4 Ways To Build Trust
Trust is not assumed, it’s built over time. Safety is contingent upon trust, so if we want to build and sustain healthy relationships, we must know how to build trust. In today’s episode of A Trauma-Informed Future podcast, host Katie Kurtz shares 4 practical ways to build trusting relationships with yourself and others. These strategies not only promote trust within personal and professional relationships but also enhance overall experiences and outcomes in various interactions. Whether you are new or experienced, this is a helpful check-in episode full of powerful practices to attune to centering trust in all of your relationships.
Referenced in this episode:
Show Transcript:
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Hi everyone and welcome back to A Trauma-Informed Future podcast. I'm your host, Katie Kurtz. Today I want to talk about four ways to build trust. Oftentimes when we talk about trauma informed care, we're talking about safety, how to practice and build safer spaces, how to promote psychological safety, et cetera. And we have to remember that safety cannot exist unless trust is built. And trust is not assumed it's built over time.
And so how do we build trusting relationships with ourselves and with others? How do we build trust within the environment, the service, the space? Today I really wanted to focus and hone in on four key ways we can build into our trauma informed practice that build trust, whether that is infusing these four ways into our communications, our relationship building, or critical thinking, or self-awareness our collaboration practices.
These are four things that elicit and build trust within [00:01:00] ourselves and each other .
Are you doing these things? Do you need a tune-up? Do you need to strengthen any areas of these elements.
Let's talk about the first, which is practice the pause. This is a term I use a lot and it's so, so key. It's slowing down to match the pace of the person and the relationship being built.
Again. Trust is not assumed it's built over time. Let's honor the nuance though that sometimes we need to immediately assume trust in people in certain situations. So this may be in whenever our safety or survival is at risk. So for example, perhaps in an emergency room, if you hurt yourself or you're injured or you're sick and you need to go to an emergency room, you have to blindly trust that the doctors and nurses and the other people there are going to support you and help you feel better and be safe. We're not talking about emergency situations here.
Although they can still be applied. Although these things can still be applied in emergency situations where trust has to be assumed the majority of times what we're [00:02:00] likely experiencing are non-emergency situations where we have time to build trust. And we need to take time, which I know I'm a very impatient person. I just want to be there, whatever there is faster. And so I am constantly having to be in my own practicing of the pause and slowing things down.
Pausing is an invitation to slow down so that we can access our power within to choose to consent and make informed choices so we can build trust with ourselves and each other by slowing down and matching the pace in which the person or people you're building relationship, the pace of trust. It also ensures that we are being responsive rather than reactive.
Pausing is so essential because if we are communicating or building relationships, , our initial instinct is maybe to be reactive. And when we're reactive, we know that other people become reactive and nothing really good ever comes [00:03:00] from that. It shuts people down. Trust gets severed it ruptures. However, when we're building relationships, when we pause it invites us to slow down.
It invites us to discern to think and judge critically. And it allows us to be come from a place of responsiveness rather than reactivity. Pausing also can occur individually or collectively. We can build trust within a group space by inserting these pauses to allow for us to pace ourselves in that relationship.
The second way we can build trust is to actively listen.
This means to activate our presence, to be with the person or people, and truly listen to understand. This something, when I think of active listening, I always think of my Teacher, Andrea Renee Johnson says listening with resonance, being able to listen and fully be present and listen to understand the person.
There's [00:04:00] resonance between us and not to be thinking about what you're going to say next or how you can fix this person's problems or not to seek, to fix judger solve, so they feel seen and heard. And when we actively listen, we're increasing our capacity to witness others.
And when we're able to witness others, when people are able to feel seen and heard we build trust. Think about someone that you feel seen by who really listens to you and think about that relationship and the trust that exists within that relationship. Being seen and heard is so essential to our humanity. And when we're able to pause slow down and actively listen, it really helps us build that trust.
The third thing is to be transparent. This goes back to a classic Brene Brown clear is kind unclear, unkind. Using clear is kind language modeling, and mirroring to give other people permission to do the same.
If you're using certain [00:05:00] communications, certain behaviors, That encourage trauma-informed practices, other people will begin to model and mirror that as well. If you're modeling and mirroring trust-building, other people will do that as well. Being transparent offers predictability and consistency with clear expectations.
And we know our nervous system loves predictability and consistency and clear expectations. And when our nervous system can access that we're more likely to be regulated. When we we're more regulated, we're more likely to trust. And plus, I don't know about you, but I need transparency. I need clear expectations.
If I'm going to buy from you. If I'm going to work with you, if I'm going to purchase your product. I need to know exactly what it is what's going to happen, who you are, all the things. So I can make an informed decision. I will not make that decision, or I will hesitate if that transparency is not clear. So it is not just about building trust within the relationships, but building trust in brands, building trust in products and [00:06:00] services.
The fourth way is to shift our language. We can build trust by shifting our language by focusing on curiosity over judgment. By asking and not assuming by limiting certain jargon or industry talk that could an uneven power dynamics. If we're using certain language that we're accustomed to, but the other person isn't. It cannot create uneven power dynamics that could squelch trust. And we want to be mindful of our language because it can aim to validate and affirm people.
Or are we using language that, that dismisses or judges people we want to aim to validate and affirm a reminder that validation doesn't always equal agreement. We can validate people by letting them know we've seen them we've heard them without necessarily agreeing with them. And we want to avoid platitudes. We want to avoid these surface level things that could create disconnection rather than connection.
So these four ways to build trust, may feel, quite [00:07:00] instinctual, intuitive that you're doing already. It might affirm what you're already doing, but now you know why you're doing them from a trauma-informed lens. And when we do these things, we're promoting co-regulation and nervous system care. A reminder trauma informed care is nervous system informed care. Trauma informed care is resilience focused care.
When we practice these things we're promoting safety and trust, which also really promotes resilience and our nervous system, both individually and collectively. And when trust exists, we're more likely to feel safe. And so when we think about this from just like a really common sense perspective, which quite frankly, trauma informed care is.
If we feel more trust. And we're more likely to connect and if we're more likely connect, we're going to be more engaged. And if we're more engaged, we're more likely to have a good experience, a positive experience, an excellent experience, and if we're having really good experiences. We're more likely to have better outcomes or we're going to come [00:08:00] back. We're going to buy from you again. We're going to continue to seek your service. We're going to continue to show up in that relationship.
If trust is not prioritized and we're not honoring the pace of trust. Disconnection may happen and somebody may not be engaged. They may ghost. They may be inconsistent. They may not feel a connection. So why would they show up? And if someone is not engaged, they're likely not going to have a good experience because they're not coming or they're not showing up or they're not putting forth the effort. Because they don't see a reason why, because trust is not there. And if someone is not having a good experience and they're likely not to have good outcomes, whatever that may be .
How can we honor the pace of trust within relationships, both personally and professionally knowing trauma-informed tells us, that can be challenging for some people that trust can be risky. That trust may take more time. And so how can we honor that while we sell things? When we market things, when we do business, when we provide services, when we talk to our teams and lead, how can we be mindful of that and [00:09:00] actively. Always try to center trust and build trust into everything we do.
So this is a really minimized way of explaining it, but also it's a really practical way of that trust is the essence of everything. Building trust, whether it's within personal relationships, professional relationships. It matters.. And it's so important because it is the roots that fertilize, all these other things.
The four ways we can really focus on building trust. And again, infuse these elements into everything we do is practicing the pause, actively listening, being transparent, and shifting our language.
Because our language is a vehicle of change. Our language is a vehicle of connection. It can also be a vehicle of disconnection and we know that within the six RS of integrative trauma informed care. Reconnect is that third R how do we reconnect people back to safety and language is, a vehicle in which we do that, where we realign our [00:10:00] intentions and impact, and we're able to be a bridge towards safety rather than a bridge towards trauma and stress. So those are those four ways to build trust, a little check in a way to come back to your practice.
A reminder that trauma-informed care is not an arrival. It's an evolution, and we're always evolving in this practice. It evolves as we evolve. And we need to honor our own self-trust practices because trauma informed care is a bi-directional approach. It includes us. So if we're practicing these four elements with building trust with others in relationships, how are we also using these elements to build trust with ourselves?
How are we practicing the pause within our own nervous system? Honoring our own capacity and pace? How are we actively listening to ourselves? How are we being transparent with ourselves and practicing self consent? How are we shifting our self-talk language? How do we talk with ourselves?
How are we choosing curiosity over judgment? When we are considering ourselves in the equation? All of these elements [00:11:00] of trauma informed care are always elements of care in which we give to ourselves. We cannot provide trauma informed care wihtout also giving that same care to ourselves.
Everything we do is linked to building trust because when we feel trust, we can feel safe. And when we feel safe, anything is possible. If you want to learn more about trauma informed care or join us in the trauma informed leadership studio, where we have practice circles, resource library, and continue education workshop workshops with folks trauma-informed leaders all over the world.
It's a beautiful space to continue your up your own trauma informed evolution. If you want to learn more or go deeper into this conversation. I have linked the conversation I had with Fihmiya Hamdan she's a former podcast guest, but also my colleague and friend within the Integrate Network. We recorded this awhile back and it's just a really gem of an episode that I wanted to share with you all, where we go into the importance of trust. That is linked in the show notes.
I hope this is helpful. I invite you to think more deeply about your relationship with [00:12:00] trust. We know that trauma can sever trust and rupture trust. So building trust can take. A longer time.
That is it for today until next time, take good care.
