Table of Contents
Introduction 1
How This Book Came to Be 2
Our Need, Our Fear, Our Risk 6
Practice: Exploring Our History of Trust 8
1 What Is Trust? 11
Intelligent Distrust 15
Our Capacity for Trusting 18
Needs and How They Play Out 21
Reading Ourselves 26
Practice: Following Our Needs 28
There Are Healthy Connections 30
Bonds of Attaching and Relating 33
Practices
Breathe, Pause, Start Over 37
Exploring Our Childlike and Adult Trust 38
2 Our Early Sense of Trust 42
Our First Steps 46
Gone but Here 52
Practices
Receiving Comfort and Facing Challenge 53
Trusting and Loving 54
3 How Trust Happens in Relationships 58
Reciprocal Trust 60
Surrender in a Committed Relationship 65
To Whom Shall We Go? 69
Exploring Our Style of Trusting 71
When the Five A's Meet the Ego 72
Practices for Auditing Our Relationship
How to Know If Someone Can Be Trusted 75
How Communication Becomes Trustworthy 79
4 How We Miss Trust 83
Trusting Can Wake Old Ghosts 85
Practice: Freeing Ourselves from the Fear of Trusting Our Own Power 91
When Our Story Gets in the Way 94
Practice: Erasing the Storyboard 96
5 Trust Lost, Trust Regained 101
The Silent Treatment 103
Lies We Tell, Hear, or Won't Hear 107
A Double Life 113
Practice: Letting Go of Obsession 116
When We Cheat 118
When We Are Betrayed 122
Why We Put Up with Pain 125
Practices for Rebuilding Broken Trust
Noticing How Our Past Is Present 130
The Work of the Partner Who Broke Trust 133
The Personal Work of the Partner Who Was Betrayed 135
When Both Partners Want to Work on the Relationship 137
6 Trusting Ourselves 144
Trusting Our Feelings 148
Practice: Working with Our Emotions 152
Trusting Our Bodies 154
Trusting Our Sexuality 156
Can I Trust Myself in a Crisis ? 158
Practices
Befriending the Three Witches 161
No Longer Victims 163
A Positive Approach to Ourselves 165
7 Our Core Trust in Reality 166
The Supreme Attunement 172
Practice: Fidelity to Ourselves 176
Four Reliable Directions 178
Practice: Using Our Compass of Trust 182
8 Trust in Powers beyond Us 187
Our Longing for Meaning 192
Buddhist Paths to Adult Trust 195
Trust in the Higher Self 200
Practice: Awakening at Many Levels 205
Epilogue: Trust in Grace-full Coincidence 208
About the Author 212
