease off that 500 pound shield you have around you, thinking it will keep pain away, but you are only hurting yourself more this way.

·       The helping hand

Someone wise said that if you need to find help, look at the outstretched hand at the end of your own arm. Ask yourself for your help and build trust with the Wisdom that created you in the first place. If you know that you yourself are enough, and a priority, no one can shake that confidence. I am not saying you will not hurt or be in pain, but you will not feel abandoned. You are a mature adult who has confidence in their abilities and trusts themselves to heal and not be destroyed by a single act.

·       Love thyself

Never trust someone who tells you they love you, and do not love themselves. It is the biggest lie. If you cannot love yourself, with all the imperfections, you should not hold yourself in a position to judge yourself. No one can love you more. No one can understand you more. Talk to yourself positively and know that you are worthy of so much love. Give that to yourself first. Ever seen an airplane crash test run? When the oxygen masks come down, they ask you to put it on first, before helping another. Think about that.

·       Stop chasing air

Do not make unworthy people a priority. You have enough beautiful energy and life to create your own story. The people who run away from you and do not give you enough respect never mattered in the first place. Trust your own intuition and wisdom. You are your best friend and you will be with yourself, for the entire journey. This is what life is about. Not by putting you’re all in others but first in yourself.

·       The truth in acceptance

Accept yourself completely. With all the flaws and imperfections. Accept your weaknesses and your strengths. Write them down for clarity and read them to yourself. Is it all that bad? If you would like to change something, highlight it and give yourself a proper plan towards it. The bigger idea here is that love yourself for who you are, and fine tune what you can do and accept what you can’t. The more you appreciate yourself, the more the world will too. And if they don’t, you have one person raising your flag of approval. YOU!

·       Run from the Dream Smashers

When you realize that everyone who you put your trust in, has the potential to betray you, you will start to look within. Do not harden your heart or stop trusting others. Just trust yourself most. There will be those who will pull you down and not believe in you. They might berate you in front of others and throw water on your dreams. Run from such toxic company. When building trust within, you need to be around those who raise your spirits. If the dream smashers are your family, find your own friend network, or better still. Keep your dreams and aspirations to yourself. Build your own strength and courage to stay on the path. It can be done.

·       The truth you tell yourself

Your body is a living breathing mechanism. Often we make a mistake and we scold ourselves, “How stupid am I?”, “I am so dumb” or “I am such a fool” and so on. When you declare such things, your body takes it as the truth. Try to get out of that cycle of self-viciousness and move towards the solution. As yourself, “I can’t change this. What can I do to solve this?” Everyone makes errors or things don’t go our way. What’s done is done. Look ahead and trust yourself to make the situation better. Patience, perseverance are your key allies here. Trust yourself to not be perfect but to survive well in whatever life throws your way.

·       You are enough

One of the reasons we set ourselves up for heartbreak by trusting others more than ourselves, is because we think we are alone. We think we lack something within that can be fulfilled by the other. Let me tell you about the elephant in the room. No person comes and completes you. You are complete in yourself. Others are there to partner and help you along the way. You have the Knowledge, Wisdom and courage to do whatever you want in life. Do not invest so much in others. When you start investing the same in your own judgement and take tiny steps at a time, very soon you will be running life’s marathon as a champ. You are enough.

This does not mean that you live life as a lonely being. You can have a myriad of friends and family, and you will be sharing stories and thoughts. That is all fine. Just trust yourself more. Invest in yourself more, than wasting time on thinking how could someone stab you in the back. You cannot protect yourself from betrayal of all sorts. It will happen. And it will hurt. And life will move on.

With self-trust built, the hurt and pain will not shatter you as an adult. You will not be crouched in a corner crying your heart out. You will continue to see all the beauty it still has to offer. You will accept soon and make peace with it. You will keep moving ahead. Life will not come to a standstill.

With this in mind, I want to share a poem Your Home by Erin Hanson, which touches on all of us being fragile and imperfect, which is the reason we are all human. It is okay to be undefined and its okay to be lost. You will find your way home. You will begin to trust yourself again.

If there’s one thing that I may tell you

Let it be: You are your home,

Your body is the only house

That you will ever truly own,

Maybe it’s got some broken windows

And there are tear-stains on the floors,

Maybe you lock the things you wish you weren’t

Behind it’s many doors,

But there is wisdom on it’s bookshelves

And a laugh to light the rooms,

There’s a vase upon the table

Where the love you’ve grown all blooms,

Dreams sit on the mantelpiece

Next to kindness and your trust,

Where you use them all so often

They have no time to collect dust

So please don’t look at mansions

With that envy in your eyes,

There’s more that makes a home

Than it’s appearance or its size,

Your body is your shelter

So you deserve to love it all,

Don’t let the world stand round outside

And tell you how to paint your walls,

How lucky that you have somewhere

To protect you from the night,

And if there’s cracks left from the past?

Well then they just let in more light.

You are your home. Love yourself and hold yourself supreme for all that you want to make your life about. Understand this. Trust is a powerful promise you make to another and it is as delicate as it is strong. It can take years of hard work to build and just one error can wash away all your efforts. We are all fragile beings with a life of broken hearts and promises, and do not need more broken words and meaningless assurances.

You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. Use the pain to build yourself up again. Trust in the person that makes you who you are, so that when the imminent storm comes and passes you by, you will remain standing upright, wiser, resilient and stronger than before.

Before I try to get a little sleep, and prepare for a new day in a different part of the globe, let me leave you with this.

“The only person you should trust blindly is yourself. You have survived this far. You will breeze through tomorrow. True strength is holding yourself together, when the world expects you to fall apart. Pat yourself on the back. You have come to know how to live. Even though it was only - a House of Cards”