HOW CAN I TRUST SOMEONE, WHEN TRUST BEEN BROKEN? - Part 2

My mother use to always tell me it takes a lifetime to build up trust with someone, but it can be broken in minutes.  In order to rebuild your trust with someone, it takes hard work and time especially when there has been a breach in the relationship.  In this blog series we have been looking at the question “How can I trust someone, when trust been broken?”, in light of marital and family relationships.  Our spouse or children could have caused the emotional pain and hurt we feel.  Before trust can be restored in a relationship with someone, we need to first be healed of the emotional pain from the broken trust.  As we look at several choices to help us heal from emotional pain caused by broken trust with someone, the first choice is “The Choice To Connect With Others.” Today I want to talk about the second choice we can make to heal from our emotional hurt of broken trust, which is called “The Choice To Feel And Express Our Life”.  This choice says we need to be able to feel the full impact of our emotional pain in our lives, work through those feelings with people who understand and sympathize with us, which can help us heal emotionally from our pain or hurt. 

In the book titled “Healing Is A Choice” written by Stephen Arterburn, he talked about making important choices that can help us experience emotional healing in our lives.  In chapter 2 in a section called “The Choice To Feel Your Life”, he says it is important to give people who are hurting emotionally the opportunity to feel, and work through their pain without pushing them to heal instantly from it.  In other words, he is saying we should be able to have someone who we can honestly express our true feelings to, who won’t try to get us to skip over or not deal with our hurt in a healthy way.   In the last blog we looked at the story of a married couple named Tina and Teddy, who made different choices to heal from the emotional pain of mistrust because of the husband’s affair with another woman. The first choice the couple made was to connect with other people who could walk along aside them, to help them get the emotional healing they needed to have a successful marriage.  The second choice the couple made was to heal emotionally by feeling and expressing their pain to others, who would give them the opportunity to work through their feelings of anger and mistrust, especially Tina because of her husband’s affair.  The couple had the support of other people who they both submitted their lives to, in order to get healed emotionally.  Tina had to get healed so she could forgive her husband for his infidelity, and Teddy had to get healed from the pain he caused his wife to go through.

The example here was with a married couple involved in infidelity because of trust being broken by a spouse, but mistrust can be involved in any situation between friends, a married couple, or a parent and a child.  Whatever our situation might be, we need to have the opportunity to feel the pain of our hurt before we can become healed emotionally.   Too often people want us to instantly get healed over the things that hurt us, which can lead us to burying our emotions causing us not to resolve the pain that is within us.  Resolving our emotional hurt happens as we feel and work through the pain with God’s help, and others we trust who understand and sympathize with us.  If we don’t resolve the hurt we feel within us, our life will revolve around those feelings controlling us.  We will be controlled by feelings of anger, bitterness, anxiety, and fear.  Being controlled by these feelings will cause us to try to get relief from our emotional pain by using such things as food, alcohol, drugs, sex, and gambling.  When we deal with our emotional pain of broken trust with people we trust in a safe environment, it can allow us to get the help we need to heal from our hurt.  Once we are healed emotionally we can then forgive the person that broke our trust, whether it is our spouse, a friend, or a rebellious child.

Even the Bible tells us in Galatians 6:2, how we need help those who are experiencing emotional hurts by understanding and sympathizing with them.  We are to help others by carrying their burdens (emotional pain).  We need to have the opportunity to feel our pain in order to be healed emotionally.  Resolving your emotional pain properly can help you heal, which can open the door for you to forgive the offender.  Let’s choose to make the choice to feel and express our life to others, who can help us to heal from the broken trust we might experience in our friendships, marriage, or family relationship. 

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.