We all know how shattering it can be when someone close to us breaks our trust.  This doesn’t just apply to our love relationships, but also to those people who we consider friends, family or even just acquaintances.  The closer you are, the more keenly such betrayals are felt.  Often such losses of trust lead to fractures in the relationship, or a parting of ways altogether.  A Course in Miracles teaches, however, that there is another perspective that we can choose to take on this topic, and when used for a different purpose, our lessons in trust become valuable opportunities whereby we learn that all our brothers are ultimately trustworthy.  Indeed, if we really want to progress along the path the Course lays out for us, we must learn how to reinterpret the idea of trust through a very different lens, applying it equally to include everyone, regardless of what it appears they may have done in the world.

The Course teaches that there are two opposing views of trust available to us, and it is within our power to choose which one to side with.  On the one hand we have the ego’s take on the matter, which is the general consensus the world holds, cautioning us to be always on our guard against the ever present threat of betrayal and wrongdoing at the hands of others.  On the other is the Holy Spirit, who tells us that every single one of your brothers is always worthy of your trust, without exception and regardless of what wrongs they seem to do in the world.  This is obviously quite an insane notion to the majority of people, and most of our society adheres to the ego’s much more ‘reasonable’ concept.

Let’s delve a little deeper into these two opposing ideas. To the ego, trust is something that is placed, or misplaced as the case may be, in other people. That is, it is the actions, thoughts and deeds of these other people in our lives that make or break our trust.  If we consider someone’s behaviour as favourable and they act in a way we deem loyal and faithful, we say they are trustworthy.  But the moment they do or say something we judge as wrong, unfaithful or disloyal, we withdraw that trust, deeming them now unworthy.  The ego tells us that once that trust is broken it is very difficult to restore, and the likelihood of further betrayals is high.  Who has been injured by his brother, and could love and trust him still? He has attacked and will attack again (T-27.II.1:5-6).  To the ego and the world at large, trust is always equated with bodies and the intentions and actions associated with them.

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, teaches that the ego’s form of trust is insane.  Why is this so?  Because, as the Course teaches, you are not a body, and neither is anyone else.  If it is only the actions and deeds of bodies that evaluate trustworthiness, and if those bodies are all illusory, then what is there that could gain or lose such trust?  You may be having a dream of mistrust and betrayal, but nothing more than this.  It isn’t true.  And so the Holy Spirit takes the world’s form of trust and replaces it with his own, which can still be applied within the world but leads us out of illusions rather than deeper into them.  He teaches that you can learn to fully and completely trust every single person that comes or ever will come into your life.  How?  By placing that trust in what they really are – perfect and whole Spirit.

For the Holy Spirit’s kind of trust to make sense to us, we always need to remember that people are not really people.  They think and experience that they are, but this is a false experience.  The bodies that your eyes see are just a facade – actors on the stage playing their part.  And many of these actors often find themselves scripted into various untrustworthy roles.  They may act out numerous scenarios such as lying, stealing, cheating, and any number of nefarious actions.  It is all part of the script.  The Holy Spirit urges you not to get mindlessly drawn into the drama of the storyline, and to instead look beyond  the costumes to the true identities beyond. 

So how do we do this?  How do we learn to overlook this facade in favour of the truth within everyone?  And how do we apply the Holy Spirit’s kind of trust to the people in our everyday life, when our overwhelming experience is that their actions towards us are so very real?  Firstly, you have to remember to notice when you are getting caught up in the ego’s narrative of labelling someone as unworthy of your trust.  This first step doesn’t mean that you necessarily stop or change these thoughts straight away, but it does require that you become aware of them.  You become aware that you have been swept away in the ego’s narrative and are mindlessly thinking with its thought system.  Remember, as Course students we want to learn to choose against the ego in favour of the Holy Spirit, but we first need to acknowledge and actually admit to ourselves that we are, indeed, thinking with the ego. 

To then take it to the next level, you have to be open to seeing the other person in a different light.  You have to be willing to change your perception.  Perception has a focus.  It is this that gives consistency to what you see.  Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly (W-181.2:1-3).   This means you have to want to withdraw your perception from the ego’s idea that they are guilty and untrustworthy, and to instead replace it with the Holy Spirit’s vision that shows you that, not only are they innocent, but they are completely worthy of your trust.  

A lot of times, the willingness to want to see the other person this way will be something you have to work at.  When we feel we have been wounded by someone, we often don’t want to let it go.  Sometimes we have to stew in the pain and wallow in our self pity, and it is not until we are finally so sick of feeling miserable that we begin to be willing to open to another way, and to the possibility that we can see this person in different light.  So don’t feel bad if this willingness doesn’t come easy to you and you have to work at it, because mostly everyone is in the same boat.

Let’s look at a very common example that almost everyone experiences at some point in their life.  Say you have a friend, someone who you have been close to for quite a while, and you find out they have been talking about you behind your back.  This is a person who you felt you could always confide in, you appreciated and valued their friendship, and who you would always turn to for their kind and non-judgmental support.  To discover they are being unkind about you wounds you deeply and you feel a great sense of betrayal.  It’s safe to say your trust in this friend has probably now been shattered.  Your first response is likely to default to the ego for advice.  It tells you that you have been wronged, that you are innocent and they are guilty, and you in the right and they in the wrong.  And on the level of the world, the ego would probably be right.  But as Course students we don’t want to focus on the level of the world, we want to focus on the level of the mind.

Now, chances are you’re probably going to have a hard time letting it go.  You might find yourself stewing over it, complaining about your friend to others, and perhaps even talking about them behind their back, which you now consider as totally justified – you’re just standing up for yourself, right?  But after a while of wallowing in how terrible you are feeling about the whole situation you find yourself hitting a point where you are just plain sick of feeling this way – it’s really no fun at all.  And now you find you are open to seeing things differently.  You realise you are so miserable because you have been thinking with the ego, and you remember that you actually do have a choice in this.  You take your focus off of the situation itself and instead look at how your mind is reacting to it.  Now that you are open to a different interpretation and, being driven by the motivation that you don’t want to feel so bad anymore, you begin to practice switching to seeing the situation with the Holy Spirit instead.  

The Holy Spirit doesn’t see your friend as an untrustworthy person, because he doesn’t see them as a person at all.  He only sees the truth within them, which is pure and innocent Spirit.   He reminds you that the fictional character you are identifying with as your friend is just an actor on the stage, and it’s your stage.  In the current role you cast them into, they have just acted out a scene that involved playing the part of the betrayer and, like a bad soap opera, you got sucked right in by the drama!  You were so firmly fixated on the scene playing out in front of you that you forgot that it was just a show, and that your friend is just playing the part that you scripted for them.  Talk about good acting!  So now, realising your perceptual error, you are back in your right mind where you can then choose to remember who your friend really is.  You remember that underneath the costume they wear is their true identity, and this identity is one that is wholly and completely trustworthy.  Then when you find yourself slipping back into the ego’s narrative and once again viewing your friend as the bad guy, which will likely happen, you can again practice pulling yourself up, changing your mind, and choosing to see the truth within them.

So, what now?  Do you just carry on as usual with your friend as if nothing has happened?  This is where the confusion can kick in for many students, who may misinterpret the Course as saying we have to blindly trust everyone, or be friends with everyone in our lives, even if they are mistreating us.  This is definitely not the case.  While yes, it is true, that the truth within everyone is totally trustworthy, on the level of form bodies and the characters they play can be extremely untrustworthy, and sometimes even put us in positions of great harm.  It is always okay to remove yourself from such situations and to put your foot down.  Indeed, not doing so can be a quite unloving act towards all involved.  So, on this level you may never trust your friend again, and you may part ways, ending the friendship.  Or you may not.  You may decide that you actually aren’t as bothered by your friend’s dishonesty as you first were – after all, everyone makes mistakes and you yourself aren’t perfect.  Whatever action you decide to take in form is irrelevant.  It’s all about how you are perceiving it.  The Course is an instruction on how it is we are looking at our lives, and it is only ever concerned with the level of the mind – that is, it is concerned with returning our mind to a state of peace.  If you end the friendship, do it from a state of inner peace.  If you stay in the friendship, do it from a state of inner peace. 

So, while there is no disputing that our lessons in trust can be both difficult and painful, they can also serve as some of our most valuable lessons when we give them over to the Holy Spirit and choose to see them how he sees them.  Reinterpreted through his lens of love and unity, we can learn to see any person who we feel has betrayed us in a very different light, seeing past their errors in form to the true perfection within them.  And as we see this, and only this within them, so too will we learn to see this same perfection within ourselves – as you give your trust to what is good in him, you give it to the good in you (T-31.VII.2:8).