Tag Archives: trust

Learning to Listen to My Inner Bodyguard

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Christy Barongan

Did you know that the word intuition means to guard or protect? I just learned that in The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker. If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend that you do. Thanks to De Becker, I can no longer be in denial about my disregard for personal safety.

De Becker says that intuition is always in response to something. That doesn’t mean that we will always make the correct prediction, but we owe it to ourselves to explore what that something is rather than trying to explain away or dismiss our fear.

I’m trying to pay closer attention whenever I get anxious. I’m trying to honor my fear. But I’m having trouble figuring out what my anxiety means because I am never sure what is intuition-based fear and what is pathologically-based fear, since I have an anxiety disorder.

In my relationships, not hearing from the guy felt like life or death. I always thought it meant I was just really insecure. And sometimes that’s what it was. But sometimes it was because that’s how the guy felt about me. And because of the whole hyperempath thing, I couldn’t tell the difference between his fear of separation and my own.

Or sometimes it meant they were up to no good. But there’s always that doubt. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. And it’s not the kind of thing that is easy to confirm. It’s not like they’re going to admit that they’re doing something that would piss me off when they’re not around. But in retrospect, they usually were.

I also have a hard time saying no to any request. De Becker says that you should be wary of the stranger who ignores the word no. A guy who isn’t trying to hurt you would totally understand why you would not let a complete stranger into your house to use your phone.

And yet, back when I was in grad school and the UPS guy asked me if he could use my phone, I said yes. I wanted to say no, but it seemed rude. Maybe he would be offended. Luckily, nothing bad happened. But it’s still hard to forgive myself for putting myself at risk like that. And it’s hard to imagine how I will be able to overcome this deeply ingrained impulse to give people what they want.

It’s hard to trust my instincts because I want to believe that other people are trustworthy. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to be worrying all the time that people may be trying to hurt me. Although De Becker provides some pretty convincing stats for why I should be worried.

In another blog post, I talked about how I am trying to say yes to what I want and no to what I don’t want. Maybe I need to do the same thing with trust. If I have to choose between trusting my instincts and trusting another person, I need to choose me.

I need to let my intuition do its job.

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Posted in Relationships and tagged Anxiety, fear, honesty, safety, trust. Bookmark the permalink.

Hiatus

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Christy Barongan

I have always prided myself on being open to love, even after heartbreak. I’ve met people who have closed off their hearts after being betrayed by their loved one, and while I don’t judge them for their decision, it is not how I want to live my life. This is also why, although I’ve had partners who have been dishonest, I still choose to start off a relationship trusting the other person.

A few weeks ago, my therapist suggested that I consider getting a cat. She thought it would help to combat my loneliness and to discharge negative energy. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am not an animal person, but I, too, have considered getting a cat. But after talking to my friends about it and imagining what it would be like to have a cat here in my darkest moments, I have decided against it. For now, at least.

I realized after this deliberation process that I am not in a place where I am ready to love, take care of, or lose anyone or anything. I am not necessarily closing off my heart, but I still feel too vulnerable, too raw to be open to love at the moment.

I don’t like the person I have been in relationships. In my most negative moments, my inner critic uses this against me as evidence that I deserve to be alone. I think it has more to do with the super-empath in me who identifies so much with how the other person feels, I cannot separate my wants and needs from theirs. I think that’s one of the reasons I convinced myself that I loved people who loved me; I became what they needed me to be.

As cliche as it sounds, I really don’t know who I am or what I want in a relationship. I am hoping that if I can be free from the wants and needs of others, I will eventually have a better sense of what my own wants and needs are. I have already been surprised by how much I enjoy my solitude–most of the time. How freeing it is not to have my mood be so tied to how my partner is feeling. My mood is all over the place as it is. I now realize how overwhelming it was when I felt everything for the two of us.

So I’m taking a long overdue hiatus from relationships. I am hoping this will lead to wiser decisions about matters of the heart. And if the hiatus ends up being longer than expected, I can always take my therapist’s advice and adopt a cat.

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Posted in Mental Health, Relationships and tagged empathy, honesty, inner critic, love, solitude, therapy, trust. Bookmark the permalink.

Conspiracy Theories

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Christy Barongan

Last year one of my players accused me of being part of a conspiracy that was designed to keep him from becoming a captain. For those of you who have never played league tennis, being a captain can be a crappy, stressful, ungrateful job that people have to bribe you to do with gifts, money, and parties. Most people would rather have root canal than captain a tennis team. No one would try to prevent someone from becoming a captain.

The conspiracy theories that people come up with in tennis are even more annoying than the head games people play to try to win. Earlier in the week I had to reschedule multiple matches because it rained for 3 days. Rain is a captain’s greatest enemy. Two out of the three matches were fairly easy to work out. But I spent 2 days arguing with the other captain about rescheduling the 3rd match, because every suggestion I made was perceived as some devious attempt to sabotage this captain’s opportunity to advance to districts on one of his other teams.

Let me tell you a little about districts. You do not get a million dollars for advancing. In fact, you have to pay a fee to play at districts. And since we do not have sponsors like professional tennis players do, you have to pay for hotels and travel expenses. And do you know what your prize is for winning your local division? A hand towel that you can only use one side of, because the other side says something like “Mixed Doubles Champion” in some scratchy iron-on that hurts your face.

I still try to win, of course, but I don’t care enough about winning to devise elaborate plans to sabotage the other team. As I mentioned in my post on loyalty, most of the time I don’t even have winning teams because it’s more important to me to play with my friends. Sometimes I care more about eating out afterwards than I do about the match itself. Sometimes I’m downright surprised when we win–which I admit is probably not a good thing.

Another conspiracy that people get all worked up about is coaching, which is illegal in tennis. Her boyfriend/husband is waving his hands. I think he’s coaching! So what if he’s coaching? He’s probably giving her some advice that she can’t do, anyway, because that’s what partners do. They tell you to do things like come to the net when you hate playing at the net. That’s why they fight on the court when they’re together. That’s probably why he’s in the stands and she’s playing with someone else. And even if he is coaching, she still has to execute.

People have accused me of being too trusting, and I admit it did not serve me well in some of my relationships. And perhaps it doesn’t serve me well in tennis, either. Perhaps I could have won more matches if I had followed my opponents into the bathroom to make sure they weren’t coaching. Or if I stacked my lineup and kept it top secret until right before the match and had extra players warm up and put them all on different courts to confuse the other captain. Perhaps I would be more competitive if I didn’t assume that most people are primarily out there to have fun like me.

But I choose not to live my life that way, even if it costs me a few wins. I’d like to think that if I live my life with integrity, it will pay off. And even if it doesn’t, at least I won’t be paranoid and miserable while I’m alive.

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Posted in Relationships, Sports and tagged competition, head games, honesty, loyalty, Tennis, trust. Bookmark the permalink.

Starting Over

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Christy Barongan

In my post on breakups, I talked about how sad it is that at the end of a relationship, someone who you once loved and chose to spend the rest of your life with could become someone who you hate and don’t recognize anymore. How can both of those things be true? Was this other person always there, lurking beneath the surface of the person you thought you knew? It’s hard to reconcile.

But then sometimes those two people who hated each other are able to put the past behind them and try again. I am all about forgiveness, but if someone hurt me that badly, I’m not sure I would be able to give him a second chance.

First of all, there’s the issue of trust. As I mentioned in a previous post, I can be too trusting. However, once I have been wronged, I never forget it. And every time I remember what they did, I get upset all over again. Starting over would require leaving all of those past grievances behind, and I’m not sure my memory and my obsessive nature would allow me to do so.

Then there’s the issue of whether I could trust my judgment. If I thought I knew the person the first time and I was wrong, how would I know if I were reading the person accurately now? Ordinarily I’m pretty good at reading people. But sometimes I can be in denial–especially if knowing the truth would mean letting go of the relationship. Could I trust that I would go into it this time with my eyes wide open?

Granted, sometimes it’s not about an error in judgment. Some people are really good at hiding. But that’s scary, too. If he fooled me before, would I know if he were hiding now?

And then there would be the opinions of other people. Which I know you’re not supposed to care about, but I do. Would they think I’m foolish for giving him another chance? Even if they didn’t tell me that they disapproved, I would know. I would feel it. And it would be hard for me to share anything about the relationship with them. I would feel ashamed, even if I were trying not to care about their opinion.

Despite these reservations, If I had to make a prediction about what I would do, my guess is that I would give it a shot, because I’m an optimist. That’s what allows me to cheer for a losing team and to believe I can come back in a match when I’m down 0-6, 0-5. I believe in miraculous comebacks.

Sometimes people are afraid to try again because they’re afraid to get hurt again. That doesn’t usually stop me. If they hurt me once before, it’s not like it would be some big shock if it happened again. And if I survived it the first time, I could survive it again. And then I would know for sure that it can’t work.

Plus, no one can predict the future. No one knows for sure what will happen. Love requires a leap of faith. Yes, you may fall, but without taking that leap, you never get anywhere.

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Posted in Relationships and tagged divorce, football, forgiveness, love, Marriage, Tennis, trust. Bookmark the permalink.

Honesty and Trust

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Christy Barongan

I have often been accused of being too trusting. Like it’s a bad thing. And maybe it is. It’s caused a lot of problems in my relationships.

My first husband described himself as a poor, half-breed bastard. As a result, he had a less trusting world view than I did. He could spot a liar from a mile away. Once when I was making conversation with his brother’s girlfriend about her studies in nursing, he told me afterwards that she was lying. That people often lie while making conversation.

This was a foreign concept to me. I figured you should at least have a good reason to lie, even if it didn’t make it excusable.

Once my purse was stolen at Burger King on the way to a bowl game. I forgot to get it when we walked out the door. I realized it about a minute later, but in that small amount of time, they took it. My ex knew who stole it right away and he knew that the employee who took our order was in on it. He even went up to the guy and confronted him.

While there were some advantages to his street smarts, ultimately, his lies destroyed our marriage. I tried to trust him again, but he didn’t trust himself, so we agreed to divorce. That was one of the many lessons I learned from my first marriage: be wary of people who don’t trust others, because they probably lie, too.

I wish I could say I have been more careful about who I’ve trusted since then, but sadly, I have not. I seem to be pathologically trusting.

I dated someone who told me straight up that he had problems with lying. And I caught him lying several times right away. Like my first husband, he didn’t think he could be honest, either, but he wanted to change. I kept rooting for him. You can do it! I have faith in you!

My therapist would repeatedly tell me that if the person says they can’t do it, believe them. I guess this was the most honest thing they had said to me, but I didn’t want to believe it. I never wanted to give up on anyone.

But I finally get it: you can’t trust people who don’t trust themselves. You can’t will someone to have faith.

Some people have suggested that perhaps we can be friends down the road. Yes, he lies, but it won’t matter in a friendship. Except that it does.

In the second half of my life, I want to surround myself with people who are honest and trustworthy. I want to choose people who believe in themselves, so that we can believe in ourselves together.

I found a new art app that creates patterns using mathematical properties. Artsy and nerdy at the same time. How cool is that?