Trust is a state of mind when you expose your vulnerabilities (feelings and finances) to people and the quantity of exposure depends upon how much gain / loss you can bear or you can afford. So before trusting anyone, it is very important to know the various levels of trust explained in this article.
More risk you take by trusting in a person and more is the probability of gains or loss. The quotation fits fairly well in this situation – the higher the risks, higher are the gains and higher the risks, higher are the losses.It is very true in business as well as relationships.
The more you trust a person, there are more and more chances of loss or gain depending upon how the other person takes you or your behavior. The relation may peak and you get the love of your life or the relation may break and you can suffer huge emotional loss. Same applies in business, if the trust factor is there in business between both the parties, the business grows and if it is not there, it can’t grow at all.
The world is a complicated place and to build long lasting relationships we have to trust others and take chances, and risks but as you know the chances of loss also grow up along with the chance of gains, so we have to be careful in analyzing and judging the behavior rather than trusting blindly everyone. So the crux of the story is let the relationship grow slowly and reach at peak levels at its own pace.
The trust is a 5 staged thought process where the level of trust varies from Stage 0 to Stage 5.
Why you have to Trust Others?
There are so many reasons to trust others. It can be compulsion, Value Exchange, Expectations, Faith and Love.
1. Compulsory Trust
Employees have to trust their boss – they can’t do anything else. It is a trust out of compulsion. It is stage I of trust.
2. Value Exchange Trust
The trust between 2 companies and business is based on Value exchange. If A has something and B has something else which A does not has. So they exchange things believing that both are getting benefited from the mutual exchange of things. The exchanged materials are usually money and goods and goods in a barter system.
3. Reciprocal Expectations Trust
Sometimes we trust others as we expect others to do similar behavior with us. Most people in society trust each other expecting others also to behave in a similar fashion. This builds our relationship with various people in society. This is called trust due to reciprocal expectations.
4. Faith / Belief
Faith is a higher stage of trust (Stage 4) when someone trusts other without compulsion, greed but little expectations or reciprocal behavior.
5. Love
In this case there is no reason to trust others. You just trust them and don’t expect reciprocal behavior. This is stage 5. This is beginning of Spiritualism.
Stages of Trust
Ist Stage – (Cocoon Stage)
The first stage of trust is when you trust no one except yourself. People in this type are self centered people and do not believe in any other person. They are not ready to trust others for a single penny and give any of their feelings or care for feelings of others. They are self centered people and not at all giving. Giving is the basic principle of happiness. Usually such people do not win friends and trustworthy people around them and slip into depression very often. They live in their cocoons.
2nd Stage of Trust (Limited Trust Stage)
Such people are self confined but still give some limited trust to others. They trust very little and have more faith in their own abilities. They do not open up their hearts with others and seldom give any space to people to enter their heart and their own shell. Financially also they are not willing to spend money on others. This way they are able to protect themselves from losses but they also not able to win trust of others or win their hearts. Usually most females are settled in this state of Trust.
3rd Stage of Trust (Freedom field stage)
Such people are little more flexible in terms of giving. They generate some trust field around them called the “Freedom field”. They do not go beyond a certain limit in trusting others. They are not willing to bear too much loss by trusting others blindly. So they trust them within certain limit by giving them feelings/ money in a phased manner. This is also a testing stage as they keep others in testing phase. The person always tests others by giving feelings /money to others and maintains a reciprocal bondage. This giving is just enough to maintain a relation of more reciprocity rather than losing / gaining something. Such people win a lot of true friends, as they have already conducted tests on them by slowly checking them by putting them in the freedom field. The do not risk themselves too much, and do not go beyond certain limit. So they are usually gainers of relationships and loose very less and are able to maintain their relationships in a better way. Usually most Men are settled in this state of Trust.
4th Stage of trust (Faith Stage)
Such people have blind trust on others. It can be a person or God/ Angels or even Devil. Such people surrender themselves completely to others. Some of them surrender completely because of fear, desire to get nirvana as they expect something in exchange from God or the person they believe in. Even the terrorists, religious fanatics, followers of religion are all in Faith stage. Fear is also one big reason for many people to follow religion. Terrorists also follow the gang leader just because he assures them of better life and better future and they have full faith in their gang leaders words. In this state, fear of death, disease and discomfort is always there.
The feelings are extreme in this stage and a person cannot hear anything against his God / his leader/ Devil or the person he believes in.
This stage is highly volatile, vulnerable, unstable and dangerous. The gains are big in this state and the losses are also huge. If one gets distrust in this stage, he gets straight into stage 0 of trust. Otherwise, if he gets trust in this stage, he may pass onto stage 5.
5th Stage of Trust (LOVE)
This is the top stage of trust. The person opens up further. He comes out of stage 3 or 4 only if he gets positive people in these stages and gets positive experiences. Love only happens on the foundation of trust.
This stage is free from fear of death and state of real eternal happiness. It is blissful state and without attachment, anger, frustration, ego, greed, desires, jealousy, hatred. The spiritualism begins at this stage
The children are born in this stage. They are not afraid of anything. They love everybody and are always happy. They laugh freely and don’t doubt anyone. This is the first stage of SPIRITUALISM, the understanding of the universal energy, our connection with GOD almighty and his creation.
6th Stage
It is a stage of understanding of the GOD. It is a stage of understanding of the universal energy. It is what we are – full of positive energy, bliss, power, knowledge, peace, happiness. You are no longer human. You know you are dust, your are free from all fears of losing your body and you understand yourself as part of universe. You accept others also as part of universal energy and loose complete dependency on others. Totally free of attachment of all types and the death of others does not scare you. You become connected with the universal energy. You understand that you are light or made up of subatomic particle or energy. Before birth, we are at 6th Stage. We are unborn in the 6th stage and are part of this universe. One can experience stage 6th only after touching stage 5. The stage of LOVE.
Zero Stage – (BLACKHOLE STAGE)
This is a stage when your trust is broken severely. When you are in state of shock and fell down from any stage to zero. When children grow up, first they are in stage 5. Stage 5 is state of Love.
Slowly life lowers down their spirit and confidence after lot of distrust from society and they go back in lower stages. If people are hurt badly in life, they land at stage zero. This is a state of DEPRESSION. Even if they come out, they don’t want to go beyond stage 1 or 2.
After a bigger setback or severe distrust everyone goes into state of Depression or stage 0. I have named it as Black hole stage because you don’t let anything go out. All the feelings are contained inside and you can’t rely on anyone at this stage.
Back stab / Loss/ distrust by loved one/ family member also leaves you straight in the state of depression because you were at Stage 4 or 5 with that person.
Stage Zero is also having 3 Substages
- Depression
- Confident
- Arrogant
This depends upon personality types. Depression affects those who face distrust in life’s various stages and are having positive outlook towards life. They can bounce back from stage 0 (State of depression ) to Stage 5 during their life but with caution.
After distrust everyone goes into state of Depression but some people who have balanced approach reach the 3rd Stage only. It is difficult for them to trust others completely and they lead their life in a balanced and confident way. If they get positive responses from life again, they accept them positively and can again go to stage 5. This is another answer to big question – Can love happen twice?
People having negative approach towards life and if they get distrust in life, they become very arrogant and develop as negative personalities. They never reach stage 1 in their life and they never trust anyone else in their lives again. They are ready to kill anybody anytime and full of negativity and don’t care for anyone. Such people usually lead their lives Alone in the blackhole.
