Trauma: Your Lord Has Not Forsaken You
6 / 19
How Can I Ever Trust Again? | Trauma Ep. 4
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. In the name of Allah, peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah, his family and companions. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. This is Sara Sultan here with Yaqeen Institute. And today I want to speak with you a little bit about one of the common thoughts that tend to come up when we've been through something difficult, but particularly when we have struggled with a betrayal of trust. And that thought is, how can I ever trust again? When we go through a situation where somebody has hurt us or has betrayed our trust or has disappointed us really intensely, the emotions that we feel can be so powerful that we can almost feel them physically. A lot of times people describe being betrayed by somebody as feeling like you've been punched in the stomach. That's how intense the emotions are when we feel like we've been betrayed by someone. And what's really unique about a situation where we've been betrayed, the trauma of betrayal, is that it's twofold. That first, we experience the situation where we suddenly realize that somebody that we have been vulnerable with, somebody that we've tenderly placed our trust with, has lied to us and broken that trust. And then the second part is that we suddenly realize that we have been duped, right? That we've been fooled into being able to trust this person for such a long time, and then we suddenly realize that we've been lied to. So we start to doubt that person, but we also start to doubt ourselves and wonder, how did I not pick up on the signs for so long? What sometimes happens with the experience of betrayal is that it extends to a lot of different parts of our lives, including our relationship with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, where if somebody that you've trusted so deeply could betray you, you wonder, can I ever trust again? Should I risk trusting again?
And we can even start to doubt, can I even trust Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la? And that can be a very scary thought for a lot of us. So why do these thoughts develop? The struggle that we can sometimes have in even trusting Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la falls under the umbrella of something called overgeneralization. And this is a cognitive distortion. Overgeneralization basically means basing our complete view of the world and people on one single event or one single bad occurrence that happens in our lives. So basically, it's the idea of carrying an umbrella with you because you've experienced one rainy day, and you have this umbrella over your head constantly, right? And so we're always expecting that because one person hurt us, that every single person will hurt us. And we try to protect ourselves from feeling hurt and from feeling disappointed by never allowing ourselves to trust a person in order to prevent ourselves from getting hurt. And sometimes this can even extend to our fear of being disappointed even by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Realistically, we know that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is so different from human beings, completely different, incomparable. But emotionally, it's a very different story. So one thing that is important for us to be aware of when we're thinking about this thought is how it develops, right? So for example, if you have a really good friend, and she hurts you, right, where she said something bad about you behind your back, then the thought trajectory that tends to happen is, I've devoted so much to this relationship, and she's done this to me, then I must not matter to her. And if I don't matter to her, then I must not matter to anyone. So what's the point of even investing in relationships if I don't matter anyway? In order to be aware of the way our thought process develops, one thing that I think is a really powerful reminder for all of us is that a lot of times our relationship with everybody that we encounter, but even our relationship with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la,
can emulate our previous relationships. So our relationship with Allah can often be like our relationships with people that we've experienced. So if we assume that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will hurt us, even though we know that this is not true, if we assume that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will hurt us, even though we know that this is not true, then we assume that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will hurt us, even though rationally we know that this is not true. So one tip that I want to leave you with to consider in order to try and overcome these overgeneralizations of thoughts that we might experience is to ask ourselves, is there any evidence that you could have? What would you need? What evidence would you need in order to see that this overgeneralization is not true? And once you can determine, okay, what evidence do I need in order to feel like I can actually trust someone, for example, then ask yourself, does this evidence exist? Does it already exist? Because it might be there, but we just don't see it. And so with regards to our relationship with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, for example, that evidence is already there if we just look at it. Every breath that we take is entrusting Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la that our lungs will expand to accept it. Every time we take a bite of food, it's trusting Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la that that bite of food is going to provide nourishment. So the evidence that we can trust is there if we just look for it. So try and explore that, inshaAllah. If you'd like to know a little bit more about the idea behind overgeneralizations, get a lot more practical tips, and just get a deeper understanding, of why you might be struggling with these thoughts and how to overcome them, then take a look, inshaAllah, at the next article in the Your Lord Has Not Forsaken You series on the Yaqeen Institute's website.
JazakAllah Khayran.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
