How To Build Self-Trust (After A Lifetime Of Self-Abandonment)

[jemmastar]

Once I began to build self-trust at the beginning of this year, my procrastination habits, social anxiety, and driving anxiety became SO much more bearable. Self-trust really is at the root of healing ❤

[Riona]

This makes me realize that I don’t isolate because I don’t trust others. I don’t trust myself to stick up for myself, so I choose to isolate so I no longer negatively react to others. Thank you so much for this!

[luminousweb]

For anyone else who appreciates seeing things in writing, here are my notes from what Heidi says:
1. Do what you say you'll do - take one small thing and do it consistently for 30 days
2. Make a plan on how to regulate and react when triggered - be present and compassionate with yourself with your actions and behavior
3. Handle relationships with others with honesty and integrity - 30 days - keep every single commitment to see what we actually want to do
4. Say no when you mean no - be clear about your boundaries and communicate when there's an issue
5. Be aware of your feelings - pay attention to what is and isn't working in the present moment

[DNS]

Today is the first day I reframed my inner conversation. ‘I’m making my bed because I’m showing up for myself’ instead of ‘I’m making my bed because otherwise my room looks untidy.’ Feels completely different!

[MyOwnFlashlight]

Heidi, on the slim chance you're reading this please know that this video got me out of the house after 3 years. At first it was a three minutes drive to a mall nearby - that was nerve wrecking for me. Whether I stayed for more than 10 minutes or less at the mall, I didn't care at first... I'd tell myself that I got dressed, I drove the car out of the house (albeit just to a place 3 minutes away), and I got home safe.

Then I repeated this more regularly.

Heidi, you helped me show up for myself ❤ Thank you. You brought some life back into me.

[coffeefordinner]

Understanding the idea of there being an inner child in me that requires parenting has been the single most transformative self-growth realisation for me. Before this I always felt like a kid at heart and not quite as confident and independent as I should be, and I didn't know how to get there. After adopting this attitude of my inner child having needs and the higher/adult me being responsible for filling those needs and soothing the inner child, I've just become way... Better at being a person, hah. I have compassion, empathy, I express feelings genuinely and authentically, I show up for my friends and loved ones, I stand my ground and don't tolerate being treated badly and I make better decisions for my mental and physical health (without forgetting that sometimes it's ok to play and have fun too). When we're young we're told that you'll just automatically "grow up" when you hit a certain age, but I don't think that's true... We grow up when we learn to be our own parents, not just in the practical sense of financially supporting ourselves, but being the inner support system for ourselves, too.

[kimberlyf]

Quitting drinking (I know, a bigger goal than she's talking about) completely solidified my trust in myself. It just snowballed from there.

[leyawh]

I'm a 29 year old female who has nothing really to show for all my years on this earth... I've always thought something was "wrong" with me because whenever I would get the courage to do something, I end up backing down out of fear and anxiety. I've always felt I'm just not good enough. I've struggled with on and off depression and just never knew why I could never get out of my comfort zone. I was convinced I was just defected or broken or something like that... I now see why I could never fulfill my own needs and dreams. I simply do not trust myself and I give up before even trying. I was made to feel small since I was little and all my experiences in life kept reflecting that to me even though I knew deep down that I'm so frickin talented and smart! (don't mean to sound cocky, but I'm literally amazing) But yea, it never made sense to me that I knew I'm absolutely capable yet I'm so not at the same time. It's like I was stuck in time. Graduated high school, 10 years went by and I was still the same person. I'm now on a healing self love/trust journey and I'm so ready to get to know, honor, and just be there for MYSELF. Thank you for this soul-filling, life changing video Heidi <3

[victoriale]

I finished this video in 3 different sittings with multiple breaks bc I felt triggered and dissociated so often .. feel definitely called out, but im trying

[MindfullyMindy]

I started nearly 2 years ago, doing something consistently daily, by starting Duolingo. I am still growing strong and have a two year celebration planned. The idea is celebrating being authentic to myself. Now, I also walk everyday. That can be tough in one of the planets hottest spots, but doing it makes me feel good, has helped me lose over 100#s, and become someone new. Then I decided to be outgoing and build friendships based on being open. I now have friendships I never had. My life is full in a way it never was. The start was trusting and loving me. Caring for me and my relationship with myself.

[shirleyhunt]

74 and still working on self trust due to not realizing i suffered from self abandonment 😢

[mariahspringstead]

My self-abandonment shows up in nearly the opposite way. Instead of being seen as flakey and untrustworthy by saying yes and then changing my mind, I will say yes to everyone and do it all + more making me the "go-to person" for a everything... until I literally go into physical collapse. Then when I say sorry, I'm going to need to back off a bit and take care of myself they get all bent out of shape and I get kicked to the curb. This has basically been the cycle of my life on repeat for as long as I remember. Work, work, work, take on more, and more, go, go, go then... I'm flat on my back and no one wants anything to do with me.

[LorraineVirginie]

This might be most applicable for anyone else who struggles with the executive dysfunction… For anyone else who thought her examples of “easy goals” to set for 30 days all sounded too hard… idk if it’s just the ADHD complicating factor or what but those all sounded like really tough goals to start with to me. You might want to start with something SUPER basic like, instead of meditate for 1 minute every day, your goal might be “get out the yoga mat and stand on it every day”. Instead of eat something homemade every day, it might be “write down something you would like to cook”. For my background at least, all of those goals she listed as examples would still be setting myself up to fail and then feel even worse about myself once I couldn’t do even a “simple” goal for 30 days. When your self trust is so low sometimes you need something that is even just pointless and stupid but so easy as a goal. Like it could even be “I will spin around in a circle once a day” as long as you know you can actually do it without having to muster some massive amount of mental energy.

[kk]

Heidi, I remember watching a video where you gave the advice on sticking with something good for you every day for thirty days and I tried it out. (I’m trying to work on strengthening my secondary questioner tendency, I have the rebel tendency so self trust is really hard).

I picked something really small (drinking 2L of water a day) and I missed one day in the middle, and was tempted to not count it, but it felt like cheating so I went back to day zero and started again (also, accountability means consequences, so if I just let myself skip that day it would have defeated the purpose of the exercise). I just hit day 30 today and I feel a lot more self trust than I did at the beginning and I’m gonna try adding more stuff now! Thank you for that piece of advice, it was a gem💎

[joshliam]

Wow. For the last six months I've been doing 30 pushups and a Duolingo lesson every day, guess I've been practicing this habit of recovering from self abandonment without knowing! Feels good. :)

[nathananderson]

This is one of the channels that gave me the courage to start my YouTube channel 5 months ago about self development. Now I have 329 subs and almost > 100 hours of watch time. I know it’s not comparable with others but I’m still proud I started because I’ve been learning so many lessons that I couldn’t have learned without getting started in the 1st place.

[noora]

Summary:
What makes it difficult to trust snd how can you the opposite?

1:51 Making promises to "yourself" that you don't keep.
4:43 Counter: make very small goals and do it. Something for yourself, solely because you said you want to do it, without accountability of anyone else.

7:11 You don't understand why you are doing the things you are doing
7:20 Counter: being present and compassionate with yourself
Account for situations that we are going to get emotionally hijacked, and making plans for that.

12:42 You don't handle your relationship with others with integrity and honesty
14:01 keep "every single" committment you have agreed to. Experience the consequences of not committment.
In long term, say yes less, so you can keep your commitments.

19:24 You can't trust yourself to say no when you mean no.
Conter: identify and respect your own boundaries. Make it clear for yourself and other people.

25:20 You're ignorant to the present moment.
Show up and pay attention to your emotional experiencess at every momemt.

[lindadavis]

After listening I am exhausted. That was a lot for me to digest. I got thru the 30 day commitment part, but my mind was racing with “yes, but” and I will have to take a nap and try the last part again

[oscarborge]

Heidi, I hope you can read this. Out there there's plenty of therapists doing an incredible job. You are unique tho. You have the gift of clarity with which you explain complex concepts. Your literature review is impeccable, when there's a concept I need to understand clearly I always go back to you.
I love your video about dysfunctional familiy roles, I find myself going back to it (Lost child).

Thank you very much for all the effort you put creating your videos and this channel. You've helped me more than many years of therapy.

[astorywhispered]

This is a bit of an epiphany for me. How clearly I believe that I am someone who can handle disappointment and betrayals because I so often opt out of acting and building towards things I am internally hoping for and say it's no big deal, it's only me I'm letting down. It's just me who is missing out. It's such an autopilot thing to self-abandon that it throws me to realize that I stopped hoping for a lot of things because I don't trust that I will ever actually act in alignment with my feelings. Everything here feels like my experience.