Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Time to Feel. It’s been a little while since our last episode. I’ve had some intense months recently. I unfortunately lost my dad around Thanksgiving and have been on the roller coaster of grief. But I’m back now, and I’m so glad you’re joining me.

So today, we’re going to be talking about how to build self-trust.

This is an important topic to me, because trusting yourself is absolutely crucial to having inner peace, feeling good about yourself and having a version of life that feels right for you. So, let’s get right into it.

My first tip to start trusting yourself is to start making one small promise to yourself on a daily basis, and keeping it no matter what.

When I first started paying attention to my emotions and getting to know who I am, I was very intentional about rebuilding trust with myself. Up until that point, I had spent my life trusting everyone else more than I trusted myself. I thought everyone knew better than me. So, after 20 years of being in a codependent relationship with my dad and my entire family, my self-trust was very deteriorated.

So, I wanted to prove to myself that I could rely on myself no matter what. So, I decided to do one simple thing each day at the same time to start establishing that trustworthiness, and in turn, my own confidence.

I started with something very low-stake. Meaning, if I missed doing it, I wouldn’t lose anything. What I chose to do was say the Lord’s Prayer every single day at noon.

At that time, I was a nanny in Boulder, Colorado. So, midday, I knew I would be eating lunch with the little girls I took care of. I would glance at the clock and as soon as it hit noon, I would say the Lord’s Prayer in my head.

And I did that every day for many years. Even today, I still see the clock strike 12 and I’ll think that Prayer to myself.

What I established from keeping this promise was two things. One, I proved to myself over a long period of time that I could trust myself to do one tiny thing each day no matter what. That gave me a lot more confidence than I expected, because by doing it, I was providing myself with concrete evidence that I could start trusting myself. And maybe if I could do this small thing, I could probably trust myself to do bigger, more important things.

The second thing I established by keeping this specific promise to myself was that I could do something on my own without any external reminders. I didn’t use an alarm or any notifications on my phone to remind me to say the Lord’s Prayer at twelve exactly. It required me to use my own will forces to dedicate my energy to something that was important to me. So, it also strengthened my will.

If you choose to do something every day to start building trust with yourself, you don’t necessarily need to do it at the same time like I did.

But start as small as possible and choose something low stake that you won’t have any negative consequences from. You could promise yourself to flip a light switch off and on when you use it. Or to click your pen three times sometime during the day. Just little, silly things that don’t make a difference to anyone but you.

Over time, you’ll start feeling different toward yourself. Not only will you slowly build trust with yourself, but you’ll also start feeling more connected to yourself because you’re dedicating time to your own growth.

So, that’s my first tip - to make one small, inconsequential promise to yourself every day, and keep it no matter what.

My next tip to build self-trust is to pay attention to what your emotions are trying to tell you, and to honor those messages.

Your emotions are an important part of your inner guidance system. They’re here to help you live a life that’s aligned with your personal truth. So, if you deny them or push them away, then you’re pushing a part of your inner wisdom away.

Also, when you bottle up your emotions,