Authentic trust
We have language to describe what it means to make a commitment to another’s freedom. It’s called authentic trust. It’s the opposite of transactional trust which is trust based on the exchange of my support for your compliance to my expectations.
Authentic trust is about my capacity for commitment and my valuing your freedom; transactional trust is about my capacity for control and my valuing your compliance.
October 5th, 2005 19:00
Jack,
It is an enticing idea but can it be practice in a relationship taking place in the real world? It would require a person to surround himself with trustworthy individuals, making a decision to exercise trust no matter what? I am not sure if I have ever experienced this trust not even as a child. I think it wold be liberating, it would eliminate a lot of BS.
October 5th, 2005 19:12
It may be the hardest thing we do in relationship; although the alternative is relationship based on the need to control the other.
The freedom piece starts to feel a little better if we think about being committed to the other’s freedom to learn, grow, connect ….
October 7th, 2005 03:01
Ahh, but what happens to authentic trust when it’s violated?
October 7th, 2005 09:19
That is a great question. If we say that authentic trust is a commitment to another’s freedom, is the violation that we fail in our commitment or that they fail to act with the freedom they have? Or both?
The idea of violating trust is usually the domain of transactional trust where we trade our support of another in exchange for their compliance to some ofour specific spoken or unspoken expectations or standards. With these violations, we take back trust and think about returning it only if we’re convinced that the other can and will act in a predictable way.
October 8th, 2005 03:50
There is a transactional element, however subtle, implicit in every extension of trust. The violation we feel may have more to do with misjudgment than commitment.
October 11th, 2005 00:26
Juicy thoughts here. Authentic trust is certainly fragile, and prone to violation, however subtle. But as a goal or ideal it’s an important distiction from transactional trust. The transactional weeds need to be diligently pulled from the authentic garden of trust.