Episode 246: What Builds Trust?
What builds trust?
A recent experience had me asking this question, which I put out to my Instagram community. The overwhelming response was consistency and transparency.
In this episode, I discuss what consistency and transparency look like and what’s at the root of how they show up in our lives.
I also reflect on how a lack of consistency and transparency ultimately led me to seek holistic and functional solutions and what role Human Design plays in building trust.
Listen to the Episode:
Mentioned in the Episode:
Episode 211: Addressing Skin Issues with Functional Nutrition and Human Design
Episode 188: Exploring Human Design Manifestation Centers: Throat & G-Center
Episode 186: Exploring Human Design Pressure Centers: Head and Root
Episode 187: Exploring Human Design Awareness Centers: Ajna, Spleen, Solar Plexus
Episode 184: Your Human Design Authority - How Do You Best Make Decisions?
Episode 182: Human Design Non-Sacral Types and Their Strategies
Connect with Naomi:
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“Second-guessing ourselves is an indicator that we don’t trust ourselves. We compare ourselves to others, which can lead to unrealistic or mismanaged expectations and a lack of boundaries - all part of miscommunication, which leads to lacking self-confidence, self-awareness, and ultimately, self-appreciation and self-love.”
Read the Transcript:
Hello there, my friends. Welcome back to The Live Fab Life Podcast. I’m happy to be here with you for another episode this week for a conversation on what builds trust.
But before we get into that, as I shared in the last episode, I'm someone who doesn’t just tell you the “what” and the “why,” so let me share some context on how this episode came about.
As some of you may know, I have a little puppy girl named Coco Pop. Last week we visited the vet because she had a couple of masses biopsied, and we also learned through some blood work that she has some slightly elevated liver enzymes.
I shared this in my Instagram stories, and a follower sent me a Direct Message asking if I would try Chinese Medicine as part of her treatment. The follower had a holistic vet for their pet but had felt that the vet tried to take advantage of them by selling expensive treatments. They then proceeded to share how they treat their health concerns.
I responded that I don't know enough about canine health to deviate from what Coco’s primary vet recommends, but I trust them implicitly. Coco also has a specialty vet for physical therapy and rehabilitation who does practice Chinese Medicine. Coco regularly gets acupuncture treatments and takes Chinese herbs for arthritis and anxiety.
That exchange got me thinking about trust - how we build trust and how we lose trust; it's been on my mind ever since.
So, I took the conversation to my Instagram community and asked, “What builds trust?”
I received some interesting responses, but the overall themes were “consistency and “transparency.”
One person responded, “It takes time to build trust, but it can be destroyed in a blip of a second.” Isn't that so true?
So, getting back to Coco Pop’s situation, clearly, the follower who sent me the DM had lost trust in their holistic vet because they felt the vet was prioritizing profits over their pet – transparency.
Doesn’t the same thing happen with humans and our healthcare system?
One of the reasons I turned to holistic and functional health is not because I don’t believe in western and conventional medicine. It’s because I lost trust in it.
Many doctors treated me poorly - not listened to, unseen, and ignored in a healthcare system that prioritizes wealth over what’s in the patient's best interests.
My primary care physician told me my thyroid tests “were fine” when they only ordered a TSH test and not a complete thyroid panel testing my thyroid hormones.
The gastroenterologist I saw amid debilitating irritable bowel syndrome didn’t listen to me when I explained my health history. They told me I needed to start eating healthy and exercising when I explained that I had trained for marathons for the previous five years. When I called them out on it, they started stuttering and told me they knew nothing about nutrition and would have to refer me to a nutritionist. Seriously? A doctor of gastroenterology – the system in the human body that digests food that self-admittedly knew nothing about nutrition.
I got passed around from doctor to doctor, only to receive inconsistencies in diagnosis while my symptoms worsened, and I suffered.
Having to see four doctors over a period of nine months before finally receiving a diagnosis and plan of treatment.
These real-life experiences left me feeling unseen, unheard, angry, frustrated, ignored, devalued, and lost my trust in the healthcare system.
Ultimately, situations like these led me to seek out holistic and functional medicine and, over time, have come to bridge the gap between the two and manage integrative treatments between them.
Given this day and age of COVID, where everything feels like it's politicized, I feel it’s necessary to point out that rejecting western, conventional medicine in favor of holistic and functional medicine is a short-sighted, narrow-minded, and incomplete approach to health.
The reverse is also true. Rejecting holistic and functional medicine in favor of only western conventional medicine is equally short-sighted, narrow-minded, and an incomplete approach to health.
It’s not a question of “either-or”; rather, it's “yes, and.”
This is the approach I’ve always taken in my healthcare. I’ve transparently shared in the past that I took medication – Rifixamin and Neomycin for SIBO, a variety of medications for Hypothyroidism, I’m currently taking Armor Thyroid, Dupixent for Atopic Dermatitis, but I also use holistic treatments like acupuncture and Chinese herbs as well and continue to take a functional approach of doing lab testing, nutritional therapy, and practice many modalities to manage stress – including aligning to my Human Design!
I integrate all these things into my health care and have gotten each doctor and practitioner I work with to sign off on it. If they don’t, I don’t work with them. This is how I’ve come to build trust with my healthcare providers.
So, my Instagram community was spot on in saying that building trust is about consistency and transparency.
Getting back on building trust, a huge part of transparency and consistency, is how we communicate with each other.
Communication isn’t just how we speak; it's also how we listen – and how we don’t – as my past doctors failed to listen to me. That was the quickest way to lose my trust.
If transparency and consistency build trust, then communication is at the root of it.
But we don't all communicate the same way, do we?
We don't all have the same thought process, meaning we speak differently and listen differently. We process information differently.
And this is where your Human Design can shed light, providing a framework for how we each individually communicate – speak, listen, and process information.
I recently had an experience at my full-time job that is a good example.
I’m part of a team working on a big project, and we needed to present our plan to one of our executives. After multiple meetings and presentations, our exec just wasn’t getting it – they weren’t getting the message, even though what was being presented was exactly what they asked for.
This went on for multiple meetings and multiple iterations of the same plan. And with every meeting and revision, there was growing tension on both sides, frustration, mounting pressure, and anxiety because the message just wasn’t getting across. You could say that doubt was building that the team could deliver a plan – in other words, trust was wavering.
Finally, one team member figured out that the problem wasn’t the plan; it was how it was communicated. So that person took the presentation and reformatted it, presenting the same plan – the same data - differently.
And guess what? The exec finally got it – loved it even. The exact plan, and now our project is back on track. How amazing is that? The only change was how the plan was communicated because the exec’s thought process was different than ours – different than most because how common is the use of PowerPoint presentations in business? Thank goodness that one person had the foresight to recognize this.
When it comes to Human Design, there are several areas on the Human Design body graph chart that we can refer to for insight into how each individual process information, gaining insight not just into ourselves but into each other.
Think of how powerful this level of awareness can be on a team or group – not just to know how each other functions, but how everyone’s designs can be integrated and complement each other, avoiding conflicts and miscommunications. Think of the productivity that could be produced!
A couple of places to look at are the Throat Center, the center of communication and manifestation. Whether the Throat Center is defined or undefined will tell you a great deal about how you’re beat meant to communicate. If you want to go deeper, look at what gates are active in the Throat Center.
You might also want to study the Head and Root Centers. These are pressure centers and will shed light on how you manage pressure. Isn’t this a huge element of communication – how you handle pressure?
There's the Ajna Center, the center of analytical thinking and conceptualization – how we process information.
And then there’s the Heart Center. You might be thinking, “What does the Heart Center have to do with communication and building trust?
Well, the Heart Center is the center of will. It's also the center of consistency – a person with a Defined Heart Center has the will for constant consistency, whereas someone with an Undefined Heart Center, well, that energy isn’t fixed; it comes and goes.
There are a few places to reference in your Human Design, like looking at all nine centers, not just a few. What centers are Defined? What centers are Undefined? What are the active gates in the centers? And what other centers do they connect with?
There's so much information we can use and add to our toolbox of resources to help us with consistency and transparency and help us build trust.
But the most important thing about Human Design is that can help us understand how we best communicate, how we process information, and what boundaries are helpful to establish.
When we have this kind of awareness and understanding of ourselves, it directly impacts all areas of our lives beyond building trust with each other, even more important - how we build trust with ourselves.
I also asked my Instagram community this question – How do we build trust with ourselves?
I received the same responses: transparency, and consistency, but also, one person responded with this answer, “Going through challenges and actively noticing how we held ourselves through them.” So good, huh?
Before we look at how Human Design helps us build trust with ourselves, let's look at how we don't trust ourselves.
The first thing that comes to mind is not trusting our decision-making ability. I’ve always been pretty decisive about my decisions, and now that makes sense, knowing that I have a Splenic Authority.
But I have a friend I’ve known since we were 17 years old, who has been the most indecisive person ever since I’ve known her. It drove me crazy. But guess what – she has an Emotional Authority, which means she needs to take her time making decisions. Rushed decisions aren’t meant for her.
If you think about it, decision-making is at the crux of life. It impacts every facet of our lives – what direction our life takes, what we do for work, what relationships we have, and how we take care of ourselves. We curate healthier lives, but the decisions that we make are.
When we don't trust our decision-making abilities and constantly second-guessed ourselves, we don’t trust ourselves. We compare ourselves to others, which can lead to unrealistic or mismanaged expectations and a lack of boundaries - all part of miscommunication, which leads to lacking self-confidence, self-awareness, and ultimately, self-appreciation and self-love.
Long-time listeners will know that this is where I point to the foundation of Human Design – the three things I advocate having a solid understanding of:
Type Strategy Authority
Your Type is your aura; what kind of energy do you have? Projector-energy, Manifestor-energy, Reflector-energy, or Generator / Manifesting Generator energy?
Your strategy is how you're meant to go about doing life. Is it the best use of your energy to initiate, respond, wait for invitations, or follow the moon cycle?
And then there's your Authority, how you’re best meant to make decisions.
These three things are the foundation of your Human Design, and not having a solid understanding of these three things before diving into other parts of your Human Design is a disservice to yourself.
Take the time and continually make the time to revisit your Type, your Strategy, and your Authority. I constantly do because when we understand these three things, we know who are. And that level of awareness, when we know who we are, we’re confident – we have confidence in ourselves, in the choices that we make, with an assuredness that we’re making the best decisions for ourselves.
That is what builds trust – the most important – trust with ourselves.
And when we have self-trust, we know what our voice is and how to communicate, which helps us build strong relationships.
When we’re confident in our decision-making, we choose to do things that we love, enjoy doing, and bring us joy – and all of these things are how we curate a healthier life.
And at the root of it is building trust – with others and ourselves.
So that's it for this week. Isn’t it funny how one simple exchange on Instagram about my little Coco Pop sent me down this rabbit hole, and voila, here’s this episode? How's that for a Splenic Authority?
Thank you so much for listening. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you build trust - with others and with yourself. Come on over and leave a comment on the show notes for this episode at www.livefablife.com/246 for Episode 246, or find me on Instagram at @livefablifewithnaomi.
Have a great day and I’ll see you right back again next time - bye for now!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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