My younger self doesn’t trust me…

Okay, so you’ve reconnected with your younger self and realized she doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t feel safe coming in close. She doesn’t trust that you are going to care for her. Maybe she has judgments about you and doesn’t want to change how she views you. The first thing I want to say is that’s okay if she doesn’t trust you yet. But, what do you do when your younger self doesn’t trust you?

Why You Younger Self Doesn’t Trust Yet

When we have had our personal boundaries walked over repeatedly, with no one standing up for us, we learn that we cannot trust ourselves. Our voices get shut down over and over again by other people. Undoubtedly, this sends the message that we are not as important as other people. You don’t get to have a voice, you don’t get to have boundaries, you don’t get to be seen and feel safe in relationship with others.

That message gets so ingrained into us to where we start to believe it as truth and we even start to tell ourselves those narratives. We begin to “accept” what others are telling us, directly or indirectly, and tell ourselves the same messages. “You aren’t worth having safe relationships”, “You aren’t worthy of having boundaries”, “You need to abide by everything everyone else wants of you, you are not your own person, you have to give up your needs, your voice, and your boundaries so that other people can feel seen and known and loved. But you don’t deserve the same because you are not as important as others.”

These narratives make it really hard to trust anyone, including ourselves if those are the messages we are telling ourselves.

Our Prover Makes It Harder To Trust

When those narratives get ground into us, it’s really hard to find truth and let it really sink in and change us. The simple act of “replacing the lie with truth” isn’t enough when your whole life tells of people telling you a different story. Your mind, body, and emotions are constantly scanning for valid experiences to be stated and your internal narratives to be confirmed.

They all want to validate the experiences you’ve had to feel more secure and grounded. “If I expect that people are going to disappoint me, I can be prepared and I won’t have to feel that old pain again.”

It’s our protector inside of us trying to make things easier for us. We find security in having a “normal” expectation of how things will turn out. Even if that “normal” is negatively affecting you. This can look like self-judgment, judgment of others’ intentions, assuming, isolating, blame-shifting, cutting people out of our lives, expecting disappointments, etc.

If you act as the critic, you are now the person your younger you needs to be protected from. If you are constantly judging yourself, telling yourself you’re doing it wrong, correcting, overstepping, and shaming yourself for the decisions you made out of fear, you won’t trust you. You have now become the thing that you need to be protected from, just like the critical parent, the rude family member, the friend, or the ex-boyfriend, that treated you so poorly.

So How Do You Stop The Inner Critic?

Figure out why she is there. What is she trying to protect herself from? Is it fear?

It may be that she’s been disappointed before and it felt so heavy and awful and she doesn’t want ever to feel that again. She may have made a vow to herself to never be treated like that ever again and so she partnered with anger or isolation to protect herself from feeling the pain.

Now anytime that pain gets poked, or brought up by you or someone else, she may get really angry. Or maybe shut down or isolate. She doesn’t want to feel it. She doesn’t want to relive it. And she doesn’t want you to talk about it either. She’s trying to protect herself from feeling that deep, deep pain again. This might be why it’s hard for you to talk about your pain with others. She might run, avoid, busy herself, act like it doesn’t exist, anything to not feel that pain.

But What She Doesn’t Know

But, what she doesn’t know, is that when she finally allows herself to feel it all and be seen and comforted, that big pain will slowly fade. It will dissipate and the love will finally start to get in. Her hardness of heart will soften and others will be able to see it too. She will have a greater capacity to give and receive love.

Her relationships will go deeper. More layers of pain will be healed more easily. Her life will become what she’s always wanted for herself. She will be living her dream and have the grace and capacity to pass that same experience of love and grace onto those around her. Life will no longer feel like an uphill battle. Her friendships will feel truer and deeper. Her connection with God will be richer and more freeing. Because of this, her rigidness will fall away and all she’ll have to offer is the great Love that God is bringing to her.

Building Trust With Your Younger Self

Building trust with yourself looks like allowing the pain to be seen, heard, and felt. To allow yourself to acknowledge that there is pain inside that hasn’t been addressed. To acknowledge what has gone unacknowledged by every adult, every relationship, every friend, every counselor, and even you.

You now get to give yourself what you never got. It’s pretty cool when you think of it like that. And the fact that God is outside of time, means that He can work and heal outside of the present moment. Which means full healing is available with God! It is possible to walk in freedom from your past pain.

In the same way friend, I hope you walk away from reading this knowing that YOU BEING SEEN IS VALUABLE. Thus, you being heard, you being allowed to feel pain, you being worth the time to work through the messiness of your healing journey is equally valuable. You knowing that YOU ARE VALUABLE is important. You are valuable friend. To the world, to me, to God. And HEALING IS POSSIBLE. Because, with God, healing is a simple by-product of relationship with Him. Healing comes from simply being in His presence.

Was This Helpful For You?

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Also, If you’re looking for resources, I have a basic step-by-step guide here on how to unpack triggers and connect with your heart.

If you are wanting to learn how to process pain and want to start a healing process for yourself, I am offering one-on-one coaching sessions. These sessions will help in learning how to process pain in a healthy way that actually brings lasting change and self-confidence.

I’m also creating a course that goes into the depths of all this as well. The course will take you step-by-step in how to walk through a healing journey. You will get live group coaching calls, a community of support, and one-on-one coaching with me. Also, subscribe to my email list to get updates for when the course is launched! If you have questions about anything, please reach out! I would love to chat with you via email.

You can email me at co*****@dy************.com with any questions you might have.