Lessons in Broken Promises and Learning to Trust Myself

Trust is a building block of our lives, some might say it is the cornerstone of existence.

I’m not talking about trust in others. I’m talking about trust in ourselves.

The past seven years have been the hardest of my life. I made a decision to quit my steady job in Australia and head across the ocean on a wing and a prayer to the United States with my little well-travelled cat in search of a new life.

It didn’t work out as planned and, although I’d been an immigrant before a few times over, the cold, hard reality of starting again in my mid-forties spanked my butt like my mother used to do.

Thus began a series of lessons in giving and breaking trust

When you have no legal right to work in a country and are running out of money, you’ll grab at any life preserver thrown your way. Although I received a lot of lip service from others empathizing with my situation, action was nonexistent and my trust in others nosedived.

Side note: I am fully aware that no one owes me anything. I also take full responsibility for the fact that I, and I alone, created my situation with no lifelines in place. This knowledge, however, didn’t soften the blow when people let me down.

Trust becomes a crucial commodity when you’re scared and alone.

I met an old cowboy who tried to help and provided me a home and some stability when I needed it most. Unfortunately, I realized a little too late that her motivations were self-serving, as many of ours are. She had fallen in love and had high hopes of marriage, leading to a series of bad decisions and broken trust on both sides.

I spent a few months back in Australia tying up some loose ends. I expected those I had supported over a decade in the sunburnt country to come through for me, but alas, I was disappointed yet again.

With my dreams of living in the US dashed, I headed up to Canada in the fall of 2019 to lick my wounds and figure out my future. For the next five years, I travelled in and out of Canada following visa restrictions as I investigated different options to stay in the country.

The people I met and befriended offered words of care and concern but very few offered a tangible option — again, no one owed me anything. My housemate consistently provided me with a place to stay between trips and even lowered the rent when my hectic teaching schedule became too much to manage.

Making Canadian rent on less than minimum wage meant I had to work insane hours to keep a roof over my head.

When he got a break from his mortgage during the pandemic, he passed it on to me and lowered my rent for the duration. He tried to problem-solve, reached out to contacts, and even took me to an immigration consultant to see what could be done.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship. He provided me a place to live at a lower cost and I provided him with support as a single full-time father.

Trust was built and strengthened.

Then along came a woman who promised the world. She made me excited and truly hopeful of a future for the first time in a long time. A promise was made in a moment of intense connection but the cold harsh light of day brought the realization that she had bitten off more than she could chew.

The intensity of the promise waned, support ebbed, and trust was broken on an epic level. Although she owed me nothing, when you promise a lifeline to a drowning person and then renege, that’s a level of trust that can’t be rebuilt.

I returned to my homeland of South Africa for a visit as part of a year-long world trip. A few weeks after I arrived my father passed away and I decided to stay longer to help my mother. I needed to make friends as social circles are very important for my mental health, especially when I am living in a place where I feel I don’t belong.

I extended a branch of trust to a friend of a friend, who broke it with some aggressive action and I found myself alone again, naturally.

Realizing the lesson

These instances of broken trust, these severed promises that felled me to my knees were all lessons gifted to me from predetermined soul contracts—agreements made in a time before life and unavailable to my limited mind.

They were but a series of events aimed at encouraging me to believe in myself.

I used to trust myself. It’s easy to believe in yourself when your basic needs are met, food, shelter, employment, health. Access to life's fundamental necessities allows a person enough mental and emotional strength to achieve their goals and build the life they desire.

When I blew my life up in late 2017, I lost access to these necessities and I slowly lost the belief in myself and my potential. Survival broke me down to a hollow shell and I became nothing in the eyes of society.

Every time I relied on someone to extend a hand, to help lift me out of the mess I had created for myself — and believe me, I am under no illusion that I didn’t create the situation — trust was given freely and broken easily when the hand let go.

Everyone has demons and battles they are fighting regardless of how much they appear to have. Everyone has reasons for breaking another’s trust. I have done it myself. Thankfully, I’m far more aware of the consequences of doing so now and I pray I never do it again.

I finally acknowledge that I am learning to put trust in myself more than in others.

I never want to lose my ability to trust those around me. Life changes when we put more trust in ourselves and release our expectations. Although these lessons of trust have been excruciatingly painful to learn, they have been necessary.

Day by day, I am building belief in myself once more. With each passing moment, I’m learning to trust in my abilities.

Friends will come and go. Expectations will be met or lost. Trust in self survives it all.

Please feel free to buy me a coffee if you like what you read.