How to build self trust in times of uncertainty

I used to write about risk from the perspective of a woman who had taken a lot of big leaps, and most of them had worked out in my favour.

I was younger then, and I would encourage other women to “jump and the net will appear” and say things like “everything you want is on the other side of your fear”. 

I still believe those things can be true.

But I’m not the naive maiden I once was.

I’ve now lived through the consequences of risks that didn’t work out. I’ve experienced the years that have passed when I didn’t bounce back quickly from a misstep. I’ve learned about the long term repercussions on my nervous system of living in such a yang way.

And after choosing to no longer push myself through the transformation to the glow up, fully fuelled by adrenaline, I understand risk differently now.

I used to have it in me to pivot my entire life within a matter of months, sometimes weeks. Of course my threshold for risk was higher then. 

I also understand deeply the consequences of hiding from risk. The way my life can stagnate and dry up. The monotonous tone my days start to take on. This deep underlying feeling that something is missing.

I’ll always be someone who is born to live a big life and who boldly seeks out challenge and growth. And my risk tolerance has become a little more calculated and a little less wild abandon.

To be fair, a lot of this shift feels like healthy maturity. I wouldn’t say I’m jaded, but I’ve seen darker sides of the world; ones that a younger version of me stuck her head in the sand and avoided looking at. I really believed positive thinking could fully protect me from harm… and it did… until it didn’t.

Eventually, I realized that the naive, innocent part of me was getting me into dangers she simply couldn’t see. My ex boyfriend was one of those dangers. And he saw and loved that innocent part of me. He told me once that I didn’t have “fangs” like he did. 

I came out of that experience needing a less rose-coloured view of the world, in favour of one that was a little more… dare I say? Realistic.

And yet, realism was never my magic realm. I’ve always believed that my Pisces ability to be delusional in my dreams was a superpower in creating an extraordinary life (way before delulu was cool). 

I understand how limited our ability to create becomes when it is rooted in our current reality instead of our imagination.

So how can we protect our fragile human hearts from very real dangers, while still living wildly, boldly, and outside of our own perceived limitations?

How can we choose risks that are calculated, that won’t cost us years of repair, without shrinking our lives into dull landscapes of predictability?

How can we tolerate the uncertainty in our audacious choices, without feeling like everything will fall apart if we get it wrong?

These are the questions I have been living into for the last while.

The answer to all of it, I have found, is in developing deeper and stronger self trust.

Because when you trust yourself, you don’t have to know if the risk is the right one, or how it will turn out before you leap.

You know that you can handle whatever comes next.

You also don’t have to rely on naivety, or innocence, or “positive thinking” to feel safe to take a chance. In fact, your lived experiences of danger can inform and strengthen your self trust. 

Your wisdom and body of experience doesn’t have to make you jaded. It can help you discern more clearly in the future. You can recognize the signals of danger you missed and trust yourself to honour them next time.

Deepening your self trust means that your choices of which risks to take become more refined. It also means that you have a greater resilience for getting it wrong. You know you can trust yourself to navigate that part too.

I want to share a story to really help this idea land...

Over the last few months I’ve been intentionally dating with the intention of meeting my forever person. I deeply desire marriage, partnership, and eventually a child.

And yet there has been a part of me that didn’t trust myself to know if I was seeing things clearly in this realm. 

I’ve had some of the worst luck with men in the past. I would also say that my reckless abandon approach to risk taking was very much my approach to love in the past. If there was a connection, I would dive in head first without thinking twice.

Even though I’ve had my heart broken about 10 times, I was always willing to take another chance on love. Friends and family admired my ability to keep putting myself out there, despite the horrors I had experienced.

Until that approach landed me in the most confusing and toxic relationship of my life. And I did not bounce back quickly.

After a few brief encounters that looked remarkably like old patterns, I took about a year and a half away from dating completely. I couldn’t handle the risk, if I’m honest. I didn’t have the capacity to handle another heartbreak, and needed to replenish my inner resources.

But since I’ve been dating again, something different has been happening. Dating holds inherent risks. You’re meeting up with strangers and trying to get to know if this is someone you could build a life with. You have to be open for it to work. 

But also, I am not the same reckless and naive younger me anymore. The one who could fall in love with a man over lunch and be fantasizing about our life together by dinner. 

I have lived and I have learned.

I’m not guarded or afraid of being open, and I’m also not oblivious to the harsh reality that dating men can be dangerous.

I’m filled with hope and optimism, and I’m also incredibly discerning. I’m not leaping blindly anymore, and there is so much more self trust here.

One man I was introduced to by mutual friends, and he seemed to check all of my boxes. I had a hyper specific list of what I was looking for (which I have since discarded) and damn, he was scoring high. But after a lovely weekend together, I didn’t immediately jump off the cliff of “this must be my husband”. Ok, I almost did, but I knew there was more information I needed. Primarily: can he communicate, is he looking for a serious partnership, and is he capable of showing up for that?

Spoiler alert: the answer to all three proved very quickly to be a resounding NO. 

When it was getting murky and unclear, I put myself out there. I shared that I had enjoyed connecting and was curious about getting to know him more. He ghosted.

Perfect! I had learned to discern the difference between a beautiful connection and the capacity to build a real partnership. I could TRUST MYSELF here, in uncertainty, risk, and the unknown. 

The second man was the opposite. He came on strong, and was showing up correct. We love to see it.

But again, I didn’t put the horse before the cart or leap into hopeless romantic land. I told him to hold his horses when after two dates he was vividly painting our future together. I set boundaries when his romantic gestures started to feel like the familiar flavour of love bombing.

He pushed and pushed those boundaries, which told me everything I needed to know. This man sees me as a conquest, and my boundaries as a challenge to overcome. He will treat my limits as negotiable and will experience not getting what he wants as a failure that requires more persistence. 

Perfect! Once again, I can trust myself here. A man can be absolutely charming, say and do everything “right” and also show signs of entitlement, boundary violation, and disrespect. I can spot this reminiscent pattern quickly and accurately. 

It is safe for me to put myself out there, because I can trust myself to see when something isn’t right for me (quickly) and remove myself without much damage done. 

Living with an open heart, following your intuition, and Rewilding will all ask that you choose a life that is filled with risk and the unknown.

It doesn’t mean you have to be naive, bury your head in the sand, ignore reality or just “think positive”. In fact, those things just make you easier to manipulate.

It also doesn’t mean that you should hide and protect yourself from the world because life is dangerous and nothing is certain.

The more you trust yourself, the more you can choose to stay open despite the risks. The more wise you become in choosing risks with greater reward and less danger. And the better you become at handling the possibility of it going differently than you hoped.

With love, 

Hannah

PS. It's not to late to join us in Rose Temple Academy.  For the woman who is ready to take a leap on herself, because you know that when you are thriving in self trust & your feminine essence is blossoming, everything else falls into place.