Trust: The Unbroken Chain from Values to Actions

"You are what you do, not what you say you'll do." CG Jung

We often refer to trust as if it were an emotion, but in reality, it is something much more tangible: a prediction.

When we trust someone, we're making a prediction about their future behavior based on the patterns we've observed. Not their promises. Not their intentions.

Trust is the quiet confidence that someone's behavior will remain within the boundaries of what our values can embrace and what our nervous system can tolerate.

It's the subconscious calculation that says: "I can relax here. I don't need my guard up."

But where does this prediction come from?

How is it built, broken, and—if we're fortunate—rebuilt?

I've come to see trust as an unbroken chain linking three essential elements: shared values, aligned intentions, and consistent actions. When this chain remains intact, trust flourishes. When it breaks at any point, trust erodes—whether with others or with ourselves.

Shared Values → Aligned Intentions → Consistent Actions

Let's explore what happens when this chain works as it should, and what happens when it fails.

The Complete Chain (Trust Intact)

True trust emerges when there is seamless alignment between our values and another person's values, and when their intentions and actions consistently honor this shared foundation.

Imagine someone who deeply values honesty :

• This core value shapes their intentions—they genuinely plan to speak truthfully, even when difficult.

• These intentions then manifest as consistent actions—they actually deliver hard truths with compassion, admit mistakes, and resist the temptation to distort reality.

When we witness this unbroken chain in another person, something remarkable happens: our nervous system registers safety.

In their presence, the continuous alertness of our primitive brain—which constantly scans for threats—can temporarily deactivate. We can be vulnerable without bracing for harm. We can collaborate without checking their every move. We can invest emotionally without hedging our bets.

Trust is fundamentally a physiological safety response—our body relaxes when it can accurately predict that someone's actions will remain within our window of tolerance.

This is what makes trust so precious. It's not just a mental assessment; it's a physiological release. Our bodies can relax around someone whose actions consistently align with their stated values and intentions.

Consider how this plays out in everyday relationships:

• The friend who values connection follows through on small commitments—returning texts, remembering important events, making time despite busy schedules. Each small action confirms the prediction that they'll be present when it truly matters.

  
  

• The partner who values respect demonstrates it through consistent behaviors—listening fully before responding, honoring boundaries without resentment, taking our needs into consideration with the same care as theirs. These actions allow our nervous system to register: "I am safe here."

  
  

• The colleague who values excellence doesn't just talk about quality work—they consistently deliver it, seek feedback to improve, and hold themselves accountable for mistakes. Their actions make their values visible and concrete.

Trust is built not through grand declarations or rare heroic acts, but through the quiet accumulation of micro-trust moments.

Each time someone follows through on a small promise, each time they offer honesty even when it's inconvenient, each time they show up in the small ways—they strengthen the invisible bridge between us.

It's not the magnitude of the gesture that matters most to our nervous system; it's the reliability of the pattern.

When the chain from values to intentions to actions remains intact, trust isn't something we consciously think about—it simply exists as the natural space where relationship can flourish. We don't need to invest energy in hypervigilance or worry. We can simply be present.

This is true not only in how we trust others, but in how we trust ourselves. When our actions consistently reflect our deepest values, we develop the most essential form of trust: self-trust. We know we can count on ourselves to act with integrity even under pressure. We know our word to ourselves matters.

More importantly, we trust that we're acting in ways aligned with our long-term well-being, not just chasing short-term rewards or immediate gratification. This long-term orientation is the hallmark of genuine self-trust—the confidence that our present self is looking out for our future self.

But what happens when this chain breaks?

That's where the complexity of trust—and the challenge of building and rebuilding it—truly begins.

Break Point: Value Misalignment

(we don't want the same things deeply enough)

The first potential break in trust occurs at the foundation: when our core values don't sufficiently align with another person's values.

This doesn't mean we must share identical values to build trust. Many relationships thrive with different but complementary value systems. In fact, trust can still flourish even when values differ significantly, provided there is enough openness to take each other's values into consideration and a genuine willingness to find compromise.

What enables trust across different value systems is the mutual commitment to understand, respect, and accommodate what matters to the other person.

What is important is that there is sufficient compatibility—or mutual accommodation—so that each individual's true expression doesn't violate the other's fundamental boundaries.

When someone demonstrates they can honor what's important to us, even when it differs from their own priorities, our nervous system registers safety despite the differences.

The key question isn't "Do we value the same things?" but rather "Can this person respect and make space for what I value most, even when they prioritize differently?"

However, not all value differences can be bridged through good intentions and mutual respect alone. Trust becomes challenging or unattainable when differences in values affect fundamental aspects of the relationship that cannot be compromised without breaching essential needs.

Some values are truly incompatible:

• A romantic relationship where one person values monogamy while the other values non-monogamy—there is no middle ground that honors both values simultaneously.

• A friendship where one person values accountability while the other values freedom without responsibility—these create irreconcilable expectations about how they'll show up for each other.

• A business partnership where one person values sustainable long-term growth while the other values a quick exit and immediate profit—their decisions will constantly pull in opposite directions.

In these scenarios, the issue isn't that either person is wrong or untrustworthy in an absolute sense. It's that their values create behaviors that will consistently fall outside what the other person's nervous system can comfortably tolerate. The foundation for trust—the ability to predict behavior that feels safe to us—simply isn't there.

The path forward when values misalign isn't necessarily to change our values or expect others to change theirs. Sometimes, it's to recognize the incompatibility with clarity and compassion, adjusting our expectations or the parameters of the relationship accordingly.

Not every relationship can or should sustain the same level of trust.

Break Point: Values to Intentions (Internal Misalignment)

(we intend good things, but our unconscious needs sabotage them)

The second fracture in trust occurs in the gap between what someone claims to value and what they actually intend to do.

Consider someone who loudly proclaims they value family above all else. This stated value should naturally shape their intentions—planning quality time, prioritizing family needs, creating space for deep connection. But what if their actual intentions don't align? What if, despite their proclaimed values, they consistently plan to work late, schedule commitments that conflict with family time, or mentally rehearse criticism rather than connection?

This misalignment between stated values and actual intentions creates a subtle form of dishonesty. Sometimes it's deliberate deception. More often, it's self-deception—the person genuinely believes in their stated values but lacks the self-awareness to recognize their intentions point elsewhere.

This gap creates profound cognitive dissonance, both for the person experiencing it and for those in relationship with them. The nervous system registers something "off"—a nagging tension between what is proclaimed and what actually unfolds. We sense the inconsistency even before we can name it.

We see this misalignment playing out in many contexts:

• The leader who claims to value employee well-being but intends to maximize productivity at any cost—their team feels the contradiction between the caring words and the punishing expectations.

• The friend who claims to value honesty but dismisses their small lies as unimportant—revealing that their actual priority is convenience over truthfulness.

• The parent who believes they value their child's autonomy but intends to control their choices—the child experiences not freedom but conditional approval.

When values and intentions don't align, even perfect execution of those intentions won't build trust. Instead, each action reveals the misalignment more clearly. Our actions inevitably expose what we truly intend, which in turn reveals what we actually value—not what we claim to value.

This break in the chain is particularly damaging because it can operate beneath conscious awareness. What makes this misalignment so challenging to address is that it's often driven by unconscious core needs rather than deliberate deception.

Our stated values—what we consciously believe matters most to us—can be overridden by deeper, more primal needs that operate below the threshold of awareness.

• A person might genuinely believe they value equality and fairness, yet their unconscious need for status and recognition repeatedly shapes intentions that preserve hierarchy and advantage.

• They might sincerely endorse honesty while their underlying need for comfort and conflict avoidance consistently leads them to conceal difficult truths.

• They might authentically value freedom and autonomy in theory, while their fundamental need for certainty manifests in controlling behaviors.

These unconscious core needs—for safety, status, comfort, certainty, connection, autonomy—silently shape our intentions regardless of what we claim to value most. Our nervous systems prioritize these needs not out of malice but out of deeply ingrained survival patterns established long before we developed conscious value systems.

This is why we cannot trust someone whose intentions fundamentally contradict their stated values, yet they genuinely may be unable to acknowledge this contradiction even to themselves. They aren't consciously lying; they're unconsciously prioritizing deeper needs.

The path to repair here is not simple consistency of action, but illuminating these unconscious processes. It requires the courage to ask: "What core needs might be driving my actual choices, beneath my conscious awareness?" Sometimes we discover our stated values are merely aspirational—what we wish we prioritized—while our behavior reveals what we actually need most.

True integrity begins with this uncomfortable self-awareness—acknowledging the needs our intentions actually serve, even when they differ from the values we publicly embrace or wish we held. Only then can we begin to either align our intentions with our stated values or adjust our stated values to honestly reflect our priorities.

Making our unconscious needs conscious is the first step toward finding ways to meet these needs in a way that doesn't contradict our values, often in ways that will be less "easy" or "comfortable" in the short term, but more rewarding in the long term.

For example, in the earlier scenario of a friend who professes to prioritize honesty yet resorts to minor lies for ease, bringing this subconscious need into awareness could resemble:

This person recognizes that beneath their small, "harmless" lies is an unconscious need for comfort and conflict avoidance. They fear the discomfort of disappointing others or facing potential rejection.

Once conscious of this pattern, they can find healthier ways to meet these needs that align with their stated value of honesty. Rather than taking the easy route of telling a quick lie to avoid an awkward moment (short-term comfort), they might practice direct communication skills that allow them to be truthful while still being kind (less comfortable in the moment, but more rewarding long-term). This might involve learning to say "I can't make it tonight" instead of inventing an excuse, or "I haven't finished that task yet" instead of claiming it's almost done.

While initially more uncomfortable, this alignment between values and actions ultimately creates deeper trust in their relationships, greater self-respect, and freedom from the anxiety of maintaining inconsistencies—rewards that far outweigh the fleeting comfort of those "small lies."

Break Point: Intentions to Actions (Inconsistancy)

The third breach in trust happens in the disparity between intentions and actions—when a person sincerely aims to uphold their values but does not do so consistently.

This break point is about a pattern of breaches, not one individual instance.

It's not about the one time someone arrived late despite good intentions, but about the person who consistently fails to be punctual despite repeatedly committing to it.

It's not about the occasional emotional withdrawal in a difficult moment, but the partner who regularly becomes unavailable during conflict despite genuine intentions to engage.

It's not about missing one deadline due to unexpected circumstances, but about the colleague who habitually needs extensions despite sincere promises to deliver on time.

The inconsistency between intentions and actions is what erodes trust over time.

Even when intentions are genuine and sometimes translate into action, what truly counts is the consistency of that translation.

Our nervous systems don't register the sincerity of someone's intentions—they register the consistency of their behavior.

Unlike value misalignment or self-deception about intentions, this break often comes with full awareness and genuine remorse. "I meant to..." becomes a familiar refrain, followed by explanations that may be entirely truthful: they did intend to follow through, they did value the commitment, circumstances simply got in the way.

However, trust is not established through our intentions, regardless of their sincerity. It relies on the coherence between what others can reasonably anticipate from us and what we truly provide. When this gap consistently increases—even for justifiable reasons—trust diminishes.

Our nervous systems are designed to detect patterns, not single events. One broken promise may be forgiven as an anomaly. Repeated broken promises, regardless of the sincerity behind them, signal unreliability. Our primitive brains register this pattern and raise the alarm: "This person cannot be counted on. Guard yourself."

We see this playing out everywhere:

• The team member who consistently misses deadlines despite genuine intentions to meet them—colleagues learn to build buffer time into any schedule involving them.

• The friend who repeatedly cancels plans last minute despite sincerely wanting connection—others eventually stop extending invitations.

• The partner who continually breaks agreements about household responsibilities despite honestly valuing fairness—resentment grows regardless of their good intentions.

What makes this break point particularly painful is that the person failing to follow through often feels misunderstood and unfairly judged. They know their heart is in the right place. They genuinely intended to honor their commitments. They may even feel that focusing on the gap between intentions and actions is nitpicking or unfair.

However, trust doesn't rest on what we intended—it rests on what we delivered.

And our nervous systems don't distinguish between malicious intent and benign incompetence when assessing safety. Both create unpredictability, and unpredictability triggers vigilance.

The path to repair in this break point isn't about better intentions—it's about better systems, better boundaries, and better self-knowledge. It requires the humility to recognize our limitations and adjust our commitments accordingly. It means making fewer promises but keeping them more consistently. It means creating structures that support follow-through rather than relying on willpower alone.

Sometimes, it means acknowledging that despite our best intentions, we may not currently have the capacity to align our actions with our values in certain areas—and taking responsibility for that gap rather than expecting others to repeatedly accommodate it.

Self-Trust Through the Same Lens

Just as our trust in others follows this chain from values to intentions to actions, so does our trust in ourselves. We lose faith in ourselves when our actions don't align with our stated values and intentions.

• When we say health matters to us but consistently choose the immediate gratification of snacking over our long-term wellbeing, we erode our self-trust.

• When we claim to value honesty but routinely avoid difficult conversations, we fragment our internal integrity.

• When we insist growth matters but shy away from feedback or challenge, we betray our own aspirations.

This internal fragmentation is more damaging than we often realize. It doesn't just impact how we see ourselves—it affects our entire nervous system. The voice in our head that whispers "you won't really do it this time either" isn't just negative thinking. It's our predictive brain working exactly as designed, warning us based on past patterns.

When we don't trust ourselves, we exist in a state of internal vigilance. Our nervous system stays slightly activated, always bracing for our own next disappointment or self-betrayal. This subtle, chronic stress depletes our resources and diminishes our sense of agency in the world.

Building self-trust follows exactly the same principles as building trust with others:

• First, we must honestly assess our actual values and needs—not only what we wish we valued or think we should value, but also the needs our patterns reveal we truly prioritize.

• Next, we need to align our intentions with our true needs, planning actions that really address what is most important to us and are consistent with our values.

• Finally, we must follow through consistently on those intentions, creating a pattern our nervous system can recognize and relax into.

  
  

This process often requires scaling back our commitments to ourselves. Better to make one small promise we keep than ten grand ones we break. Each kept promise—no matter how small—rebuilds the foundation of self-trust. Each time we follow through, we create evidence that counteracts the pattern of self-betrayal.

As self-trust grows, we gain access to a profound form of internal safety. We begin to trust not just our ability to follow through, but our capacity to navigate life's challenges and show up as our values even under pressure. This internal security then radiates outward, enabling deeper trust in our relationships with others.

Trust Repair: Realigning the Chain

When trust breaks—whether with others or with ourselves—how do we begin to rebuild it?

Trust can be broken—but it can also be reborn.

Human beings are astonishingly resilient. Our nervous systems, shaped by old injuries, also hold the capacity for profound healing.

When trust is broken, it leaves scars—yet these scars are not merely signs of pain. They demonstrate that repair is possible, and relationships, much like living tissue, can become stronger where they were once broken.

Rebuilding trust demands patience and conscious effort. It requires confronting what has been lost without losing sight of what can still be built.

It’s not about pretending nothing happened—it’s about choosing to create something new, something sturdier, something truer.

And every small act of integrity, every kept promise, every courageous conversation becomes a stitch in the fabric of trust, weaving a new kind of strength into the relationship.

Trust Calibration: Finding the Right Balance

Before diving into specific repair strategies, we must understand the concept of trust calibration—the art of extending the right amount of trust based on actual patterns of behavior rather than hopes, fears, or isolated events.

Trust calibration means avoiding two common extremes:

• Under-trusting (hypervigilance): Remaining suspicious and guarded even when someone is demonstrating consistent trustworthy behavior. This often stems from past betrayals that taught us to expect disappointment. While understandable as a protective mechanism, hypervigilance prevents us from receiving genuine trustworthiness when it's present, keeping us locked in isolation.

• Over-trusting (naivety): Extending trust despite clear patterns that predict disappointment. This might come from a desperate hope for connection, an unwillingness to see reality clearly, or an admirable but misplaced belief in giving endless chances. While optimism has its place, ignoring established patterns leads to repeated harm.

Individual Differences in Trust Calibration

Our ability to calibrate trust effectively is influenced by our unique histories and internal wiring. Early attachment experiences, trauma history, cultural background, and even temperament all shape our default trust settings.

• Someone with secure early attachments may naturally calibrate trust more accurately, while those with attachment injuries might default to either extreme vigilance or excessive trust as coping mechanisms.

• A person with significant betrayal trauma may have nervous systems that register even minor inconsistencies as major threats.

• Cultural differences in how reliability, commitment, and integrity are defined further complicate this landscape.

These individual differences fundamentally affect what our nervous systems register as trustworthy. Two people can witness identical behavior and have completely different physiological responses—one feeling safe, the other feeling threatened—based on their past experiences and neural wiring. What falls within one person's "window of tolerance" might be well outside another's, not through choice but through conditioning.

These individual differences aren't flaws to overcome but realities to acknowledge. Understanding our own trust tendencies—where we naturally fall on the spectrum from hypervigilance to naivety—is the first step toward more conscious calibration.

Appropriate trust calibration means:

• Acknowledging established patterns without dismissing them

• Looking for consistent behavior over time, not isolated gestures

• Extending trust in proportion to demonstrated reliability

• Adjusting trust levels as new evidence emerges

• Recognizing that trust can be appropriate in some areas while limited in others

With this calibration in mind, we can approach trust repair more effectively, whether we're the one who has been hurt or the one who caused harm.

The path to repair depends on which side of the broken trust we find ourselves.

When Others Have Broken Our Trust

When someone has consistently acted in ways that violate our values or boundaries, repair begins with clarity about those boundaries. By defining what behaviors are acceptable and unacceptable within our relationships, boundaries create a well-defined "playing field" where trust might eventually be rebuilt.

These boundaries aren't punishments or walls—they're clear articulations of what we need to feel safe.

They might sound like:

• "I need honesty about finances for this relationship to work,"

• "I need reliability around time commitments to continue investing in this friendship,"

• "I need respectful communication even during disagreements."

Trust calibration becomes essential here. We must resist both under-trusting (remaining hypervigilant even when someone is demonstrating consistent change) and over-trusting (ignoring patterns of behavior that predict future disappointment).

Appropriate trust is extended based on demonstrated patterns of repeated actions, not promises or single actions.

When We Have Broken Trust With Others

When we're the ones who have broken trust, repair requires honest assessment of the entire chain:

First, we must honestly assess our values.

Did our actions align with our declared values?

Or were we possibly unaware of what we truly are after?

This assessment often requires radical, and sometimes painful, honesty.

We may discover that values we've loudly proclaimed don't actually drive our choices. We may find that our deep needs are in conflict with our values in ways that guarantee inconsistent action.

From this honest foundation, we adjust our intentions. We can plan specific actions that meet our needs while honoring our authentic values. We create systems that support follow-through. We communicate our intentions clearly to others, without overpromising or creating expectations we cannot meet.

Finally, we act with unfailing consistency. Not perfection—consistency. We recognize that rebuilding trust requires a new pattern, established over time. A single action can break trust in an instant, but only a sustained pattern can rebuild it.

When We've Broken Trust With Ourselves

Perhaps the most important repair work happens within.

When we've repeatedly broken commitments to ourselves, we must rebuild self-trust through the same process of honest assessment and consistent action.

This begins with right-sized promises—commitments small enough that we can keep them consistently, yet meaningful enough to matter.

Each kept promise, no matter how small, creates evidence that counters our pattern of self-betrayal.

As we establish consistency in small areas, we gradually expand to larger commitments, always maintaining that crucial consistency that allows our nervous system to relax into self-trust.

Being Patient

Those processes cannot be rushed.

Our nervous systems register patterns over time, not isolated events. As Jung observed, we are what we repeatedly do, not what we occasionally demonstrate.

Trust, once broken, can only be rebuilt through patient, consistent realignment of the entire chain.

Repairing trust is much like forging a new link in a broken chain. The repaired link may never look exactly like the original—but it can still be strong, resilient, and beautiful in its own right. Just as the Japanese art of kintsugi honors the beauty of broken pottery repaired with gold, trust repaired with honesty and consistency carries a quiet nobility of its own. It’s not about erasing the past break; it’s about forging something worthy of bearing weight again.

The reward for this patience is profound. As trust returns—whether with others or with ourselves—our nervous systems can finally relax. The vigilance that consumed so much energy fades into background. We can be present without bracing, connect without guarding, invest without hedging.

We can finally rest in the quiet confidence that what we value, what we intend, and what we do are aligned—and that the people we trust most deeply will continue to act in ways our hearts and bodies recognize as safe.

This is the promise and the responsibility of trust: not a passive state to be taken for granted, but an active commitment to maintaining that unbroken chain from values to intentions to actions—day after day, choice after choice, relationship after relationship.

As Jung reminded us, "You are what you do, not what you say you'll do." In the realm of trust, this isn't a judgment—it's simply the reality of how our brains and bodies determine safety.

By honoring this truth, we create the foundation for deeper connection, both with others and with ourselves.