A Course in Forgiveness by Gerald Crawford

We offer you a two day forgiveness course in Cape Town, Johannesburg, New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ontario, ‎Dublin and Auckland. Develop gratitude with grace, change your life with a universal truth. Letting go of resentment.

How to Rebuild Trust

When trust has been broken in a relationship. The relationship has then suffered a deep violation of trust. You and your partner, sibling, friend or parent must commit to co-creating something new.

Start from ground zero. Excavate everything and commit to designing, engineering and building a new, meaningful connection.

You can’t drag the past into the present and pretend things can ever be the same.

The future can be worse, or it can be extraordinary. The choice is yours.

1. Take responsibility for the role you played.
Own up to what you did, whatever part you played, even if it was small. If you were the person who committed the betrayal, be honest and acknowledge the damage and hurt you caused. And even if you were the one hurt, you might have played a significant role in the break in the relationship. Bring your hurts to the table, listen well, and take ownership for your mistakes.

Remember: This is not about winning or losing. It’s about putting all the cards on the table, faceup. No more secrets, no more shadows. If someone “wins” and the other person “loses,” you both lose.

2. Practice forgiveness.
Choosing not to forgive inevitably leads to bitterness. Bitterness is drinking poison hoping someone else will die. More than likely, you’ll have to decide to forgive yourself and/or your partner. Forgiveness is both a one-time choice and an ongoing decision not to hold the past against someone. Forgiveness isn’t contingent on a feeling, and it isn’t contingent on someone else’s behavior. Forgiveness is a choice you make to lighten your own load.

3. Leave the past in the past.
If you say you’re all in on the relationship moving forward, choose to let the past remain in the past. It’s over. Now, this doesn’t mean you don’t learn lessons that will go with you for the rest of your life. It means the past is no longer a weapon for making you feel more important or for winning an argument.

You cannot edit the past. When you agree to start over, you put a period at the end of the old sentence and ask yourself, What sentence do I want to write next? Yes, the hurt will resurface from time to time—often when you least expect it. You’ll be tempted to fall back into old patterns of mistrust. Choose to intentionally shift your mindset to the next chapter of the story you’re writing.

4. Allow time and space for grief.
Give yourself (and the other person) plenty of time to move through grief. Don’t stuff or ignore your feelings or emotions, but also don’t let them dictate how you behave. Be patient and understanding with each other since everyone grieves differently. Don’t judge your partner if they’re not healing as quickly (or in the same way) as you. Never, ever compare grief with anyone. Don’t.

5. Follow through on the small things.
Work to establish trust in the mundane matters of life. It’s hard to trust someone with the big things when they can’t even come through on the small things. Show up to your kid’s dance recitals. If you say you’ll do the laundry, do it. If you promise to be home for dinner, keep that promise. Be a man or a woman of your word.

6. Choose to practice vulnerability.
Trust is built through open, honest exchange of thoughts, feelings and experiences. Put another way: You’ve got to decide if you’re going to be vulnerable again. And yes, this means you might get hurt again. In fact, you can probably count on it. But vulnerability is the only soil that allows relationships to grow. It opens up new levels of love and connection that you never thought possible.

7. Attend to the deeper issues.
The broken trust might not have been intentional, but in most cases, it wasn’t an accident. There’s a reason things deteriorated to this point—both within you and within the relationship. Are you allowing stories and voices from your past to inform your current relationships? Are you remaining in dysfunctional relationships because you’re afraid to be honest with yourself?

If you want to truly heal and move forward, you’ve got to do some “soul-spelunking.” What resentment or anxiety or wounds or fears are buried deep? What beliefs and habits paved the way for you to make those hurtful decisions? How do you and your partner need to change the way you relate to and communicate with each other?

This is important work to do as individuals and as a couple. If necessary, work with a professional therapist who can guide you through this process.

8. Co-create a new future.
Let’s come full circle to our analogy about the twin towers. Right now, you’re staring at the heaps of ashes and broken glass. If you and your partner are all in on moving forward, you’ve got to sweep the foundation clean, gather some building materials, and get to work.

Spend lots of unrushed time together to simply connect and be in each other’s presence. Get to know each other again. Have fun and be silly. Create time for serious conversations. Dream about the future. Paint a picture – be very specific – of the kind of relationship you want and the kind of life you want to build together from here on out.

How to Build Trust

Now that you know what trust is, and why it’s so important, it’s time to learn how to build trust in your own life and workplace. You need to take actionable steps to build trust. It won’t happen automatically.

Below is a 10 step list that will outline how to build trust with nearly anyone.

1. Value long-term relationships
Trust requires long-term thinking. It might seem convenient in the moment to blame someone else or to make decisions that benefit you in the short term. But before you act, think about how they may affect how others perceive you in the future.

2. Be honest
Developing a reputation as someone who is dishonest is one of the fastest ways to erode trust. Always tell the truth, even if it’s awkward; don’t give people an opportunity to catch you in a lie.

3. Honor your commitments
A trustworthy person does everything in their power to stick to agreements they’ve made. If you make a promise, follow through on it. Avoid making promises that you might not be able to keep.

4. Admit when you’re wrong
People don’t like to hear excuses. If you do something wrong, it’s best to just be upfront about it. If you realize you were incorrect about something, own up to it.

Being vulnerable enough to admit fault can humanize you and make you appear more trustworthy. Admitting mistakes is also part of being honest.

5. Communicate effectively
Trust can be easily damaged by miscommunication. Try your best to communicate in a way that doesn’t leave room for misinterpretation.

If you aren’t sure about something during a conversation, ask questions to clarify.

Listening is just as important as speaking for effective communication. Make sure that you give others a chance to talk. It will show that you care if you genuinely listen.

6. Be vulnerable
Being open about your emotions and showing some feelings can help with building trust. It shows that you care and that you’re a person too.

Don’t be afraid to let coworkers know if something has upset you or stressed you out.

This one needs to be approached carefully. You don’t want to go telling all of your coworkers’ overly-personal details.

A level of emotional intelligence is needed to make sure that you aren’t over-sharing or under-sharing. Begin by sharing gradually. Done correctly, opening up about your feelings can strengthen a trusting relationship.

7. Be helpful
Someone who is trustworthy will tend to go out of their way to help people if they can. Not because of some agenda or because they expect to get something out of it. But because they’re genuinely a good person.

Maybe you’ve done all of your work for the day. You could just sit at your desk browsing the internet. Or you could be helpful.

If you notice a coworker who is struggling with their own workload, offer to help. Or ask your manager if there’s anything extra you can take on. Also, there is never any harm in giving guidance and advice to that new hire who seems overwhelmed.

8. Show people that you care
People will naturally trust you more if they feel like you’re truly interested in them. Remembering little details like the name of a coworker’s child, or asking how their weekend was is a good place to start.

You’ve probably worked with someone who seemed to be in their own bubble. They didn’t seem to care about anyone else besides themselves. You’ve likely also worked with someone who was friendly and regularly checked in to see how you were doing. Which person did you find more trustworthy?

Even something as simple as remembering and saying someone’s name can show that you care. As Dale Carnegie once said, “A person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.”

9. Stand up for what’s right
People respect honesty.

While some bosses may like “yes” people who agree with everything they say, the best leaders value insights and opinions. Don’t sacrifice your values and what you believe just to appease your manager or try to get ahead. This will decrease trust with others.

10. Be transparent
As long as you can explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, most people will be able to understand.

Don’t keep secrets or hoard information for yourself. The people you’re building trust with are usually people on your team that you should be working collaboratively with. Share the information with them that they need to succeed too.

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We offer you a two day forgiveness course in Cape Town, Johannesburg, New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ontario, ‎Dublin and Auckland.