On Trust, Woven Slowly

Today I find myself sitting with the word trust.

Not the polished version we use in mission statements or team charters, but the lived, tender kind—the kind that is built in small moments, often quietly, and almost always starting with ourselves.

Over the years, through my work with Matriarch Makeover and through my own life as a parent, partner, and leader, I’ve come to understand trust as something holistic. It is not one thing. It is a weaving together of self-trust, relational trust, and structural trust—three strands that are always influencing one another, whether we name them or not.

As a parent, I was reminded again and again that one of the greatest gifts we can offer children is the chance to fail gently. To stumble, to misjudge, to feel disappointment—and to discover that they can recover. At the core of self-trust is this capacity: to make mistakes and find our way back. To know our limits. To accept that we are not perfect. And to trust that learning, growth, and repair are always possible—especially when we allow ourselves to ask for support.

For those of us raised in cultures of perfection, this can be particularly tender terrain. When approval and acknowledgment become the primary measures of our worth, we may never learn to trust ourselves in moments of falling. We learn how to perform, but not how to recover. And yet resilience is born not from getting it right every time, but from knowing we can get back up.

Relational trust follows a similar path. It asks us to articulate our needs clearly and to honor the needs of others with care and respect. Trust is built step by step, gesture by gesture. I often return to Brené Brown’s BRAVING framework because it reminds us of something essential: trust is deeply personal and inherently subjective. There is no universal threshold. Each of us gets to decide who we trust, how trust is built, and what we require in order to feel safe enough to show up honestly.

Relational trust asks for commitment—not to self-sacrifice, but to mutual respect. When we do this well, relationships become resilient. They can hold us through joy and through strain. We learn how to stand shoulder to shoulder, knowing that meeting one another does not require abandoning ourselves.

And then there is structural trust—the trust reflected in the organizations we work within, the governance systems we participate in, and the formal agreements that shape our shared lives. Structural trust asks each of us to take responsibility for knowing ourselves: our capacities, our limits, and our true yes and no. When we do this, we become a reliable spoke in a larger wheel—showing up fully, without carrying more than our share for longer than is sustainable. Structural trust, when done well, ensures that no one is quietly overburdened and that the whole can actually hold.

I have committed my personal and professional life to cultivating cultures of trust because I believe—deeply—that trust is foundational. It shapes our sense of self. It shapes families. It shapes our professional and personal relationships. And it shapes the health of our organizations and communities.

I invite you, gently, to reflect on trust in your own life. You might explore the BRAVING inventory and notice what resonates. Which strand of trust is calling for your attention right now? Where do you feel strong—strong enough to support others? And where might there be an invitation to tend, to soften, or to begin again?

Trust, after all, is not something we arrive at.

It is something we practice.

One small moment at a time.

— Maija West