more trust

When I first started riding horses, I began with riding in the saddle like most beginners. The saddle provided a trustworthy place to learn how to stay on the horse, rather than falling off into the dirt. After a few months of riding, my ambitious nine-year-old self decided that it was time to try riding without the saddle. I thought that riding bareback would be a quick and easy transition from riding with the saddle, but my mom felt otherwise. She was very unsure about letting her inexperienced, small daughter on an animal with its own mind without a saddle to hold me in place.

After what felt like months of begging and pleading with my mom, she finally caved. I could try riding bareback, but she had some ground rules. I had to wear a helmet, have her in the arena with me, and I had to take it slow. I agreed to the terms and found myself getting on my horse bareback (with the help of my mom because I wasn’t strong enough to get on by myself) not too long after. I wrapped my legs around my horse tightly and kicked my horse forward to a walk. After just a few steps, I felt like riding bareback was so easy. I kicked my horse up to a trot. When I did that, I quickly went from sitting upright in the saddle to face first in the dirt. My mom ran over to me to see if I was hurt, and once I had said I was totally fine, she didn’t waste a second tell me that I had not listened to one of the terms we had agreed to: take it slow.

I ended up getting back on my horse almost immediately to try again, but it took a while to build up that confidence and trust to try trotting again. Eventually, I trusted my ability to stay on my horse enough to consistently trot and lope, but that trust did not build overnight.

I’ve heard people say a thousand times that it takes a lot of time to build up trust, but only a few seconds to break trust. No matter how many times I hear this, I’m still frustrated in myself every time I’m in a situation where I’ve lost trust in someone or something. I want to be able to have that trust again quickly, but my brain just can’t quite do it. I’ll start overthinking and overanalyzing, and it causes the rebuilding trust process to be slow.

It’s hard to let go of past hurt to be able to trust what future happiness could come about. This year has been a test of trust for many of us. We want to trust that things will improve, but it seems like every time we start to have a flicker of hope, something else comes along that breaks that trust for the future again. Not only do we have a lack of trust in what the future holds, but we have a lack of trust in each other. We don’t have any trust that the majority of people don’t have ill intent. All around us, people assume the worst in others, and it’s created a culture that lacks trust in every aspect. We don’t trust others to understand where we are coming from, or why we think the way we do. We chalk it up as we are too “different” to ever have a meaningful conversation, but I think we should start trusting that most of us want to learn. Most of us are open to hearing a different perspective if it’s presented in a kind way. What we are missing is not a lack of understanding, it’s a lack of trust in each other.

Trust that more often than not, someone is more like you than you think.

There’s more to trust.

There’s more to it all.