Trust: The “glue ” Of Life And All Relationships

Trust is the steel link that consolidates any meaningful relationship, where people give each other the best friendships, loves or relationships, always starting from integrity and coherence. Few psychological dimensions are as vital, as nurturing as well as complex as allowing ourselves to trust someone, as depositing part of ourselves in another person.

If we think about it for a moment, we will realize that trust lives implicitly in much of the activities we do on a daily basis. Getting into a taxi, for example, involves trusting the person driving the vehicle. Going to the doctor, undergoing an operation entails having to trust the expertise of the professional.

Likewise, every time we go out on the street we trust that no one is going to harm us, that our friends will continue to be, that the calm and balance of yesterday in our society will continue today in the same way, with its rules, with its harmony within chaos, its balance within day-to-day noise.

Thus, and if we do not think about it in this way and perceive our reality from permanent distrust, uncertainty and fear, we would fall into a kind of fearsome neurosis, in a series of psychological disorders where it would be impossible for us to carry out any activity and less still, establish any type of healthy bond with other people.

Distrust “disconnects” us from life and leaves us cornered in a dark, threatening, uncomfortable space. This is so for a very simple reason: people are social beings by nature, we are made to connect with our own. When this does not happen or even more so, when we experience disappointment or betrayal in our own skin, our brain will interpret it as a real, deep and painful wound. ..

The neuroscience of trust

Santiago experienced the worst betrayal of his life years ago. His best friend, fellow student and colleague by profession in the same company, was awarded as his own a project that they designed between them. That was a long time ago, and although many continue to recommend that he be able to forgive and move forward without resentment, our protagonist feels incapable of doing so; indeed, since then his character has become somewhat more secretive, prudent and above all suspicious.

Santiago described that friendship as a dance in the air between two trapeze artists. Together they assumed risks and more than one challenge, however he never experienced any fear: the hands of that friend were always there to reach him on the heights after any pirouette. Until suddenly, he dropped it, without further ado. Since then the pain endures incisively.

All these sensations are explained at the neurological level by a series of very specific and revealing processes.

Oxytocin

As many experts on the subject reveal, oxytocin would actually be the true “glue” of our social relationships. She: the one that forms the bond of trust, the one that makes us be generous and the one who interprets these gestures as positive and enriching.

In this way, when what we experience is just the opposite of this type of process, the brain interprets it as a threat, thus giving way to the release of cortisol: the stress and anxiety hormone.

 The  medial prefrontal cortex

Any social process to which we attribute a positive value instantly stimulates a very specific area: the medial prefrontal cortex. This area of ​​our brain is related to rewards and positive emotions. Likewise, it is also in this area where we consolidate many of those memories associated with our relationships to make decisions based on them.

In this way, something that has been seen is that the quality of all these processes based on positive sociability make up a stronger brain, with less sense of fear, uncertainties and vital anguish. However, sometimes it is enough to experience a betrayal like that of our protagonist for part of that neurobiological activity to be completely altered.

In fact, emotional disappointments stimulate the same areas of pain as when we experience a skin burn. All of this undoubtedly leads us to conclude that the most sincere prosocial behavior and the most intimate relationships of trust are key to our well-being. Experiencing the opposite means in many cases feeling displaced, disconnected from life for a certain time …

Confidence, an attitude towards life

We have all experienced firsthand the emotions that emerge from disappointment. We know what it tastes like and why our brain interprets this lack of harmony as a burn, as the damage to a precious good that we conceived as unbreakable and lasting. It is common to feel humiliated and even worse, to think that such an injury is our responsibility for having trusted.

Nothing is further from reality. The error will never be in those who trust, because that is our nature, because trust is an instinctive need of our brain. The mistake, the real offense is in the one who betrays, because nothing is as offensive as breaking social ties for their own benefit, nothing is as illogical as going against one of the most basic principles of humanity, such as coexistence, I respect the group and those who trust us.

However, there is a basic principle in all this that we cannot forget. Beyond how some people treat us at certain times, we must be able to look beyond. It is necessary to understand that trust is an attitude towards life in general, not towards specific names that one day hurt us. Living, advancing and growing implies assuming that sometimes there are certain risks, that what seems safe to us today may be fallible tomorrow. 

Trust is a way of responding, an attitude towards the present that will allow us to reach a happier, freer, more integral future.

Images courtesy of Tomasz Alen Kopera