What Does Trust Mean To You

What does trust mean to you? People in today’s society often have a hard time trusting others due to questioning whether they are confident others will keep personal information about them. One must be intentional about building trust. This process takes time because one must learn to get to know the person before they can trust them. According to Walker, (2013) this is known as self-disclosure which is important when forming relationships (p.3). The more others know about you the more they can trust you. This means that one must have courage to reveal their true self in order to form a connection with one another. We assume the reason to trust is to form a relationship. Once a connection is formed, people start to rely on each other which then eventually leads to trust. This can occur due to the benefits a relationship brings or simply for love and friendship.

If one is not willing to take a risk and be open and honest, it will be difficult for them to gain trustworthy relationships.

The research suggests, “only when we risk something and expose ourselves to vulnerability, do we really speak the truth” (Eikeland, 2015, p. 67). Being truthful and exposing yourself promotes a secure relationship built on trust. Trust must also be earned from others. It is not something people can assume will happen in the moment but based on the motivation from others. For some reason, many people do not talk about trust in the world we live in today. According to Simpson, (2012) “most of the time, trust is an invisible assumption.” (p. 550) People are unaware of the fact it is the actions associated with trust that build a relationship. One cannot demand or prove trust but rather they have a choice to choose whether or not they want to trust

others.
Trust has many different definitions. It is being honest, reliable, and dependable so others know they can count on you. Trust requires a personal relationship with others and allows one to be open and honest. Knowing that one will be there through tough situations and help you out in difficult times can build trust in relationships. This allows for people to build upon the value of trust in their relationship. Trust also consists of whether you are willing to expose your vulnerabilities to others and believe they will not take advantage of you. What people believe is the truth or the dependability they receive from others is the definition of trust.
Trust has shaped my personal growth in several ways throughout my life. When my sister and I moved into our new house, children in the neighborhood would run and hide from us when we went over to visit. With this happening most of the time, I began to feel angry, unaccepted and did not trust them. Research by Dunn and Schweitzer (2005) states, "emotions may play an important role in trust judgments because people are unaware of the significant influence their emotional state has on their judgment" (p. 746). Feeling anger towards my friends, any trust I had for them began to fade away. In fact, Dunn and Schweitzer (2005) "conclude trust is severely reduced when you are angry" (p. 740). My feelings of anger in this case did not allow me to trust them at all. What had I done to deserve this treatment? To combat this distrust, my mother explained to me that if I did not communicate my feelings to them the result would lead to a broken friendship. I was able to trust my mother in this case because of my close relationship with her.
Throughout life, I remember when my parents would keep their word no matter what. Sometimes, this meant they would have to make a sacrifice to keep their word. Keeping their word built trust between us which then allowed me to trust others in relationships. Keeping secrets from others leads to mistrust within relationships. This form of deception can quickly erode trust and was not allowed in our home. My parents installed the Christian values and beliefs which I live by today. Having my parents to look up to made me realized how important trust was in a relationship and from this experience I learned how to build trust. I also had to face different situations where I learned to trust my friends. In the past, I remember participating in the trust fall test. When I would do the trust test with a group of friends, I would fall back because of the relationship I had built with them. Even though I did not get to participate in the trust fall at class, I would have not fallen back due to the fact it was with a group of students I was unfamiliar with and did not know a lot about them. Without personal relationships with them, I would have not trusted the students to catch me. Another experience I had with trust was my freshman year of college. My roommate and I started out with a great connection until I found out she was talking about me behind my back to her friends. Another student I had class with was also a friend of my roommate and she ended up telling me my roommate did not want to live with me anymore. That day I asked my roommate if this was true and she told me that it was not true. Several days went by and my roommate decided to tell me that she did not want to live with me anymore. Ever since this moment, I had a hard time trusting my roommate. She had lied to me and I wish she would have just had told me the truth at the beginning.