Standing talking after my meeting last night, someone brought up the recent news story about the 4 employees of the Canadian city of Toronto's Humane Society, who had been charged with animal cruelty. I hadn't heard about this, but when I got home, looked it up online. As well as my feelings of anger and sorrow with regard to the alleged cruelty to the animals, I found myself feeling unsettled for hours afterwards, and not sure why.
This morning, I realise that quite apart from my distress at animals being mistreated, the issue being raised is trust. Whenever it is discovered that the guards of the henhouse have long snouts and bushy tails peeking out from beneath their feathers, if I'm not careful, I can begin to extrapolate from that one issue of untrustworthiness, to viewing the world as a whole, through a miasma of dubiety.
Who can we trust to care for animals, if not the people who work at the Humane Society? I know I'd like to believe that anyone who works at a place with that name, would have the care of the creatures dependent upon them, uppermost in their minds and hearts.
Our society operates largely on trust - we make daily assumptions as to the way the world is being run, and finding out that these assumptions are mistaken, is unnerving. If I'm not careful, this can start my mind off on an old, old mental loop, which has as its main structure, the declaration "You can't trust anybody!" After a few hundred repititions of this particular loop, I will be feeling anxious, and a thousand times more distrustful than I was at the start - this way of thinking is self-perpetuating.
I know it isn't true; I have people in my life that I give as much trust as I am capable of at this point in my recovery, and that is gallons more than the grudging teaspoon I could give years back when I was relatively new to program. I know there are people I can trust with my heart, and my life, and they will not fail me. I mustn't paint the entire world with the same dark paintbrush. It just blocks the light and obscures my view.
Trust has been an issue for me lately because of finding out that someone close to me hasn't been trustworthy. It hurt like hell. But I have had to let that go and let them find their own way. Painful but I'm okay.
ReplyDelete