I heard an interesting story about trust the other evening while driving home.
A teacher in the story used a jar of marbles to reward the class. She added a marble to the jar when the children made good decisions and removed a marble when they made bad ones.
When the jar got full, they got a reward.
The storyteller, Brené Brown, used this jar as an analogy for trust.
When people show up for us, when they decide to care about something we care about, we put a marble of trust into their jar.
When people don’t show up by failing to protect something we care about — a secret, a value, a person — we remove a little marble from their jar.
Sometimes we empty the jar on the floor.
Or add a whole bag of marbles.
We also have a marble jar for ourselves.
We fill up our marble jar when we show up for ourselves by keeping our promises and having conviction in our values by practicing them relentlessly.
When the jar gets full, you get huge rewards.