There was a time whenever you trusted everyone and anyone. You trusted the people around you, your friends and acquaintances, but most importantly you trusted yourself. You walked around freely, relying on your steps, looking up and running fast without being too careful. But suddenly you lost balance, you tripped and fell into a hole.
And then you’re stuck in that hole, desperately trying to climb out, but every time your hands touch the top, ready to pull yourself out, you slip and fall right back. There’s only so many times you try until you give up. Right when you’re at the very edge of giving up, all of a sudden, someone puts a ladder into this hole. This time you won’t slip, you know all the right grips, you gained strength from all the failed attempts to escape and carefully, watching every step as you climb, you’re able to get out of that hole you were stuck in for so long.
You‘re free. Well, kind of. Because even though you are free to discover the world without being stuck you will always look down, carefully placing your steps so that you will never fall again.
There comes a point when you learn to trust your steps again and you will look up, but that's only for so long until you trip and loose balance for a second, and if you do that, all your confidence and trust in your own steps will suddenly disappear and you'll find yourself looking down at your feet again.
However, sometimes you'll be strong enough to overcome that as well and maybe, one day, never look down again. In that case I truly admire you.
But unfortunately, in reality that’s often not the case. Instead, you’ll always find yourself looking down at times, you might not ever be able to regain that confidence in your own steps you used to have before you fell. Of course, there will be good days, days when there’s nothing that will keep you from questioning the safety of your ground, or your steps. On those days you will look up and sometimes it will seem like you actually never fell. And there will also be bad days, the kind of days when you will crawl around, barely able to get up because you will be too scared to fall.
You learned your lesson, and by falling you lost trust. You lost trust in the people around you, maybe in humanity, but most importantly you lost trust in yourself.
Because if your steps would’ve been different you would’ve never fallen in the first place. And if you would’ve been stronger you would have made it out yourself, without needing a ladder to climb up. You could’ve prevented all of this from happening, at least that’s what you tell yourself. Deep down you know that’s wrong.
You’re gonna have to start over. Almost like a little child who’s learning to walk. At first they pull themselves up, using all kinds of different things to hold on to, and then, when they learned to trust their feet and are able to stand, they start walking. Slowly at first, to gain more confidence, and then faster.
Trust is fragile. A quality, so essential for our being, and yet so easily destroyable within the blink of an eye. Once destroyed it requires a lot of hard work, commitment, and sometimes disappointment along the way to rebuild it. But before you’re able to trust others you will have to start trusting yourself again. Trust your steps, they didn’t mean to make you fall, trust your heart, you will be capable to love again, trust your strength, it kept you from giving up when you were stuck. Trust yourself.
