Trust Is Like a House

Trust is like a house.

It has a foundation and bones, and it gets fleshed out over time through a series of small moments and actions.

With significant breaches of trust, the foundation cracks, and everything comes tumbling down all at once. It’s shocking and disorienting, packing a massive punch to the gut. You can repair it, but it requires a whole new foundation before you can even begin rebuilding the house.

With more minor breakdowns in trust, the windows crack one by one, the paint peels slowly off the walls, the floors wear through, and the siding falls off little by little. The house becomes uncomfortable, unsafe, and unlivable. You can repair it, but it requires a slow and steady rebuilding process, refurbishing and replacing what’s no longer usable. And sometimes, it requires entirely new bones.

Either way, rebuilding trust takes time, no matter how and why it broke or how quickly you lost it.

You don’t just throw up some paint in a corner one day and call it good.

It takes time and intention.

It takes a willingness to see the process through, face the wreckage, and clean up all that needs tending. It takes looking honestly at the cause of the breakdown and committing to complete understanding so you can put a new approach in place.

And it doesn’t happen overnight.

Truthfully, rebuilding trust often takes longer and far more work than most are comfortable doing.

So, you have to ask yourself:

Is the house worth rebuilding?
Can you face what needs to be faced?
Are you prepared to put in the time and intention necessary?
Will you stick with the work for as long as it takes?
Can you stay committed despite setbacks?

Most people can’t stay with the rebuilding for as long as it takes.

But if you can?

That’s when an even deeper level of trust and intimacy can be born.