Broken Trust by Davina Herbert

Trust is an intangible.  It is something that we feel but cannot see.  Dictionary.com defines trust as a reliance on the integrity, strength, ability etc of a person or thing.  We use our senses to tell us whether or not we can trust someone.  When events happen that challenge that point of view, we have to work out how to move forward from there.  Were they really untrustworthy?  Was there something else at play?  Did our senses let us down?  Were we acting on autopilot and assumptions instead of listening to our senses?  Let me share a story from my own experience. 

I had a horse called Doll.  We were together for around fifteen years.  As we got to know each other better, I trusted her more and more.  I believed that the same was also happening for her. 

One day when we were out riding with friends, she galloped off with me.  I was scared.  Galloping was not my idea and Doll was not listening to me when I asking her to stop.  If I could not get her to listen to me, where would this end up?  Luckily this adventure resolved itself without any physical injuries. 

However, there was a casualty of the day.  My trust in Doll and in myself was badly eroded.  I considered Doll to be my friend.  My point of view was that my friend had betrayed me.  Where did I go from there?  How did I regain my trust in myself and in her?  What I realised when I was ‘unpacking’ the incident was that I had not only lost my trust in Doll, I had also lost my trust in myself.  I had trusted Doll.  My senses told me that she was trustworthy.  How did I get it so wrong that we ended up in a situation that could have gotten either or both of us seriously injured.  Was Doll a totally untrustworthy individual?

As it often happens in life, nothing was black and white.  The realisation that I had afterwards was that Doll and I were both trustworthy and untrustworthy.  Doll was a mirror to me.  I was not listening to myself and was not willing to trust my senses.  I had known that there was something missing between both Doll and myself.  But I was not listening to myself or trusting myself.  In this case as I was dealing with my beautiful mare, I used equestrian exercises to help both of us build back our trust in each other.  I was not being an effective leader to Doll.  She was not able to trust that I would make decisions that were in her highest and best interest.

If you would like to know more about the tools that I used to move forward and learn to trust myself I have a 3 month course that starts on the 15^th of April.  We will explore different themes each month all based on my new book, “Dancing with Doll – Accessing Animal Wisdom”.  The theme for April is on regaining trust.  I also do private sessions with people over Zoom.  In these sessions we get to unpack the wisdom that our animal friends have to offer us and how this can enrich our lives.  I look forward to connecting with you!

https://thepetenergytherapy.com