What does mindfulness have to do with trust? A few things and they’re really important. So, this month, our mindfulness goal is to keep an eye on our ability to trust.
Self-Doubt as a Barrier to Mindfulness
Do you trust that mindfulness will work for you? That it will help you live a life with more peace and gratitude? That you can stress less and feel more gratitude with mindfulness practice?
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: if you are having trouble maintaining a mindfulness practice, you probably don’t trust that it will do good things for you. Because mindfulness is an internal practice you are responsible for doing, that means you are dealing with self-doubt. You doubt you can do it.
Therefore, a lack of trust is keeping you from living the more mindful life you would like to have. That’s where we begin. Why do you doubt you can do it? Can you acknowledge that you are feeling self-doubt, and proceed mindfully anyway?
To build trust, give yourself a chance to do so! Take note of times when you lack trust in yourself and set out to improve that.
Mindfulness Helps Build Trust
Imagine you decide to spend the next hour of your day mindfully. In the first ten minutes, you get distracted and realize after a while that you are not being mindful.
Typically, you might say, “I’m not good at this,” or, “I can’t focus,” or, “This just isn’t working for me.” Instead, you could simply note that dealing with distractions and falling off course is part of mindfulness, meditation, and other like practices.
In other words, you are trusting the process, knowing that a lack of trust is normal at times.
From there, start looking for times when mindfulness helped prove you could trust – yourself as well as others. When you’re paying close attention, you’re more likely to notice when things work out.
In normal instances, you might express frustration at a traffic jam or messed up café order. But when you’re mindful in these circumstances, you are able to appreciate how ultimately, traffic gets moving again, and orders can be fixed.
This is patience, certainly, but also trust. You can trust that many of life’s little problems will work out in the end.
Also, mindfulness calls forth our authentic voice, and that’s a voice we can trust. It’s not the reactive, anxious part of the brain that runs on fear or anger, but what we really think. The voice that reflects our values, personality traits, and goals. If that voice were allowed to be at least as loud as the negative one that says you just can’t do it, you’d be effectively fighting self-doubt.
So next time you’re doing your mindfulness or meditation practice, be sure to watch for those pockets of self-doubt. There’s an opportunity there to trust.
What do you think of trust in connection to mindfulness? Do you think mindfulness has or could improve your ability to trust? Let us know in the comments, as well what other mindfulness goals you’d like to set this month.