Alright now, welcome, welcome back to the sweet spot. It is Trust Yourself Thursday. And good morning. Good morning, beautiful souls. Good afternoon, if it's afternoon, and obviously if it's evening, good evening. I don't care what time of day it is, I'm just delighted that you're here. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet, I'm your host for The Sweet Spot. As you know, I'm a board-certified psychiatrist. I work with athletes, executives, first responders, people who are often asked to trust themselves in moments where there are no guarantees. And like you, I've learned that trust isn't something you either have or don't have, it's something that gets tested. So let's anchor where we are, shall we? On Monday, as you remember, Making Moves Monday, we talked about stabilizing your stance so panic doesn't get to decide your next move. Take Action Tuesday was where we talked about doing one responsible thing, then pausing, because pressure is managed by sequence and not speed. Yesterday on Winnet Hall of Wednesday, we went in on belief. We talked about belief, how winning doesn't start with confidence, but with staying upright in your stand when things feel shaky or even lost, and understanding that that is what makes you a winner. Today, my friend, today is Trust Yourself Thursday, and today we need to be very precise. Most people don't lose trust in themselves all at once. Trust kind of narrows, and it narrows a lot after certain kinds of events, right? It narrows after disappointment, it can narrow after failure, after betrayal, after doing the right thing and still getting hurt, or doing the right thing and not getting the results we were looking for. So here's the first correction we need to make. Trusting yourself does not mean feeling sure. It means staying aligned even while doubt is present. I am going to say that again, not for you, but for me. Trusting yourself, Dr. Sweet. Trusting yourself does not mean feeling sure. What it means is having the ability to stay aligned even when doubt is present. You see, if there's no risk, you don't need trust. You need trust precisely because the ground feels unstable. So let me give you a simple way to tell whether you're trusting yourself or abandoning yourself under pressure. Because one of the one of the two happens. When doubt spikes, one of three things usually happens in my experience. One, you hesitate. You wait for certainty that isn't coming. Two, you overcorrect. You do too much in an effort to protect yourself. And three, or three I should say, you stay aligned. You take one steady step, even though there are no guarantees. Just to repeat, one of three things usually happens: hesitation, overcorrection, or alignment. The third one, the alignment, that third option is trust in action. You see, my friend, trust isn't a feeling, it's a behavior. This is where stabilizing your stand, stabilizing your stance shows up again. That's our series, that's the name that we've been under this whole week. Stabilizing your stance tells your nervous system something. You know what it is? Telling your nervous system, it's saying, I don't need to escape this discomfort in order to be safe. So I don't have to do drugs, I don't have to distract myself with wrong things, I don't have to avoid, right? It matters what you tell yourself. I don't need to escape this discomfort in order to be safe. That matters because when trust has been shaken, your nervous system becomes super vigilant. It starts scanning the environment for danger, it wants proof before it makes its next move. That doesn't mean you're broken, it means your system is trying to protect you. So trusting yourself in that moment does not mean being naive again, it means refusing to let fear make every decision for you. Big difference. And the ancient wisdom names this kind of trust in a very grounded way. In Psalm 119, verse 1, it says it this way in the message Bible. You're blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by God. Notice what this verse emphasizes. It doesn't say you'll feel confident. I noticed that. It doesn't say the road will be smooth either. It just says stay on course. You see, even biblical trust, even this ancient wisdom, it's not about emotional certainty, it's about directional consistency. Staying aligned even when the terrain is unclear. Have you ever been in a situation where the terrain is unclear? But you let your emotions run the show? That's what the ancient wisdom is trying to help us with by giving us directional consistency. You're blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road that's revealed by the Most High. So staying aligned even when the terrain is unclear. Let's translate this into something usable. We don't want to always be in the ancient wisdom, right? Staying on course may mean you don't rewrite your values because you're hurt. You don't throw everything out just because you're hurt. You don't abandon your standards because you're afraid. You don't not act because you're terrified. And you don't betray yourself just because somebody else betrayed you either. You don't punish you when somebody else has done you wrong. This is where betrayal needs to be named clearly. Betrayal damages trust in others, but it only destroys self-trust if you let it convince you that your ability to respond now is broken. No, they betrayed you. You were betrayed. It hurts, but you've still got to maintain your identity. In the ancient wisdom, betrayal was all up in there. That was the whole thing with the Jesus walk. That betrayal. I think Jesus even said to Judas who betrayed him, friend, why have you come right in the garden of the seven days? I don't know if I could ever do that. Like that is so amazing to me how that happens. How does that work? Yeah, but yeah, you can't let other people's betrayal destroy your self-trust, right? So if you're an athlete who trusted a coach, you trusted a system, you trusted an organization that made a promise to you, and then you find yourself betrayed by them, traded, benched, talked about, openly criticized, whatever happens. Don't let the unstable stand come in and tell you you can't trust your own instincts. Choose a stable stand that says, you know what? This sucks, but I can still train. I'm unstoppable, I can do all things through God who strengthens me, right? That's trust. Maybe you got betrayed in a relationship. Don't let the unstable stand come in and say, Well, I guess I'm not good at judging people. I have a poor judgment. No, no, no. You can you let the stable stand tell you I can learn without erasing my self-worth. Everyone has to learn, and you learn through mistakes. That's trust. Now let me just add right here. You don't need to keep repeating the mistake to learn it, alright? Learn the lesson and keep it moving. Think about somebody who's living with an illness though, a loss, so who no longer and they they they sort of get to a place where they no longer trust the body, their own body or their future. And they can get to a place where they think that nothing works anymore, nothing is reliable. And what I would say to you, if that's where you are, is no, no, no. You can still choose how you show up today. One moment, one breath at a time. You can narrow your stand to be stable in this moment and breathe and trust and feel the presence of love with you. That's trust. Yeah, sometimes you feel alone, unseen, unsupported, nobody's there for you. And the unstable stand is like I need reassurance before I could take any action, and I don't have it. Here's what the stable stand is. I can take one aligned step even if I don't have encouragement, even if I don't have reassurance, and even if I don't have applause. Because I know who walks beside me, I know who's with me, I know who created me, and I am trusting that in the invisible force today. I'm going to walk with love. And this is the sequence that I want you to walk with today. Pause when doubt strikes. Yeah. Notice whether you're hesitating or you're overcorrecting. Choose one aligned action anyway, even if it feels impossible. Do one thing. And then accept discomfort as part of trust. Not a sign that you're wrong. Let's repeat that. One, pause when the doubt spikes. Two, notice whether you're hesitating or overcorrecting and adjust. Three, choose one aligned action anyway, even if it feels overwhelming. And four, accept that discomfort is real and it's a part of it. It's a part of trust. It's not a sign that you're wrong or you're weak. It's not always comfortable. And that's how you trust yourself under pressure, my friend. You don't lose trust because things went wrong in your life. You lose trust when you abandon yourself in the middle of things going wrong. Never do that. Amen and amen. This is the sweet spot, my friend, and we're getting closer and closer to tomorrow, which is Finish Strong Friday, where we're gonna talk about how fatigue reveals hidden limits and how staying grounded when you're running on empty can change everything. But you gotta be there. You gotta be in Finish Strong Friday with me tomorrow. Love and blessings. I hope this met you where you needed some trust today, and I hope you subscribe. It's totally free. And if someone you love has been shaken by disappointment, shaken up by betrayal, I want you to share this with them right here, right now. For now, my beautiful sweet winners, trust isn't certainty, it's staying aligned when certainty isn't available. This is Dr. Sweet.