An Open Letter To The Authentic Men We Struggle To Trust

You are true; we knew that from the moment we met you. The way you first engaged was more than charming; it was authentic, kind, and honest. There were no games in your words, just a truthful expression of who you were and where you had been. We shared stories as equals, both practicing the art of being vulnerable.

Something inside of us had said from the start, “I trust this man.” We questioned those words that came to us, wondering what they meant and if we could trust them. We felt them early so we could not know exactly what we could trust you to be for us; however, we knew that the intentions, commitment, and vision you would come to speak would be truthful. That you stood for what you spoke.

As time went on, and life placed challenges before this new partnership, we shook in our skin, beginning to wonder if our trust was misplaced. If we had been naïve, or worse yet, deceived. Paranoia seeped into mind, filling us with stories we could not decipher as either true or false. We questioned our gut as much as we questioned you, leaving us in limbo with an unfair choice of having to choose your truth or our own. As if there was no space for the two.

We searched our pasts for all the deception we had crossed paths with — each time a lover had lied, every time an unforeseen ending had come our way, each time we realized we’d been blind for some time, each time we looked back, kicking ourselves, “I had a feeling…”

It is true that each of these times carved a little trench in our hearts that would remind us to associate vulnerability with heartbreak. Intimacy with pain. And yet, the biggest wound that led us to see life this way is not one that any other has ever bestowed upon us.

It is the wound born from what we have neglected within ourselves. It is the one deepened from each time we failed to trust our deeper knowing, our intuition, our gut feeling. It is the scar from each time we silenced — mistrusted, disrespected — the feminine knowing within us.

We struggle to trust you because we struggle to trust ourselves. We question our intuition — the inner rumbling that alerts us when something is up; when something tickles for our attention. We question you because we have lost our ability to trust our gut knowing. We have lost our sense of discernment; our navigation between mind and intuition.

We had rested with ease into the victim mindset without considering our part. It is not to excuse or discount the wounds inflicted by another, but it is to bring forth responsibility for the scars imparted by our own failure to look at life — our struggles, our needs, our dreams, our feelings — with truth. With our higher mind. With that inner voice.

Will you stand by our side as we practice trusting you through learning to trust ourselves? Will you practice honoring our truths as we, too, work to hold space for yours? Can we both walk towards the middle, respecting where our truths are similar and where they differ? Can we rest together on this higher, middle ground?

We trust you. Deep down, the truth is that we do. In fact, it is because of those early betrayals of trust — born of other and of self — that we have not fallen blindly into this faith in you. We have had our trust broken, strengthening our senses to better determine when it is to be confidently granted to the best of our human ability. We trust you from the bottom of our hearts, not despite, but because of our questioning. Our questioning keeps us in check. But we know that it was our intuition, not mind, that had whispered those words early on — “I trust this man.”

We are committed to building our external layers of trust in you because we are dedicated to expanding our confidence, faith, and trust in ourselves. We ask for your patience as we unravel our questions — as we continue to sort out fact from fiction. Fear from our inner voice. We ask for your support in honoring our feminine wisdom — our voices, our power, our intuition, our truths.

Let us build this trust for you through strengthening our trust in ourselves. Through building our confidence, enhancing our wildness, and reconnecting with our feminine wisdom. We trust you, we do, but to honor this we must learn to honor ourselves.