Activate Trust! Ep. 3:2 of "Anxiety…I'm So Done with You!"

This episode follows Chapter 3, Section 2: “Activate Trust” of Anxiety… I’m So Done with You! Do you have trust issues? ‘Trust issues’ sounds like a problem. But really, it means you value trust. In this episode, you’ll learn:

How to develop a deeper trust in yourself
What “keeping your ruby slippers on” means
Red flags to watch for in relationships
Tips on developing your intuition

Trust in relationships is important. When it is broken, it’s a slow road to building it back up. Sometimes, it feels impossible or that you are at fault because you are choosing the wrong people to trust. In this episode, I give you the secret to having trust again after being hurt.

There are three steps to activating trust.

Learn to read people
Keep your ruby slippers on
Handle it

Understanding these three will help you feel more confident to take risks and get close to people. Take your time getting to know people. Observing people is one of the ways we decide if we can trust them. Then, the ruby slippers come in. You are going to want to keep those puppies on!

Listen to the episode.

Resources for this Episode

Transcription of Episode

Hey, you’re here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 3 of “Anxiety… I’m so Done with You!” This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you’re new here, grab a copy of my book “Anxiety… I’m so Done with You!” because this series goes section by section through the book, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. Season 3, which goes along with Chapter 3, is expanding hope by looking at your skills and abilities.

You are amazing! You have many skills and abilities. However, anxiety does not want you to know that. It tries to block your view of them. But not anymore! In this season, we’ll bring them out into the open, giving you more access to them when you need them the most. As this season progresses, you’re going to envision yourself in a new way––as a person who is able, caring, confident, and determined. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. Mental health problems are skyrocketing, especially among young people, and this series will help them cease judging, stop questioning, and start healing!

Welcome to Chapter 3, Section 2, Activate Trust.

In this episode, we will discuss trust issues. I’ll share:

how to develop a deeper trust in yourself
how to keep on your ruby slippers
what relationship red flags to look out for
my best tips on how to develop your intuition

Before we start, I wanted to remind you that you can hang out with me on TikTok at Dr. Jodi for ongoing practical tips for your brain body and spirit.

I’m really excited about this chapter because we are activating your skills and abilities. Often, people go to a therapist and are taught skills from that therapist’s expertise. Or they read a book and learn what the author says is a good coping skill. That’s great, but it’s hard to embody new skills that come from expertise. If they’re not something familiar or related to you, and then you try and can’t do them, at the very least, you discard them, but at the very worst, you negatively judge yourself for failing them. What’s good about this chapter is that instead of learning new things you have no relationship to, we’re going over categories of skills you already have and can recognize. And then, we’re going to bring them online for you.

All right, trust issues. Do you have trust issues? “Trust issues” sound like you have a problem. You may actually say, “I have trust issues,” as if you’re admitting a problem that you have. But trust issues just means that trust is important to you. (Wouldn’t it be weirder if trust wasn’t important to you?) You are a social being who wants to connect with people who care about and love you.

This takes trust.

If you have had an experience in life when someone has hurt you, this breaks trust. And once trust is broken, it takes time to build it back up. Being hurt hurts your heart; when it hurts, it feels awful, and you never want to feel that way again. Also, when people get hurt, they tend to blame themselves, so they conclude that they are the problem because they trusted someone who hurt them.

You are not a problem. You have trust issues because you are a human and care about the sanctity of trust. Trust is vital in relationships, and people are limited, so they break trust sometimes. All of us have had experiences when trust was broken. Sometimes it was a minor betrayal, and sometimes it was huge. Sometimes it is so painful that we carry it for a long long time. Of course, we do; trust is important to us. People are important to us. Feeling loved and cared about is important to us.

In this section, Activate Trust, I remind you that the only person that you have to trust is yourself. I give you a practical framework for how to think about this.

First, Observe People

The first thing is to recognize your skills in reading people. This means observing people and getting a read on them, and learning what you can expect from them. Test the waters. Develop trust slowly, getting to know people before you are vulnerable. I know you have skills in observation because if you’ve had anxiety, you’ve spent a lot of time observing people. The anxious voice and the worries try to spin everything negatively, but don’t listen. Keep what you notice at the center of your mind rather than assuming they will hurt you and trying to figure that out. When you try to figure things out, it is an invitation to the monkey mind. We want to disempower the monkey, not empower the monkey.

Here’s an example of what you might be noticing:

She’s smiling.
Her eyes look kind.
She’s complimenting her friend when she talks to her friend.
She makes eye contact when she speaks to the teacher.
She’s polite.
I never saw her interrupt anybody.
When she walks past someone who drops something, she stops and helps them pick it up.
I saw her stand up for somebody.

These all indicate that she may be a nice person. This doesn’t mean she is a nice person. They are merely initial observations. I wouldn’t run up to her and tell her all my secrets, but these observations suggest she’s, for sure, worth taking the next steps of saying hi, asking a question about class, or complimenting her earrings.

Take your time getting to know people. There is no rush! Some people can fake being nice for a short while, but nobody can fake it for too long.

“Get to know people slowly to see if they stay trustworthy.”

This is how you develop trust in yourself by taking your time. It’s important to note that even nice people hurt others by accident or if they’re having a bad day. They make terrible choices, too, sometimes. People might pull away because they are isolating themselves, and it is not about you at all. They’re sad, or they’re having anxiety or something like that. So even if you get close to someone who is a good person, there’s still no guarantee that you won’t be hurt, so I added two more steps to this framework.

Second, Keep on Your Ruby Slippers

The next one is to keep on your ruby slippers. (Yep, I’m back to making a Wizard-of-Oz metaphor again!) In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy has the ruby slippers on the whole movie while she and her friends search for the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her get home. In the end, she finds out that she had the power to get herself home the whole time and that the power was in her ruby slippers. The ruby slippers symbolize her personal agency––her ability to affect what she wants to happen. If you take the metaphor a step further, it is about her worth. Dorothy was looking for the wizard to see if he thought she was worthy enough to go home. All too often in social situations, people unconsciously leave the ruby slippers at the door. Or worse, they hand the ruby slippers to other people looking for confirmation of their worth.

It makes sense that in social situations, we are looking to others to confirm our worthiness since we don’t experience our “self” in a vacuum. We only know ourselves and see ourselves reflected off the people around us. (That’s why it’s so important to surround yourself with good people!) However, you never want to give people your ruby slippers because that means they have full control over your self-concept, and I want you to have full control over your self-concept. When you see yourself reflected off the people around you, keeping your ruby slippers will allow you to decide what fits and what doesn’t. You can choose who is the reflecting surface that you want to see yourself in. A bully? Or someone who really sees the good in you?

“You are going to be around difficult people sometimes because they are everywhere.”

In Chapter 2, Lie #6, I give you some tools on how to get away from them and/or block them. I also have my Energy Shield Training video about this on the blog post that goes along with this episode to assist you in dealing with difficult people that you cannot trust and luckily don’t have to trust. Sometimes we have people at work, home, or school who are difficult and we can’t get away from them. Maybe you have to be in their presence occasionally. For those situations, keep your ruby slippers on. Also, dose yourself with some compassion, take a step back, and don’t take anything they say into your heart.

Do an experiment

In that Lie #6 section, I suggest an exercise on how to be kind to difficult people. Don’t try this with a bully, but you can try it with someone who’s crabby or a bit negative. Assume that they’ve been hurt and think of them as a fragile person because that is what they are. Show them some kindness. Acknowledge them. You don’t have to spend too long with them but compliment them here and there and smile at them. See if you notice a change in them. Most people are sad or feel bad about themselves because of some situation, someone has hurt them, or something in their life has been lost or threatened. Your small kindnesses could make them feel valued, and you might notice that this makes a difference to their behavior.

It’s Important to Note:

that you are in a power-role in this experiment, so you are relatively safe. You’re not opening your heart and being vulnerable with these difficult people. However, if they get mean to you at all, abort the experiment. I’m unsure if you know what I mean by being “in a power role.” In those exchanges, you’re not expecting the person to grant you worthiness. You are not giving that crabby person your ruby slippers, so they have power over how you see yourself. You are keeping them. It also doesn’t mean that you have power over them. Hopefully, your compliments will contribute to them feeling good about themselves, but you’re not controlling their worthiness. (See the difference?)

Power Dynamics

There are power dynamics in all relationships and some roles that affect those dynamics. For example, a teacher is in a power rule over a student because they’re the adult and an authority figure in the school setting. Plus, they give the students grades. Teachers ought to minimize those power dynamics whenever they can but also recognize that they’re there because they can’t be eliminated. And they come with a responsibility not to abuse them. Social identities affect power dynamics too. For example, White people have unearned power and privilege that people of color do not have. As much as we wish that that didn’t exist, it is important to know that it has and it does exist so that we can dismantle it. We can’t change it if we’re blind to it. More examples of social power differences because of discrimination are gender, heteronormativity, and cis-normativity. We need to see and dismantle those power differences.

Some people use power dynamics to control people. This is that pseudo-power that I was talking about before. It is bullying and abusive, yet it happens all the time in friend relationships, dating relationships, and adult and young people’s relationships. It happens way too much. In this section, I list some red flags to look for in case you’re interacting with a person like this or need clarification on whether you’re interacting with someone like this. I will read those off because a lot of doubt comes up around these kinds of relationships, and you may need to hear them repeatedly.

Red Flags to Look Out For…

The person you are in a relationship with

repeats how perfect you are, and then they criticize everything that you do
says that nobody else would love you as much as they love you
blames you for their anger
texts or calls too often
tells you they would die without you or they might kill themself if you break up with them
doesn’t respect your boundaries, and when you try to set them, they make fun of you for it
acts close way too quickly
is angry or jealous about you being with other friends
rolls their eyes, and they try to act like you’re overreacting
is mean when arguing
name-calls you, or they blame you
uses substances
is unkind to other people, like their parents, adults, or friends
has rapid-cycling unexplained mood changes
is secretive
makes excuses
makes you feel stupid or guilty
lets you pay for everything
is attention-seeking
needs constant reassurance that they’re important to you
hardly ever apologizes
gaslights

If any of these red flags sound familiar, or you doubt yourself at all, get an opinion from somebody else that you trust. Tell them everything that is going on and see what they say about it. The person who has power over you typically tries to isolate you because those connections tend to open your eyes. Good thing the controlling person can’t control everyone! Find someone who cares about you and tell them everything that is happening.

Gaslighting

(Gaslighting is another buzzword that is all around the internet. Sometimes it’s misunderstood. Gaslighting means that someone is making fun of you when you set a limit with them, or when you’re complaining about something they did. They make you think that it’s you or they make you think that you’re overreacting or crazy or they might make fun of you for setting those limits. This is a tactic to get you to stop setting limits, stop blaming them, or accusing them of doing something. They want you to stop looking at them as the problem and start looking at yourself as the problem. They use it as a distraction from what they’re doing. If you don’t know, the term “gaslight” comes from a movie of the same name. In the movie, an abusive husband gives his wife drugs that make her think that she is crazy. He’s also turning the lights on and off to make her think she is hallucinating. In the past, lights were often powered by gas instead electricity, thus “gaslights.”)

Third, Handle it

The third step in the framework is handling it. If you do step one, observing, and step two, keeping your ruby slippers on, you will enter relationships. Therefore, there is a risk that people will hurt you. (That’s the risk we take when we enter any relationship.) Building trust in yourself means knowing you can handle it if something happens. I’ve given you the tools to prevent many bad things from happening, but there still will be some. People are limited. Even when they don’t mean to hurt you, and sometimes when they don’t even know that they hurt you, they hurt you. It’s important to know that you can handle it if that happens. Knowing you can handle it will help you take risks in relationships. You are minimizing the risks with the skills, but there still are some risks. Trust you can handle whatever happens. I know it was painful when someone hurt you, but you recovered. You can recover again, especially when you know you can handle it if something happens. That will keep your anxiety at bay. It’ll help you take risks by being in relationships. They are worth it.

Developing your Intuition

Next, I want to give you my four best tips for developing your intuition. This will help you in many other areas, especially in relationships. Your intuition is your inner guidance system. You have so much wisdom inside of you that you could tap into. Humans are incredibly intuitive. You know things that you don’t know why we know. Part of that is from your intelligence: things that you’ve known about from the past and maybe don’t remember, but you still have that intelligence there. Part of it is from your emotions because you feel things that you don’t know how you feel because you’re sensitive. And lastly, part of it is from your spirit. It’s your higher wisdom or the energy field around you. You also might tap into your ancestors, or if you’re a spiritual person and you believe in a higher power, you tap into that relationship with that higher power.

The problem is that the voices of anxiety and self-doubt get in the way of your inner wise voice. To overcome that, I’m giving you four basic tips to open up those channels and develop your intuition.

Get out of the Monkey Mind

(You knew that was going to be something about the monkey mind?) The monkey tries to pretend it’s your wise voice––you’re protecting voice––but it is not. It’ll keep you arguing with yourself, defending, and criticizing yourself. as long as you let it. The monkey mind wants to figure things out, but that’s a guise! It wants to keep questioning and arguing!

Close Circles

We all have tons of circles in our minds. An open circle is a task that you have started or something that you desire to do. Undone, it sits there like an open tab on your computer, taking up space and cluttering up your mind. To close the circle, you either have to do the task or decide not to do it. When you close circles, you are clearing your mind clutter. You’ll feel so much lighter and happier without millions of open circles in your mind.

Give yourself some space

Practice with something benign

Start practicing your intuition with easy questions like, “What do I want to eat right now?” or “Which sweatshirt should I wear today?” It’s helpful to start small and build that trust in yourself. Get used to pausing throughout your day to ask your intuition mundane questions. Then notice the results when you do what it says. This invites you to be in that witnessing state again (that I talked about in the last episode). You’re watching yourself ask yourself questions and track the results of those answers. When you develop your intuition, you activate that deeper trust and confidence. If you want to know more, I have a Develop Your Intuition course for teenagers, Click here.

I am so glad that you spent this time with me today listening to this podcast, “Anxiety… I’m So Done with You!” with me, Dr. Jodi. In this episode,

When you’re asking yourself a question, take a moment to center yourself. Imagine your feet rooting into the ground, and your body feeling calm and held. Sometimes I place my hand on my stomach and follow at least one breath going in and out very slowly. Only then do I ask my intuition a question. And I wait and listen. Alternately, when you rush things, you are in a position of desperation. From there, your anxiety will answer your question, not your intuition.

we discussed trust issues
I told you how to develop a deeper trust in yourself,
how to keep on your ruby slippers, and
what red flags to look for in relationships, and then,
I gave you my best tips on developing your intuition

Remember, anxiety is invisible. There are so many people in your life struggling that you may not even know about. Sharing my podcasts or videos with your friends could save lives. It would also greatly help if you left me a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Next, we dive into Chapter 3, Section 3, Activate Motivation. Read or listen to that, and I’ll see you there.

Ask Dr. Jodi

Activate Trust in Yourself! Ep. 3:2 of “Anxiety…I’m So Done with You!” Teen Podcast

There are three steps to activating trust.