Life Skills
Do You Trust Yourself?
Trusting Heavenly Father has a lot to do with trusting yourself as well.
“You know, looking at this cycle you keep getting caught in, it doesn’t seem like you don’t trust God—it seems like you don’t trust yourself.”
My mouth fell open at my therapist’s words.
I was again discussing my fears with her about a major life decision. I had prayed about this decision over and over. I had attended the temple, read my scriptures, and even dived into family history to better access answers from heaven. And I would feel spiritually full and confident in the answers I would receive, but that confidence would diminish after a few days. Doubts and fear would enter my mind again shortly after.
My mind would whisper things like:
Are you sure that answer was from God?
Are you sure this is right?
How do you know you’re not just telling yourself what you want to hear?
Are you sure you’ve even received answers before?
Are you just talking to a wall?
Is this even real?
I’ve always connected this pattern to the idea that I didn’t have enough faith or trust in God or in His promised blessings. So I wasn’t expecting to hear that the real problem was my lack of trust and faith in myself.
But how could I learn to really trust myself? And what did that have to do with trusting God?
As it turns out, so much more than I thought.
What Is Self-Trust?
According to Merriam-Webster, self-trust is having “great faith in oneself or one’s abilities.”1
In my eyes, self-trust is being confident in yourself and in your ability to follow through on your promises to yourself and others, to be sure of your decisions, to realize your own competence, to be kind to yourself and accept your imperfections, and to believe that what you have experienced is real and valid.
My lack of self-trust manifests itself in me wanting to always have all the answers and feeling frustrated with myself when I don’t. It’s shaming myself when I make even the slightest mistake, especially when it comes to matters of the gospel. It shows up when I struggle to make decisions out of fear of making the wrong choice. And it makes me second-guess myself whenever someone I love has a different opinion than I do.
These are just a few examples of my struggle to trust myself. Perhaps you can relate.
As I’ve opened my eyes to these tendencies, I’ve learned quite a few ways to develop more trust in myself, more confidence in my decisions, and more faith in Heavenly Father.
Know That You Really Do Know What You Know
What does it mean to “know what you know”? It’s knowing that the truth and experiences you’ve received from God are real, and not just false claims or something that you might have imagined.
Amulek was a particularly good example of this when he struggled to act on and recognize what he knew to be true. He said, “I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know” (Alma 10:6).
While trying to make the big life decision I mentioned earlier, I finally went to my bishop for a priesthood blessing to help me know once again if I was making the right decision. I was told very clearly that I needed to believe that the impressions I had received were from the Holy Ghost, and that I had to trust myself to believe in them.
I was told to not doubt myself any longer and to have confidence.
And that blessing has made a profound difference in my level of self-trust.
While the passing of time after receiving enlightenment or revelation can cause us to lose faith, the passing of time doesn’t make our spiritual experiences or promised blessings less real.
And time doesn’t stop God from keeping His promises if we keep choosing to believe.
Keep a Journal
I have kept a journal since I was little. While I was grappling with my life decision, I would write in my journal during gospel study, and I was shocked to see so many experiences when I felt spiritual promptings to do certain things that didn’t work out … until they eventually did.
I saw so many ways in which Heavenly Father prepared the way for me, trusted me to follow promptings, and fulfilled promises not in my time, but in His.
With this in mind, I often think of the Lord’s counsel to Oliver Cowdery in section 6 of the Doctrine and Covenants:
“Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; …
“… If you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things.
“Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:15, 22, 23).
Truly, what greater witness do we need than those moments in our lives when we’ve cried out for help, and somehow we are able to move forward with faith and renewed strength against all odds?
But with how quickly life moves, we can forget those moments of enlightenment. So writing down our spiritual experiences and sacred memories2 provides a way for us to look back at how we have practiced self-trust, acting on what we do know and recognizing how the Lord has actively worked in our lives.
Remember to Use Your Agency
One thing I have really grappled with lately is the role that Heavenly Father plays in our agency. During this phase of life, we are probably facing more decisions than we ever have. Our agency is a precious gift we need to utilize because Heavenly Father won’t tell us what to do all the time—if He did, then we wouldn’t be able to make our own choices in faith.3
We all know those firecracker spiritual moments where God reveals to us the wheres and whats and hows in our lives, right? It would be great to have those enlightening moments every single time we wanted an answer.
But those moments aren’t going to be as frequent as we would like, and I’m beginning to understand why.
I’ve learned that part of trusting in Heavenly Father is doing everything we can to follow Him, and then trusting ourselves and the impressions we’ve received to use our agency to confidently make good decisions on our own. Just as Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught, “Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him.”4
This process of developing self-trust is what refines us into more confident, faithful, and Christlike beings.
When we are struggling spiritually, we can trust ourselves and our experiences by using our agency to act in faith. To choose to believe. To decide to continue forward, knowing that even if we don’t know everything yet, we know enough to keep going.5
Realize That God Trusts You to Follow Him
Flash back to that conversation with my therapist. She gave me some words I have lived by ever since:
“You know, Chakell, you have faith, you trust God, and you’ve made a lot of good decisions in your life as you’ve followed Him. You need to trust yourself, because it’s obvious that God trusts you.”
Cue the dropping jaw again.
I couldn’t fathom that the most powerful and perfect being in the universe could trust a little flawed human like me. But after thinking on it, I knew that what she said was true. Trusting God and trusting ourselves go hand in hand.
Sister Janette Hales Beckham, former Young Women General President, taught:
“We become trustworthy before the Lord as we practice and make corrections. …
“… Our Heavenly Father has put His trust in us. He knows we can do hard things. … Learn to perform to the best of your ability the work in front of you and trust in the Lord as he leads you along. In that way he knows that you trust him.”6
When we are doing the best we can to follow our Heavenly Father and trust in His plan—believing in Him, keeping His commandments, striving to be like Him—we can trust ourselves to make decisions, to believe in our spiritual experiences, to recognize His influence, and to move forward even without all the answers.
Ultimately, we can trust that we really do know what we know.
We don’t need to doubt ourselves. The fact that we are here, learning and growing and facing many different circumstances each day, shows that God trusted us enough to allow us to come to earth. It also shows that He trusted us to rely on Him and use our best righteous judgment to make good decisions, to find truth, and to overcome our struggles to return to Him.
He trusts us, so we should trust ourselves too.