Distrust Part II

I’ve had some interesting responses to my earlier post about trust, so I’ll clarify some things a little further for those who are feeling uncertain.

When we distrust someone we may in actuality be trusting our own inner sense of who that person is. So even though your first grade teacher may have told you conflicting things about who to trust (trust her, trust the administration, but not strangers with candy – so what do we do about administrators with candy?) the point is to honor what you feel, not what is accepted protocol. To accept a party line we feel is wrong is to distrust our own sense of what is right.

Now, somewhere in all this we encounter jealousy. This occurs when we don’t quite trust another person to behave correctly towards us. Is that because we have real reasons to think that way? If so then it is merely a fact, lamentable but true. What makes jealousy so corrosive is that somewhere inside ourselves we may feel we aren’t worthy of good regard, that we deserve to be treated this way. That is the ultimate form of self distrust, and also distrust of the universe. For we are all worthy of good treatment. Every single one of us. If we don’t get it this is no reason to tear ourselves to shreds.

Jealousy – and its brother, envy – is the creation of that wounded part of the self that wants good treatment but is afraid it doesn’t deserve it. It is the result of a lack of self-love.