If you find yourself second guessing even the smallest decisions, replaying conversations, asking others what they think, or searching for reassurance that you’re making the right choice, you’re not alone.
Often, this isn’t because you’re indecisive - it’s because somewhere along the way you learned to question whether you could trust yourself.
In this article, we’ll explore:
Why self trust can become difficult (even when you are deeply intuitive and caring)
The ways we learn to look outside ourselves for safety and approval
How to recognise when you’ve disconnected from your own inner knowing and needs
What listening within actually means
The small shifts that help you return to yourself with compassion
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If you’re someone who thinks deeply, cares deeply, and often considers everyone else's needs before your own, you may have learned to look outside yourself for reassurance.
You might be someone others come to for support and perspective - yet when it comes to your own choices, you find yourself questioning, analysing, and searching for reassurance.
Over time, your attention can become so finely tuned to the needs, emotions, and opinions of others that you lose connection with your own.
Often the women I work with move through the world with this awareness so finely tuned that somewhere along the way, their attention learned to focus almost entirely outward.
They are considerate. Careful. Aware of impact. Their caring runs deep.
But underneath that same depth, there can be a belief that formed long ago:
It's not safe to trust their own needs and inner knowing above the needs and opinions of others.
And here's what I want to say first, if you can resonate and see yourself in this too, before we go any deeper:
That part of you that learned not to trust yourself? She deserves your compassion. Not your judgment or your frustration - your tenderness.
She was trying her best to protect you.
Why second guessing yourself feels so exhausting
When you don’t trust your own decisions, it can feel like your mind never gets to rest.
You might:
replay choices or conversations long after you’ve had them
ask others for reassurance even when you already know your answer
feel stuck between what you want and what you think you should do
worry about making the wrong choice
The constant questioning can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself - not because you don’t have wisdom, but because you’ve learned to look outside yourself for certainty.
How we learn not to trust ourselves
Self trust doesn't disappear by accident. It erodes through many small moments where you learn that your inner knowing isn't safe to rely on - and where your needs aren't held safely enough for you to rest in them.
Maybe you learned early that being the stable one kept things safe. Your own needs became something to hide, and the parts of you that struggled learned to go quiet.
Maybe you learned that staying connected meant staying attuned to everyone else - that choosing yourself might disappoint someone, create conflict, or risk losing belonging.
Maybe no one around you modelled what it looked like to trust your own knowing while still staying connected to others.
The reasons are as varied as the women themselves, but the pattern is consistent.
The subtle ways we abandon ourselves
Self abandonment rarely happens consciously. It often begins as a way of staying connected.
When you learn that other people's emotions, needs, expectations, or opinions feel more important than your own, you begin to move away from yourself in small ways.
You become skilled at reading the room, but less familiar with reading yourself.
You learn to ask:
“What does everyone else need from me?”
before asking:
“What is true for me?”
Over time, this can look like:
You notice other people's feelings before you notice your own.
You seek reassurance before trusting your own inner response.
You minimise your needs because someone else's needs feel more urgent.
You override your body's signals because keeping harmony feels safer.
You apologise for having boundaries or preferences.
You feel responsible for making others comfortable, even when it costs you your own peace.
You know how to care deeply for others, but receiving care or tending to yourself feels unfamiliar.
You have a strong inner knowing, but you have learned to question it.
This is not because you don't value yourself. It is because, somewhere along the way, disconnecting from yourself became a way of staying connected.
The weight of not trusting yourself
When you don't trust your own inner knowing, you live in a state of constant checking.
You scan other people's faces for clues about what they need. You look outside yourself for reassurance that you're making the right choice. You search for permission to trust what you already sense.
Over time, this creates a feeling of being disconnected from your own centre - always looking outward for evidence that your knowing can be trusted.
You second guess your intuition when it conflicts with someone else's expectations - not because you lack wisdom, but because you've learned to question whether your own knowing is safe to trust.
You feel guilty for having needs - not because you are selfish, but because some part of you learned that your needs might be too much, inconvenient, or unsafe to bring forward.
Over time, this disconnection can create:
Chronic anxiety — constantly seeking reassurance instead of trusting within
Decision paralysis — struggling to access your own knowing
Resentment — from repeatedly overriding yourself
Disconnection from your body — learning to ignore your own signals
Exhaustion — from carrying the weight of everyone else's needs
A sense of not-enoughness — from living according to someone else's blueprint
And often, the hardest part is the judgment that comes with it. You think you should be able to trust yourself by now. You wonder why you can't simply choose better boundaries, make clearer decisions, or stop overriding yourself.
You may begin to believe there is something fundamentally wrong with you.
But here's what I know:
You are not flawed. You're protected.
Your deeper system learned a strategy to help you stay safe and connected. And now - when you're ready - we can gently teach it that it is safe to trust yourself. That starts with compassion for the part of you that learned not to.
What LIstening within actually means
Real self trust isn't built through belief alone. It's built through repeated experiences of your inner knowing being right - and through learning that it is safe to act on what you know.
But before we get there, we need to understand what listening within actually is.
It's not positive thinking. It's not forcing yourself to believe in yourself when you don't. And it's not overriding your fears or pretending you feel more confident than you do.
Listening within is the practice of turning toward yourself with curiosity and care.
It's asking:
What am I sensing right now?
What does my body and heart know?
What do I actually want, separate from what I think I should want?
And then - this is the part that changes everything - it's meeting whatever you find with compassion instead of judgment. With listening, instead of fixing.
When you notice you're about to say yes when you mean no, you don't criticise yourself. You pause and ask:
What am I protecting by saying yes?
What am I afraid will happen if I say no?
And you listen to the answer with gentleness.
In that moment, you are not only honouring yourself - you are also honouring the person you're with, because your genuine yes becomes possible.
When you feel the urge to soften your boundary, you don't shame yourself. You notice:
What am I sensing right now?
What part of me is scared?
And you let that part know:
I hear you. I am with you now.
When your intuition conflicts with someone else's opinion, you don't dismiss it. You turn toward it and create space for that knowing to be real and true, even if it's uncomfortable.
Because rebuilding self trust is not about forcing yourself to become more confident or overriding the parts of you that feel afraid.
It begins by creating a relationship with yourself where every part of you feels safe enough to be heard.
This is the deeper work we explore in my Inner Healing & Integration Sessions.
Here, we gently meet the parts of yourself that learned to protect you through self-abandonment, over-responsibility, or disconnection from your own needs - not by forcing change, but by bringing compassion, curiosity, and presence to what is already there.
→ Explore Inner Healing & Integration Sessions
The deepest part of rebuilding self trust is learning that you can become a safe place for yourself to come home to.
What changes when you rebuild this connection
There is something deeply healing about turning your attention inward and trusting what you find there.
Not by having all the answers, but by creating a relationship with yourself where your inner knowing is welcomed, listened to, and met with compassion.
When you begin to listen within - really listen, with gentleness instead of judgment - something shifts at a deeper level.
What unfolds over time:
You begin to recognise what you truly want.
You begin trusting that your desires and needs are information worth listening to.Your yes becomes more genuine, and your no becomes easier to honour.
You recognise when you are about to override yourself, and you can pause, come back to yourself, and choose differently.Your boundaries become clearer and more compassionate.
You no longer need to apologise for having needs because you trust that your boundaries are meaningful information about what matters to you.You feel less resentment and inner tension.
When you stop constantly abandoning yourself to keep others comfortable, the exhaustion and frustration that comes from self-betrayal begins to soften.You feel more present in your relationships.
You are no longer constantly scanning for how to be, what others need, or whether you are getting it right. You can care for others while staying connected to yourself.You move through life with greater trust in your own inner wisdom.
Decisions become clearer, old beliefs begin to loosen, and change unfolds naturally - not through force, but through a deeper sense of safety within yourself.
Ready to go deeper?
If you're ready to come home to yourself and explore this at the depth where things truly shift - where you're not just understanding the pattern but actually feeling different in your body and your life - I'd love to work with you.
Inner Healing & Integration Sessions
The work is on-going and relational. Change isn't forced - it emerges as your system feels supported enough to let go. This is a space that meets you where you are, and helps you move forward with more ease.
These sessions are especially supportive if you're seeking:
Relief from looping emotional patterns or internal pressure
Greater trust in yourself and your choices
Clarity where confusion or conflict has been present
Change that holds, rather than fleeting breakthroughs
Aaruka Healing — A subconscious healing approach that safely accesses the theta brainwave state to process stored memories, release limiting beliefs, and allow the deeper system to unwind patterns held at their root.
Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF) — A body centred practice of turning toward the parts of yourself that are hurting or afraid, and meeting them with curiosity and warmth rather than pushing them away - creating space for lasting change from this place.
→ Book Your Inner Healing Session
Not sure this is the right starting point? Your soul has a unique blueprint - understanding it creates the foundation. If you'd rather begin there, explore the Soul Essence Reading or the Soul Awakening Reading.
Start where you're called. If you're unsure which offering would serve you best right now, there's no pressure to decide alone. Book a complimentary discovery call and we can explore together what feels right for you in this moment.
