The Bond of Trust

If you look up the word trust, it means the "firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of something or someone."

The bond of trust is something that is so important and takes time to build. It is also a fragile bond; one that must be guarded with the people you truly wish to have in your life long term. There is a theory called the Social Penetration Theory (SPT). Now, don’t be scared away by the fact that it’s called a theory. It only takes being human and some common sense to understand it! Basically, the SPT uses the analogy that the way in which we interact and form relationships looks somewhat like an onion.

Yes, an onion.

Now, what is meant by that is, when you open an onion there are many layers that are seen. Likewise, our human interactions are formed by those layers through something called depth and breadth. Depth meaning the degree of intimacy of what you are sharing and breadth being the different topics/areas through which you are disclosing information. We have different degrees of self-disclosure with different individuals and that affects how intimate our relationships are.

Trust is built through depth and breath. Without it, without opening up and being ‘vulnerable‘ with one another, there is nothing to trust. When there is not an equal degree of self-disclosure, relationships usually don’t grow much.

Building trust takes time and sharing your life story takes even more time. When building this bond of trust with someone be aware of both perspectives. You are learning to trust this new individual through your own life experiences while they are doing the same.

Note that all our experiences are different and this bond of trust might take longer to build in some relationships than others and that's okay! Also, be gentle with yourself when you find it hard to trust and create this bond with others.