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What if trust isn't something that we build? What if it isn't earned through time? Or perfect communication, or proving ourselves? What if trust is something people naturally experience when who we are on the inside finally matches who we express on the outside? Today I'd like to explore what I believe is one of the deepest truths about being human. Every relationship, every conversation, every family, every friendship, every organization, every culture is built upon something we cannot see. The field we bring into it. And when that field becomes coherent, trust isn't manufactured, it's experienced. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Aligned Human Project. I'm your host, Don Elgin. If you've ever looked around at your life that appears successful on the outside but feels disconnected on the inside, you are in the right place. If you've ever wondered why you keep repeating the same patterns, carrying the same emotional weight, or chasing goals that never quite bring you the peace you hope they would, you are in the right place. This podcast is about remembering who you were before the world told you who you needed to be. Together we'll explore the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, ancient wisdom, quantum science, and practical spiritualism to understand how awareness shapes our field and how our field shapes our lives, and why lasting change begins from the inside out. We'll talk about leadership, relationships, health, purpose, emotional well-being, and conscious creation. Not as separate parts of life, but as reflections of one thing: our level of alignment. Because most people don't need another strategy, they need a new relationship with themselves. So whether you're leading a business, a family, a team, or simply trying to lead yourself with greater intention, welcome. Take a breath, become the witness, and let's begin. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Aligned Human Project. Over the past few months, we've taken quite a journey together. We've explored awareness, we've turned on the light inside our own internal room. We've discovered the witness, the part of us that is capable of observing our thoughts instead of becoming them. We've explored the invisible field that exists beneath every single experience. And we've learned that alignment is not perfection. It's the repeated practice of consciously choosing from the witness rather than acting or reacting from the survival mind. But all of that naturally leads to a much bigger question. Why? Why cultivate awareness? Why learn to regulate the nervous system? Why become more coherent? Why practice gratitude? Why ask, show me what I'm ready to see today? Because human beings don't live in isolation. We live in relationship. Every meaningful experience in our lives happens between ourselves and someone else, another person, our body, our work, our purpose, nature. Or maybe it even is the divine, life itself. Relationships are where the invisible becomes visible. There where our field continually is expressed. And there where trust either grows or quietly begins to erode. For years I thought trust was something that we earned. Earned through competence, consistency, through keeping our promises. And while those things absolutely matter, I don't believe they're where trust actually begins. I think trust begins somewhere much deeper. Trust begins when there is no gap between who we are being and what we are expressing. I've come to believe that trust isn't something we build. Trust is what people experience when our field and our form tell the same story. That one sentence has changed the way I think about parenting, about leadership, friendship, marriage, business, even my relationship with myself. Because the greatest threat to trust is not making a mistake. It's living with a growing gap between our inner world and our outer expression. The more we perform, the wider the gap becomes. And the more coherent we become, the smaller the gap becomes. And here's the beautiful part: this isn't a practice for building trust with others. It's a practice for reducing the gap between field and form. Trust is simply the outcome. Think about someone whose presence immediately puts you at ease. You don't need them to tell you that they are trustworthy. You simply experience them in that way. Why? Because there is very little contradiction. Their yes means yes. And their no means no. When they apologize, you believe them. When they celebrate you, you don't wonder what they want in return. And when they say they'll be there, they show up. Not because they're perfect, because they're integrated. Field and form are moving in the same direction. Now think about the opposite experience. Have you ever been with someone who said all of the right things? Yet something inside of you, gut instinct, remained unsettled. You couldn't explain it. Nothing obvious was wrong. But something did not feel congruent. We've all had that experience. And I don't think it's because we're being judgmental. I think it's because human beings are exquisitely designed for relationships. Before a mind analyzes, our bodies notice. Before we form an opinion, our nervous system has already begun asking, am I safe here? That's why trust is so much more than communication. Trust is an experience. And every experience begins in the field. One of the most fascinating discoveries in neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology is that human beings are constantly reading one another, not just through language, but through regulation. Our brains and our nervous systems continually respond to subtle cues, tone of voice, facial expressions, timing, posture, breathing, emotional steadiness, and countless other signals communicate safety or uncertainty before we've consciously interpreted them. This process helps explain why two people can deliver the exact same message and create completely different experiences. One person leaves us feeling calm, respected, and open. And the other leaves us guarded, tense, and uncertain. The words may have been nearly identical, but the field was not. Field and form gives us language for something many of us have sensed our entire lives. Every interaction contains two conversations that are happening simultaneously. The conversation of form, which would be your words, the information, the explanation, and then there's the conversation of the field, our presence, our intention, and our emotional regulation are congruence. One conversation is heard where the other is felt. And while both absolutely matter, trust grows primarily in the conversation that is felt. That's why coherence matters. Not because it makes us more persuasive, because it makes us more trustworthy. I'll give you a simple example of this. When I was growing up, I had a fairly chaotic life. We grew up poor, and often there was a lot of fear, there was scarcity, and within that, there was a lot of frustration and overwhelm. In the family itself, there was lots of raised voices, there was frustration, there was good times too, don't get me wrong. But see, there was one person in our family that was always calm, that said what she meant, meant what she said, and she was so grounded and so centered that she created this environment of safety, this environment that I could learn how to trust. This person was my Aunt Caroline, and she was this beautiful Scottish woman with a quiet voice. She was fun, she was loving and she was kind. But most importantly, what you saw and what was carried through, what you felt and what you experienced, they were the same thing. There was congruency. I spent a lot of time looking back on my life, wondering where did I learn certain things, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And it's amazing to me how often I come back to this woman, to this woman that made love and magic and miracles all possible. See, her quiet presence allowed for something to be there that wasn't able to be broken. As life carried on and it was even more chaotic, more abusive. There was always this quiet port. And there was this little piece inside of me that was never able to be snuffed out. Not even as I became an adult and was in my first marriage from 18 to 20. Extremely abusive time. And there was still something there that he was never able to break. He's never able to break my spirit. And I've taken a lot of time to think about that. Where does that come from? In a time of chaos, how did I learn about trust? That there was safety in certain places? How did I intuitively understand what congruency felt like? Because for many of us, when we grow up in incongruent environments, it can be very hard to understand it and feel safe, even in congruency. I work with more people that have grown up in dysfunctional family homes and then struggle 10, 20, 30 years later to be in a healthy relationship simply because it's so foreign. But my aunt created this environment that was so congruent that intuitively I understood what that looked like later on. So when my safety skills and my survival skills came out, I would watch. I would watch how people spoke, how they acted, and I would wait. And given enough time, you would see if somebody was congruent or if the mask slipped. Often in my life, the mask slipped. But my aunt had showed me very, very young that that's not always the case. My aunt didn't have to do big grand gestures. It was just that whenever I was with her, I felt safe enough to be myself. That's what makes trust possible, is when somebody's so congruent that you feel safe enough that you don't have to be on alert. You see, trust doesn't necessarily change people. Trust creates the conditions in which people can be willing to change themselves. And by that, I mean even willing to let go, willing to heal. There's something I've been reflecting on for a long time. I don't think the opposite of trust is distrust. I think the opposite of trust is incongruency. Just think about that for a moment. Most of us believe trust is broken when someone lies. And certainly dishonesty damages trust. But if you ever had someone tell you the truth and something still didn't feel right, the facts were accurate, but the conversation maybe felt disconnected, guarded, maybe performative or incomplete. Like something's being held back. Why? Because truth isn't only about information. Truth is also about integration. It's possible to speak factually while remaining emotionally unavailable. It's possible to say, oh, I'm not upset. While your body is communicating hurt attention. It's possible to say, oh, I'm listening. While your attention is somewhere else entirely. It's possible to tell the truth with your words and hide with your being. That's the gap. That's incongruency. And people can feel it. Not because they're judging us, because human beings are exquisitely designed to notice when the field and the form are telling two different stories. The invitation isn't to become perfect. The invitation is to become whole, to allow our inner world and our outer expression to slowly begin speaking the same language. That's alignment. And trust is what naturally grows in its presence. One of the remarkable qualities of the human nervous system is its sensitivity to consistency. Our brains are constantly integrating information from multiple sources at once, not only from the words another person speaks, but from their tone, from their facial expressions, from their breathing, from their pace, from their posture. Are your arms crossed? Are you open? Are you leaning in? Are you pulled back? As well as from their emotional steadiness, whether they remain present when conversations become uncomfortable. Whether their behavior matches what they say they value. Psychologists sometimes refer to this process as seeking congruence between verbal and nonverbal communication. When those signals align, people generally experience greater credibility, emotional safety, and trust. When they conflict, uncertainty naturally increases, even if we can't immediately explain why. I find that fascinating because field and form offer a simple explanation. Every interaction contains two conversations, the conversation from form and the conversation from field. The mind often hears from form, the voice, the words, whereas the nervous system experiences the field. Neither is more important than the other. But trust grows when they tell the same story. This also explains why awareness matters so much. Awareness allows us to notice the gap without becoming ashamed of it. Because shame widens the gap. Curiosity begins to close it. The goal isn't to become someone else. The goal is to become more integrated. Often we're not even aware of when we are incongruent. So we talk lots on elements, and I tell you a story about the water element. So the water element has a fear, specifically, fear is the stress response, but a fear of being seen and a fear of having enough life force, energy, uh, just enough to get through life. And so a client came in, water element, and she kept saying, I'm okay, everything's great. Oh, yeah, no, I've got this. I've got all of this. Finances are great, everything's good, everything's good. But everything about their presence, their body language, the frequency, something was feeling very, very off. Now, rather than challenging their words, which often I'll do, instead, in this case, I got really, really curious. I started to slow everything down, started to talk slower, got way more grounded. So the more that I was noticing that we had an incongruency, the more I made a point of getting congruent, of grounding in, staying super present and staying right there with them. So then the fear of being seen could start to soften. My job in that case is to create so much safety that that person could say, actually, I'm scared. I feel so much fear. Now, my way of handling it was to actually pick up a book, which I've talked about before, The Power of the Five Elements. So it's by Charles A. Moss. And I picked this book up in the middle of the session and I started to read to them about the water element. And as I was explaining the water element, I'll pull it open here and share it with you because, well, it helps you kind of get an idea of what we're dealing with. So when we're taking a look at water, or when we become aware of somebody's um behaviors, or you become aware that they maybe are not aware of their behaviors, you can share pieces of information and suddenly they might start to see themselves. So I started to share the water element. And I said the water element correspondences family dynamic is trust and dependability. Often they will even grow up in a place where they learn distrust and that people aren't dependable. The emotions are fear and mistrust. And when maladapted, they become inhibited, cautious, or show false bravado. So they put on a good face. Adapting, they are trusting, brave, and they're risk takers. Their season's winter, the direction's north, the taste is salty, and the sound of the voice is groaning. The color is dark blue and black, and the organs are kidney, bladder, urinary tract, and adrenal glands. The reason I brought it up and I started to talk to her about it was I said, I get a feeling that you might be a water element. And a water element has a fear of being seen. And so often they'll say everything's great when actually what they're feeling underneath is fear, mistrust, or distrust, or maybe even a lack of faith, a lack of faith in oneself, in the environment to support them. About having enough to get through life. How does that feel? And in that moment, I was able to cultivate enough safety for the person to actually say, yes. Yes, that's exactly it. I think I am a water element. I have so much fear. And it's not that the false bravado ended that day. It often would come out. But I'd be like, hey, can we take that down and let's go inside what's really feeling what's happening here? And see, by getting present and staying in congruency, the relationship didn't become weaker because the mask came off, which is often the fear, because there'll be judgment. Instead, by staying congruent, it became stronger. Not because vulnerability automatically creates trust, but because congruence returned. Their field and their form were finally telling the same story. You see, performance protects us from discomfort. And protection actually creates distance, whereas safety allows honesty. And honesty is what restores our congruence. And congruence becomes the birthplace of trust. Trust doesn't deepen the moment we become vulnerable. Trust deepens the moment our field and form become congruent. Now this has had profound implications for leadership. Many leaders believe their role is to appear certain, to always have the answer, to project confidence, no matter what they're feeling. But certainty isn't what people are longing for. Congruence is, you maybe call it authenticity. A leader can say, I don't have every answer yet, and still inspire extraordinary trust. Why? Because the field and the form are in alignment. There's no performance, no pretending, no gap that needs to be reconciled. That kind of leadership creates psychological safety. And psychological safety creates something every healthy culture depends on. The willingness to tell the truth. Not because people are fearless, because they know they won't lose belonging when they bring their whole selves into the room. That is where innovation begins. That's where healing begins. That's where healthy cultures begin. And I believe that's where leadership truly begins. So if trust grows whenever the gap between our field and our form becomes smaller, how do we cultivate that coherence in everyday life? How do we notice the gap without judging ourselves for having one, please? So this week I'm going to leave you with a different kind of practice. Not a practice of improving your communication, a practice for reducing the gap between your field and your form. Every morning, begin the way we've been practicing together. Become still. Start to slow the breath down, breathing in through your nose, out through your nose or your mouth. Just starting to let it expand. Maybe place your hand or your fingertips on your heart. And allow yourself to start to experience genuine gratitude and appreciation. And just stay there until you start to notice your breathing settle. Your shoulders begin to soften, your mind become just a little bit quieter. Not because you're trying to force peace, because you're allowing yourself to return to coherence. Then ask a daily prayer. Show me. Show me what I'm ready to see today. And then release the question. Go live your life. Trust that awareness will arrive exactly when you're ready for it. When something catches your attention, when a conversation stirs you, or when a trigger appears. And that could be seeing somebody, and all of a sudden having that defensive tension come into your body. Notice that. That is often the answer that you've been seeking. So when you notice yourself becoming reactive, pause. Take one conscious breath. Stay completely present with it. And then ask yourself these simple questions. What am I saying? That's the conversation of form. And what am I feeling? That's the conversation of field. And finally, are they telling the same story? Not to criticize yourself. Not to become perfect. Simply to become aware. Because every moment of awareness is an opportunity to bring those two conversations back into alignment. That's the practice. Not fixing yourself. Not performing. Returning. Again and again. As we close today, I'd like to leave you with one simple idea. Every relationship is inviting us into greater congruence. Not greater perfection. Greater congruence. The goal isn't to say the perfect thing. The goal is to let your words become an honest expression of your being. The goal isn't to become fearless. The goal is to stop pretending you're not afraid. The goal isn't to eliminate every mistake. The goal is to become the kind of person who can acknowledge a mistake without defending it. Congruence doesn't require perfection. It does require honesty. Honesty with ourselves. Honesty with others. Honesty about where we are, and honesty about who we're becoming. Because every time our field and our form begin telling the same story, something very beautiful happens. Our nervous system settles. Other people begin to relax, and conversations become more honest. Relationships become far more spacious. And trust quietly grows. Not because we demanded it, not because we earned it. Because people experienced coherence. And coherence is something every human being longs for. This week I want to invite you into a different kind of awareness practice. So throughout your day, notice the two conversations happening in every interaction. The conversation people can hear and the conversation they can feel. When you notice the gap, don't rush to close it. I actually want you to become curious about it. Ask yourself, what is this gap trying to teach me? Maybe it's asking for courage. Maybe it's asking for compassion. Maybe it's asking for a boundary. Maybe it's asking for some rest. Maybe it's asking you to tell the truth you've been avoiding. Whatever it is, meet it with curiosity. Because awareness without compassion becomes judgment. But awareness with compassion becomes transformation. I'd love to hear what you noticed this week. Share your reflections with me. And if today's conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who's tired of trying to earn trust by performing. Maybe they're ready to discover that trust isn't something that we achieve. It's something people naturally experience when our field and our form tell the same story. Every interaction contains two conversations happening simultaneously. One is heard, maybe seen, and one is felt. The heard or seen conversation shapes understanding, whereas the fell conversation shapes trust. People hear your words. People experience your field. The greatest threat to trust isn't imperfection. It's incongruence. And the greatest gift we can give another human being isn't flawless communication. It's congruence. Trust is not created when people believe your words. Trust is created when people experience your being. This isn't a practice for building trust with others. It's a practice for reducing the gap between your field and your form. Trust is simply the outcome. So as you move through this week, become curious about the story your words are telling. And become equally curious about the story your presence is telling. When those two stories become one, trust is no longer something you pursue. It becomes something people naturally experience in your presence. You are the witness. You shape your field. And your field shapes your life. And your life shapes every single relationship you touch. Until next time. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. My hope is that you leave each episode not with more information, but with greater awareness. Because awareness is where every meaningful change begins. If today's conversation resonated with you, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who's ready to stop surviving and start living from alignment. If you'd like to continue this work, you can join us inside the Aligned Human Project community. Explore the free five-element alignment assessment, or learn more about Align Your Life, Aligned Living, and Alignment Operating System at Practical Spiritualism Co. com. Remember, awareness reveals. Alignment chooses, and creation follows. You are the witness. You shape the field, and the field shapes your life. Until next time, keep pausing, keep noticing, and keep choosing. I'll see you in the next episode.