A strange naivety

Hello coaches!

INNATE TRUST IN THE MOMENT
My whole life I have struggled with this innate trust of other people’s words, even when their actions say different. For the purposes of explaining it to you today, I call it my strange naivety.

I call it naivety because that is the closest thing that makes sense to describe it. I call it strange because I am, at the same time, incredibly UNtrusting of others and I am super logical and informed when it comes to manipulation techniques or how men prey on women.

Let me be clear, I think it is a wonderful trait – to innately trust, love and care for people. But in the reality of this world with other humans, it has it’s serious drawbacks. I have gotten myself into difficult and even dangerous situations (can count my lives, actually) that were avoidable had I ‘seen the signs’ or ‘trusted my gut’ and pulled out at earlier stages.

So it isn’t a cutesy trait that I want to keep in it’s entirety, but I don’t want to lose it entirely either. I have in the past flip flopped between that naivety and withdrawn scepticism. Neither are ideal. I am most comfortable in the naivety (but most at risk), and most miserable in the withdrawn sceptisicm.

So I’m coming to coaching to discuss this trait, understand it, create techniques to manage it, and try to find a healthy balance.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020
The interesting thing is that I can look back at those dangerous situations, with hindsight, and think “wow yeah, OBVIOUSLY that was a LIE”. And just to be clear, I litmus test it with other people’s perspectives and they agree with my hindsight, and even can point out ‘warning signs’ even earlier than i had thought.

FURTHER CONTEXT
This is with strangers or with people close to me, people I don’t trust or people I trust, friends, family, colleagues, landowner, medical professionals, strangers – it really is indiscriminant!

AUTISM RULED OUT, BUT EMBRACED
I know this is a classic autistic trait, and I’ve looked into autism and even did the short questionnaire with GP. They said it is isn’t autism I have. Just in case you were going to raise that! While I have many crossover symptoms/ traits, the results were not enough to merit full assessment. For me that is ok, I can not be officially autistic but still be kind of autistic (or whatever blend of natural human diversity i uniquely am!!!). And meanwhile I can benefit from all the ‘life hack’ techniques and information from researching Autism.

Thanks, coaches!

 

Answer:

 

This is the perfect place to bring this. Let’s start with understanding the direction that you want to move in and what it really means for you. You mentioned that you want to have a healthy balance with this trait. What kind of change do you want to see within yourself when it comes to trusting or not trusting other people’s words? What would tell you that you’ve struck the healthy balance you’re looking for?