Sunday, March 25, 2007

Trust





As I shared a few days ago I'm here in Colorado for a meeting. I'm learning how to facilitate Sharpening Your Inter personal Skills, some know as; SYIS. It is such a great workshop especially for those of us who work with so many diverse kinds of people who come from all kinds of back grounds. It can be a challenge to learn how to live in peace with people if you aren't sure how to deal with all the diversity. Often times when we are ill equipped to handle interpersonal issues, conflicts, or problems then we tend to become judge mental, making all kinds of assumptions about people, and there tends to be a string of broken relationships in your wake.

I can personally testify that until you are willing to learn how to first admit your own issues then it is likely you won't get far in helping others along the path of discovery or will you really experience reconciliation in broken relationships. Especially in the area of dealing with conflicts, interpersonal issues and just dealing with people on a regular basis. It is inevitable that if you work long enough with people and spend enough time with them you are going to experience one of these things. So why my post today?

We had practice sessions today where we actually got to do a session practicing facilitate modules of SYIS.

One was on Trust and it was just another reminder of how often I fail in my genuine attempts of being a trustworthy friend, co worker, and neighbor just to name a few.

One of the activities was to name things that BUILD TRUST: it was so cool to see 16 people write out these and then share them with the group. Here are just a few, disclosure, sharing life experiences, honesty, care, humility, kindness, keeping confidences, the list went on.. one thing that was mentioned was that most of these are focused on the other person not on themselves. So someone who is usually trustworthy exemplifies a selfless attitude towards others. It's not all about them!

Then we went on to TRUST BUSTERS: Things that break trust. Here are some of those: sarcasm, gossip, lying, manipulation- what was meant by this was allowing other people to do all the talking and then the other person just do all the listening/ this is a form of manipulation- judging, expanding the truth, broken promises and/or appointments, being late, not fulling your word, being one way infront of some people but then being opposite when you are not around them.

The thing that was noted and I think we all can concur that it is so much easier to BREAK trust than it is to BUILD trust.

Another profound statement was : Isn't is interesting that we can break trust without even trying but you can't build trust without trying.


It just reminded me and really challenged me today to consider those I work with and to consider those I call friends, those I live in community with and even my colleague that I need to be working to build trust and to be mindful of how my actions even if they are unintentional or sometimes intentional that I need to know that I could be breaking trust or building it.

I know there are times when I over extend myself and I am not able to keep my appointments or that I allow my work to interfere with prior engagements and even that breaks trust after awhile. There are some other ways that I'm aware of my actions and it's neat to see the growth in those areas but man Ya'll its no small thing to begin the painful work of change in our own lives. Unfortunately we tend to reflect on others problems or downfalls but to be real enough to say, no it's me.. That's when God can really work in and through us. Ever met someone who is always got an issue with someone. All they do is dredge up old junk or dwell on the words of that person. I use to do that.... I use to just waddle in junk until something happened and I was removed from it long enough for the Lord to begin showing me how wrong I was to keep my focus on them but what I really needed was to focus on me. I can't change people.. but I can change me... And then I can trust God to change others. It amazes me how much more patience I have with those I once felt in conflict with and how much more I let go. That alone has caused me to become a bit more wise with whom I lay myself bare too. Its not that I don't love them or value them but I just understand where they are and realize they aren't trustworthy enough to be given full access to who I am in vulnerable ways. That's not bad, that's healthy!

It is so cool to see growth and to come back after my first time of taking SYIS as a participant and now preparing to teach it to see how much it has affected my life and effected change in me!

I highly recommend this workshop to anyone who works with people. You won't be disappointed in the skills and knowledge you walk away with after attending this workshop.

check out their website: www.itpartners.org

So here's to personal discovery... being real with God about WHO you ARE and being willing to say, I want to change and grow and become that ........ kind of a person. ( you fill in the blank) for me today! It's a TRUST WORTHY kind of Person.


here's to being purposeful in building trust!

Mel......

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