When Did You Stop Trusting Yourself?

Self-trust determines whether you can act on what you perceive—or whether you immediately look outside yourself for reassurance, validation, permission, or someone else to take over.

This episode is an excerpt from a lecture series Elisabeth originally taught on renewing the mind through a biblical and psychological framework. Elisabeth McKay breaks down how self-trust is built through childhood, how parenting can unintentionally damage it, and what adults can do when they realize they were never taught to trust themselves in the first place. She also connects self-trust to self-efficacy, independence, discernment, and her Christian framework for following God and responding to the Holy Spirit.

Self-trust isn't the same as confidence.

Elisabeth describes it as the ability to trust what you're thinking, feeling, and perceiving enough to move forward. Self-efficacy is the next step: believing you can actually execute.

When those mechanisms aren't developed, the consequences can show up as second-guessing, overanalysis, learned helplessness, neediness, dependence on perceived authorities, susceptibility to groupthink, and difficulty making decisions without reassurance.

For parents, this creates a different question:

Are you helping your child become capable—or repeatedly communicating that they need you to function?

Using examples from raising her own children, Elisabeth examines the small moments that can either strengthen or undermine self-trust: letting a toddler pour the juice, allowing a child to make an informed clothing choice, resisting the impulse to rescue a child from a manageable challenge, and asking strategic questions instead of immediately supplying the answer.

She also explores:

The relationship between self-trust and self-efficacy

How parental enabling can create dependency

Why a parent's anxiety can interrupt a child's confidence