The trusting game

By Themis Ejegreh August 20th 2026

When we think about trust, we think of it as putting faith in something or someone. It’s giving something the benefit of the doubt, even when you don’t fully know what’s going to happen and you don’t have complete control over the situation. You can’t read people’s minds. You can’t always know what someone is thinking, what they’re going to say, or how they’re going to act. So, when you trust someone, you’re essentially putting faith in something you can’t completely know or control.

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word trust? Do you think about romantic relationships, friendships, or perhaps parental trust? Think about a parent saying to their child, “You’ve broken my trust.” That can really hurt because your parent has put so much faith in you, and now that faith has been damaged. Imagine someone you care about saying, “I don’t trust you anymore.” That can be a really painful thing to hear because trust means putting so much faith in something or someone that you can never completely know or control.

So, in this article, we want to get into what trust actually is and how it works. Trust is different depending on what or who we’re trusting. There’s trust in other people, but there’s also trust in yourself. We think self-trust is one of the most important forms of trust there is. Because what’s the point of trusting other people if you don’t trust yourself? That, to us, is one of the most fundamental things we need to understand about trust.

What Is Trust?

Trust, in simple terms, is relying on or having strong faith in someone or something. This could be your partner, your friends, your family, or even a religion. Trust can also exist in professional relationships. For example, you might trust your boss to treat you fairly, or your therapist to keep what you share confidential and private. Trust comes in all shapes and forms, but at its core, it involves believing that the person or thing you are trusting is reliable and that you can depend on them.

When we talk about trust, we often place certain expectations on another person. We expect them to care for us, value our opinions and views, and ultimately value us as a person. We trust people because we expect them to have our best interests at heart. A big part of trust, therefore, comes from having a certain level of expectation of someone else. You want them to be reliable. You want to know that you can depend on them.

Think about the relationship between a parent and a child. A child naturally trusts their parents to protect them and keep them safe rather than putting them in harm’s way. The same can apply to an employer. You expect your employer to protect your rights and treat you fairly. You place a certain level of trust in them because you expect them to act responsibly. So, in many ways, trust is about placing a significant expectation on someone who is outside of yourself. You are relying on another person to do what you believe they should do.

But, as we said before, trust comes in different shapes and forms. We think trust involves expectations and faith, but it is also connected to our human nature. We naturally want to rely on other people because we aren’t meant to live completely on our own. We depend on others.

But we also think trust is about vulnerability. When you trust someone, you are making yourself vulnerable. You are placing some part of your wellbeing, safety, or emotional security in their hands. You are allowing yourself to be seen. You are allowing your inner self to come out. And that can be a scary thing.

When you trust someone, you are also accepting uncertainty. You don’t know for certain whether they will keep their promises. You don’t know whether things will work out exactly as you hope. That’s part of what makes trust so powerful. You make a choice to trust despite not knowing what will happen. Trust is, in many ways, the decision to be vulnerable in the face of uncertainty.

Why We Don’t Trust 

There are many reasons why people struggle to trust others. People often ask, “How can you believe in God when you’ve never met Him? He’s never physically communicated with you. You’re literally following a Bible.” But that is where faith comes in. We trust because we have faith. We have faith that there is something beyond what we can see, and for some people, that means trusting that there is someone looking out for us.

But we also understand why people struggle to trust. Sometimes, it’s difficult to trust something that we cannot see. It can be difficult to trust someone based purely on their words. We want to see their actions. We want evidence that they are reliable. And when someone isn’t vulnerable with you, it can be even harder to trust them. Think about it: how can you fully open up to someone who never opens up to you?

When people don’t trust others, they may put up barriers. They might avoid opening up, hide parts of themselves, or constantly question other people’s intentions. They may always be looking for a reason not to trust. And sometimes, those barriers come from being hurt in the past.

When you have been hurt by someone you trusted, it can be incredibly difficult to trust that person again. They have put you in a position where you allowed yourself to be vulnerable, and you ended up getting hurt. As humans, we can be very prideful about this. We don’t want to keep making the same mistakes. If we trusted someone once and they hurt us, we might think, “I’m not going to let that happen again.” We don’t want to experience that pain twice. We don’t want to feel foolish for making the same mistake again. So sometimes, instead of risking being hurt, we choose not to trust at all.

But there is another side to this. Sometimes, we don’t trust people simply because they haven’t given us a reason to trust them yet. Trust is something that is built. You can’t always trust someone blindly. There has to be something that gives you a reason to believe that they are trustworthy.

Imagine you’re walking down the street and a complete stranger approaches you and says, “Give me your handbag. Trust me, I won’t rob you.” Would you give it to them? Probably not. Why? Because you don’t know them. They haven’t given you any reason to trust them. Their words alone aren’t enough.

That’s why trust can be so complicated. We want people to trust us, but trust usually takes time. It is built through consistency, actions, honesty, vulnerability, and reliability. And when someone has built strong barriers around themselves because of their past experiences, it can become difficult for them to trust others, but it can also make it difficult for others to trust them.

If you never allow yourself to open up, how can someone else get to know the real you? And if you never give someone the opportunity to earn your trust, how can that trust ever be built?

Maybe that's the difficult part about trust. You have to take a risk. You have to allow yourself to be vulnerable, knowing that there is always a possibility that you could get hurt. But perhaps that is what makes trust meaningful in the first place.

Trusting Others

So, what does trusting others actually look like? We think one of the biggest parts of trusting someone is respect. If you want to trust someone, there has to be a level of respect between you. When you respect someone, you value their character, their opinions, their values, and who they are as a person. In that sense, trust and respect are closely connected.

You have to value the other person, and they have to value you. Trust becomes much harder when there is no respect because you begin to question whether the other person genuinely cares about you or has your best interests at heart.

But what else does trusting someone look like? We think it also involves having open and honest conversations. You have to communicate with the person you trust. You have to get to know them and understand who they are. If you never have meaningful conversations with someone, how can you really know them?

Open communication also allows you to talk about how you feel. Sometimes, people can break your trust without even realising that they have done it. They may not understand what they did wrong or how their actions affected you. That is why communication is so important. Having open conversations allows you to explain how something made you feel. It allows you to establish boundaries and make it clear which boundaries should not be crossed. Trust isn't just about expecting someone to know what you need. Sometimes, you have to communicate those needs.

Another part of trusting others is being willing to make mistakes. Trust comes with risk. You are never going to know exactly what will happen when you put your faith in another person. You might make the wrong choice. You might trust someone who ends up hurting you. But we are all human, and making mistakes is part of life.

If we become so afraid of making a mistake that we never trust anyone, we can end up building walls around ourselves. Those walls might protect us from getting hurt, but they can also prevent us from experiencing genuine connection with other people. So, sometimes, trusting someone means accepting that there is a possibility you could get hurt. It means choosing vulnerability despite the uncertainty.

But there is also another important part of trust: trust goes both ways. If you want people to trust you, you also have to be willing to trust them. You have to be the kind of person you want other people to be for you. You cannot expect someone to completely open up to you while you refuse to open up to them. You cannot expect someone to be vulnerable with you if you never allow yourself to be vulnerable with them.

Trust is not a one-way street. It is something that is built between two people.

And finally, we think trust requires transparency. The less secrecy there is, the easier it can be to understand someone's intentions. When someone is constantly hiding things or keeping you in the dark, you may start to question what their true intentions are. You don't know what they are thinking, what they want, or what they might do.

Being transparent doesn't mean telling someone absolutely everything about yourself. We are all entitled to privacy. Instead, transparency is about being honest about your intentions and not deliberately hiding things that could affect the trust between you. In some ways, you have to be willing to be an open book.

People want to understand your intentions. They want to know that they are safe with you and that you aren't going to deliberately harm them. Because if you don't understand someone's intentions, you don't really know what you're putting yourself into.

So, trusting others isn't simply about saying, “I trust you.” It's about showing respect, having open conversations, communicating your boundaries, being vulnerable, accepting that mistakes can happen, trusting each other, and being transparent enough for the other person to understand who you are and what your intentions are.

Trust is something that is built between people, and it requires both sides to take part.

Trusting Yourself

Lastly, we want to talk about trusting yourself, which we think is one of the most fundamental aspects of trust itself. You can put your faith in another person, but what happens if you don't have faith in yourself?

You might look at yourself and think, “I don't believe I can do this.” You might not trust your own feelings, your own intentions, your own ideas, or even your own decisions. And if you don't trust yourself, how can you expect other people to trust you?

Trusting yourself means being able to listen to your own thoughts and feelings. It means having a sense of who you are and what you believe in. You don't want to walk into a situation constantly thinking, “I don't know what I believe,” or “I don't know how I feel about this.” You have to be able to trust yourself enough to explore those feelings and make your own decisions.

But self-trust takes time to build. When you're young, you're often used to having other people tell you what to do. You rely on your parents for guidance. You rely on teachers, family members, and other people around you to help you make decisions. Then, eventually, you have to start making those decisions for yourself.

And that can be difficult. For the first time, you might have to navigate your own feelings, make your own choices, and deal with the consequences. And sometimes, you're going to get it wrong.

But that's okay.

We have to make mistakes in order to grow. You might make a decision and later realise that you don't agree with it anymore. You might change your beliefs. You might change your opinions. You might even change the way you understand yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean you can't trust yourself. It means you're growing.

The problem is that when you're constantly surrounded by people telling you what you should think or how you should feel, it can become difficult to know what you actually believe. We think social media has made this even more complicated. We are constantly exposed to information, opinions, misinformation, and people telling us what we should believe. It can become overwhelming.

You might start asking yourself, “What am I actually supposed to believe?”

That's why we think learning to trust yourself is so important. No one knows you better than you know yourself. Of course, that doesn't mean you should never question yourself. In fact, questioning yourself is an important part of self-trust. Trusting yourself doesn't mean believing that you're always right. It means being willing to look within yourself, question your beliefs, understand your feelings, and make your own decisions.

You have to trust yourself enough to say, “This is what I believe,” while also being open to learning and changing. And this is especially important when you're young. You're still figuring out who you are. You're still developing your values, your beliefs, and your understanding of the world. It's a delicate time because there are so many outside influences telling you who you should be. But you have to give yourself permission to figure that out for yourself.

Self-trust is also connected to confidence. Someone might look at you and think, “Wow, they're so confident.” But what happens when you're alone with yourself? What happens when you make a mistake at work or make the wrong decision? Does that mistake completely destroy your confidence?

If it does, perhaps it's a sign that your trust in yourself is still developing.

Because trusting yourself doesn't mean that you never make mistakes. It means knowing that you can make a mistake and still be okay. You can make the wrong decision and learn from it. You can change your mind. You can fail. You can make mistakes again. And through all of that, you can still know who you are. You can still know your values. You can still know what matters to you.

That's what self-trust is really about. It's not about always being right. It's about knowing that, whatever happens, you can trust yourself to learn, adapt, grow, and keep moving forward.

And maybe that's where the circle of trust comes together.

We trust others. Others trust us. But underneath all of that is the relationship we have with ourselves.

Because before we can truly trust someone else, we have to learn how to trust ourselves.