You know that feeling when your chest sinks and your mind won’t stop replaying what happened? That’s the sucky aftermath of heartbreak.
And it shows that trust is like glass. It’s formed slowly over time, shaped by passion and patience. Once completed, it holds everything up. Yet it takes only seconds to shatter into pieces.
And when it’s gone? It hurts.
From here, life can never be the same as you’ve known it. Which is why learning how to trust again after betrayal in your personal relationships can feel so daunting. Because the pain you’ve gone through can still echo long after the moment of impact.
But just because the pain cuts deep, it doesn’t mean you can’t ever overcome it. You just need to feel safe before your heart can open again, and that’s where rebuilding trust truly begins.
What a broken trust does to your nervous system
That frazzled feeling you’d get after discovering your partner’s affair or a family secret you never saw coming? It’s your nervous system flooded with stress when you’re no longer sure about your personal relationships.
This is how emotional trauma takes root in the body, says Katherine Woodward Thomas in her Mindvalley program, Calling In “The One.” Left unaddressed, she says, “it gets easily activated, that’s why it’s so hard to evolve beyond it.”
Here’s a breakdown of what it can look like:
- Your body gets tensed so easily. Think chest tightness, shallow breathing, fatigue, or random aches, each a stress response of its own kind.
- Your mind won’t let the past rest in peace. It keeps replaying past conversations and moments that, in hindsight, were red flags, because your brain’s threat system is perpetually switched on now. It doesn’t want to get blindsided again.
- Your self-worth starts to wobble. Stress means your nervous system is always in fight-or-flight mode. That’s why thoughts like “How did I miss this?” or “I should’ve known better” start to dominate your headspace and possibly chip away at your confidence.
- Your heart closes up for protection. For the spiritually inclined, this can often feel like a blocked heart chakra, the energy center associated with love and trust. There may be a biological basis for this through the vagus nerve. Governing the heart-brain connection, it regulates your sense of safety; when you’re stressed out, it can stall.
Now, keeping yourself guarded may seem safe, but it has risks. Research shows that loneliness among adults in the U.S., especially those without strong relationships to lean on, has been linked to a range of physical and mental health challenges, from heart disease to depression and anxiety.
And you? You deserve more than that. You deserve a life where you feel alive and steady, shaped by connections that support you without asking you to disappear to feel safe.
How to trust again after a betrayal
Opening your heart to others may seem like a gargantuan feat. But it’s actually easier than you think when you accept that it begins… with self-trust.
Just take Jennifer Aniston’s very public breakup with Brad Pitt, for instance. She didn’t rebound loudly or turn healing into a performance when Brad got together with Angelina Jolie.
Nope, she pulled back and took time to rebuild her life quietly, behind the scenes. When love showed up again for her years later, it came without urgency.
Now that steadiness matters, because trusting again is an inside job. It’s not the same as shutting yourself off, which Katherine says is self-abandonment. Once you see the difference, she says, “you can promise yourself that you will never make those same mistakes again.”
Start trusting your strides by:
1. Sitting with your discomfort
Instead of pushing past it or explaining it away, ask yourself what’s actually holding you back. Discomfort, after all, is information.
Jennifer created space for herself by stepping away from the tabloid fad and letting herself process in private. No one could say she rushed to explain or set the story straight.
Instead, she allowed herself time to feel what she needed to feel and to decide her next move from private clarity rather than public reactivity.
In a Vanity Fair profile piece by journalist Leslie Bennetts, a close friend of Jennifer, actress Andrea Bendewald, was quoted as saying, “She is grieving, but she’s taken the high road. She’s mourning the death of a marriage, and she’s done it very privately.”
What Jennifer did there? It looks like the very foundation of self-trust.
2. Letting anger inform your boundaries
“Usually, if we feel angry, it’s for a good reason,” says Katherine. “We’ve been violated, our boundaries have been broken, our integrity has been compromised.”
Anger points to where a line needs to be drawn in the sand.
Jennifer, for one, didn’t lash out publicly or fuel the narrative around Brad and Angelina’s affair when it first hit the tabloids. But years later, in the same Vanity Fair interview, she acknowledged how personal it felt without turning it into an attack.
“I would be a robot if I said I didn’t feel moments of anger, of hurt, of embarrassment,” she said, recalling how it all went down after her divorce. But she also added, “You can only clean up your side of the street.”
Her story shows that anger, when reflected on mindfully, helps you name what hurts without losing sight of what keeps your chin up for the future.
3. Keeping the promises you made to yourself
Say no when you mean no, and yes when you mean yes. Follow through on what you commit to, whether it’s acts of self-care, like signing up for personal growth classes or going to the gym, or building the business you’ve always wanted to create.
These moments rebuild trust quietly and steadily.
Had Jennifer abandoned her inner work and lost herself to all the buzz around Brad and Angelina’s new relationship, her story might have looked very different today. But that’s the thing: she took the high road. She chose self-respect.
You don’t have to be a celebrity to do the same thing. You just have to be willing to come back to yourself… and not let betrayal write the rest of your life.
How to build trust in a relationship again
Not every relationship rupture ends in a breakup or a turn toward dating after divorce. Sometimes, both people stay because the relationship itself is worth rebuilding.
David and Victoria Beckham’s marriage is one of the best examples of that choice. If star-crossed lovers are a thing, their union was definitely it. And together, nothing could stop them from living their best lives together… until allegations of David’s affair with former assistant Rebecca Loos surfaced.
“Affairs are an act of betrayal, and they are also an expression of longing and loss,” said world-renowned psychotherapist and bestselling author Esther Perel once in her famous TED Talk. She could very well have been armchair-analyzing the Beckhams’ situation with that one.
In the couple’s Netflix documentary, Beckham, Victoria, admits that the period felt like “the world was against us” and that it was “a nightmare” for both of them. Meanwhile, David says they were nervous while filming the documentary, knowing that revisiting difficult emotions they hadn’t touched in years would be difficult.
But, as Katherine points out in her program, “Good relationships will require that we show up in ways that demonstrate self-respect first and foremost.” The Beckhams? They did that through years of rebuilding in total privacy.
If you’ve watched the documentary, you’d remember the teary laughs David and Victoria share as they recounted their decades-long journey together. That moment? It’s all you need to see to discover the bedrock of their lasting marriage:
Forgiveness. Transparency. Proper communication. Accountability. Healthy boundaries. And above all… a willingness to grow beyond the rupture.
These are the quiet pillars that help you learn how to trust your partner again. It’s the same ones that Katherine invites anyone walking in the Beckhams’ shoes to cultivate, through one deliberate choice at a time.
Good relationships will require that we show up in ways that demonstrate self-respect first and foremost.
— Katherine Woodward Thomas, trainer of Calling In “The One” on Mindvalley
How to trust people again, no matter the relationship
Now, betrayal’s not confined to the realm of romance. It can also break your bond with your friends and family. So, no wonder your guards remain on guard around them, scanning for threats like you’re part of the Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones’ Westeros.
This is something Bastian Gugger, a relationship and breakup recovery expert, sees often in his clients. At the promise of rekindling after betrayal, they want to reconnect, but their bodies are all braced for more trouble.
After all, mistrust is a learned bodily response. “Fear of love isn’t in your head,” says Bastien in an exclusive interview with Mindvalley. “It’s in your tissue.”
So, how can you tell if second chances are on the horizon? How can you know if they’re guided by a deep desire to start anew?
If a truce is indeed in the wind, then learning to trust someone again can, according to Bastian, start like this:
- Slow down on your reactivity. Notice when you want to withdraw, overcorrect, or shut someone down.
- Watch for actions, not words. Pay attention to how they show up in your important moments, not just how convincing they sound.
- Stay curious instead of defensive. Ask them why they think what they do. Or take space when interactions are intense, rather than jumping to conclusions.
- Trust calmness, not urgency. Reconciliation of any kind, whether with your best friend or an estranged parent, should feel steady and unforced. When things move too fast, old patterns slip back in before you realize what’s happening.
Like Bastian says, “There is a world of difference between wanting the pain to stop and actually wanting to change.” So let your next move come from clarity. And let trust rebuild at a pace your body can stand behind.
How long does it take to trust someone again?
This is the question that lingers once the dust settles. After the conversations, the apologies, the space taken, and the effort made, the mind always wants a timeline.
Is it weeks? Is it months? Or is it—gasp—years?
The honest answer is both simple and hard to sit with: trust doesn’t return on a schedule. It returns when something changes.
Katherine, for one, is clear on this point. Trust comes back when you know, deep down, that you’re healing after betrayal, and you’ll show up differently for yourself and other people around you.
“In order for you to trust yourself enough to let another person into your heart,” she shares, “you will now need to grow from that previous experience.”
If you notice yourself holding on to past resentment, she says, “that’s information that you have not yet learned the lessons that you need to integrate moving forward.” And the hard work, in the end, is making amends to yourself by “growing beyond your part in co-creating those dynamics.”
Yes, it can be trying, maybe even the hardest thing you’d ever have to attempt. But it’s what you’ve got to do to heal.
No wonder Jennifer, in the Vanity Fair article, said, “Relationships are two people; everyone is accountable.” Quoting her therapist at the time, she added, “Even if it’s 98 percent the other person’s fault, it’s [still] two percent yours, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”
By no means do you blame yourself for someone else’s betrayal. But it’s about looking honestly at where you’ve overridden your instincts, stayed silent when something felt off, or hoped things would change without asking for what you really needed.
Understanding your part in attracting a pattern is ultimately how you break the chance of repeating it in the future.
Resources and real-life stories to lift you up
“Someone reaches out, heart still raw, saying they’re ready to do the work,” shares Bastian. “But when I dig a little deeper, what they really want is for the discomfort to go away.”
He brings up a good point: when trust breaks, most people want relief fast. They want their ache to die down and life to feel normal again.
But real healing asks for more than that. It requires you to slow down, stay with yourself, and sometimes reach for support that can hold you while you do the deeper work.
The resources below are meant for these moments, where the real work happens.
Courses
Each program is available on Mindvalley. Explore them at your own pace, in your own time:
- Calling In “The One” with Katherine Woodward Thomas. This one’s for you if the relationship patterns keep rearing their heads in your present moments. Katherine walks you through healing old wounds, rebuilding self-trust, and choosing love without losing yourself in the process.
- Conscious Uncoupling with Katherine Woodward Thomas. Remember that time when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin broke up, and the term “conscious uncoupling” entered mainstream awareness? This program helps you move through separation with clarity and care, so endings become a place of closure and growth rather than lingering pain.
- Body Language for Dating & Attraction with Linda Clemons. A lingering gaze, a subtle shift in posture, the way you’d lean in or pull back—all of these are cues that help you get back in the game again. But here, body language expert Linda enables you to master these cues while maintaining composure and self-respect.
- Lifebook with Jon and Missy Butcher. This program gets you unpacking the 12 most important areas of your life, including your social life. With Jon and Missy’s guidance, you’ll get clear on what you’d want from others, no matter the relationship.
- The Art of Manifesting with Regan Hillyer. Her guidance is great to turn to if you’ve always wondered how to manifest love while staying true to yourself. Instead of chasing or forcing outcomes, her “surrendered manifestation” approach helps you get real with your energy and values so the right relationship can meet you where you are.
Whichever you choose, one thing’s for sure: each one opens a different door to the same room. They help you rebuild trust from the inside out, so you make decisions from a place of clarity instead of fear.
Books
Sometimes, the right book does what conversations alone can’t—it gives you the luxury of time to pause before embracing a new perspective. Here are some top picks:
- Calling In “The One” by Katherine Woodward Thomas. Here, she helps you dive into the relationship patterns that keep showing up, even when you’ve sworn you’ve changed. Here, you’ll learn to rebuild trust with yourself first, so love doesn’t come at the cost of losing who you are.
- The State of Affairs by Esther Perel. If you’ve experienced being cheated on, then this one’s for you. Esther’s no sugarcoater; she describes the aftermaths of affairs just as they are: life-changing but also full of lessons, once you learn to see through the blinding pain. She accurately details what affairs actually break, what they’re not about, and why some relationships crash permanently, while others stand the test of time.
- Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. If you’ve ever wondered why closeness feels easy one moment and overwhelming the next, this book has the descriptions down pat. Co-written by two experts in attachment theory, it sheds light on how you relate to others based on deep-rooted patterns in childhood.
- Rising Strong by Brené Brown. She spent decades studying vulnerability, shame, and resilience, so she knows a thing or two about getting back up after you’re knocked flat. Powered by real human stories, this book helps you own the blockages that fuel your distrust without beating yourself up and find the courage to open up again.
- Whole Again by Jackson MacKenzie. He specializes in healing after emotional trauma caused by toxic relationships. So you can count on him to hold your hand as you take the steps to reinstall your boundaries, without closing yourself up.
Pick the book that speaks to where you are right now, not where you think you should be. Each one offers a way to make sense of what happened, name what changed, and decide how you want to move forward.
Podcasts
Sometimes, it helps to hear real voices work through what broke and changed them and how they found their footing again. Each of these podcasts approaches trust from a different angle, so you can choose what fits where you are right now.
- The Mindvalley Podcast with Vishen. Consider this your natural starting point. Episodes feature respected voices from the personal growth space, unpacking inner healing and what it takes to let people in again without losing yourself.
- On Being with Krista Tippett. A journalist and Peabody Award winner, she centers thoughtful conversations about meaning and forgiveness through change and loss. Episodes draw on philosophy, spirituality, and lived experience, offering perspective in moments when trust in others or in life itself feels unsettled.
- The Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby. Every week, Dr. Lisa reveals the ins and outs of navigating new connections when every fiber of your being screams “no.” Expect steady, actionable insight without emotional overwhelm.
- The Mel Robbins Podcast with Mel Robbins. Mel’s podcast is all about agency. Her podcast unpacks how to get unstuck, rise from the ashes of past hurt, and own how you move through the world after losses. Play an episode every time you need a confidence booster.
- Huberman Lab with Dr. Andrew Huberman. Drawing on his neuroscience knowledge, Dr. Huberman often explores how stress, memory, and hypervigilance shape behavior, as well as broader topics related to brain-body health. His insights can help guide you to feel safe again from a biological standpoint.
One episode, at the right moment, can be enough to shift how you see yourself and what’s possible again. So, take your pick and start listening to the part of you all ready to wake up to life again.
Real people, real-life stories
You can read all the theory in the world about how to trust again. But it truly lands when you hear from people who’ve done the work themselves, taking the time to move through the pain and learn what it was asking of them.
These Mindvalley members, for one, saw a shift in themselves not long after learning to trust again. Here’s what they have to say:
1. Love arrives on your doorstep when you relax
Lithuania-based Austeja was coming out of a long-term relationship, all hell-bent on remaining single to reset herself, when she encountered Katherine’s teaching. She gave it a shot, without any expectations.
Then, something unexpected happened. “On the seventh day of this 49-day journey,” she shares, “I crossed paths with an incredible man who would soon become my lover… and now fiancé and baby father.”
Still, it all felt too soon, and hesitation, as usual, crept in. But instead of rushing herself forward or shutting down completely, she followed Katherine’s advice. She stayed present and let the connection unfold at its own pace while keeping her focus on her own healing.
That approach made all the difference. Rebuilding trust from a grounded place helped her recognize what’s right in line with her values. As she says, “This program helped me not only in finding ‘the one’ but in becoming ‘the one.’”
2. When self-awareness stops the cycle of suffering
By the time Sagar Mehta came across Katherine’s work, he was exhausted. Years of searching for “the one” had left him angry, disconnected, and quietly resentful. Somewhere along the way, he admits, he’d fallen out of love with himself.
Through a friend, Katherine’s program “found” him at a moment when he wasn’t chasing romance anymore. With nothing to lose, he began the work.
Remarkably, Sagar began reconnecting with what mattered to him beneath the frustration. “One of the major things I learned about myself,” he recalls, “was that I care about sharing knowledge.” So he began reprioritizing this, which started to color his life, influencing who he attracted while dating.
A few months later, he met the woman who would become his wife. Instead of feeling forced or frantic like it usually did, the union felt like a natural continuation of the inner work he’d already done. He realized she was the one.
Sagar’s experience showed him that trusting himself again unlocked momentum in his life. He’s since written the book he’d always wanted to write, co-hosts a podcast with his best friend, and is building a future that feels aligned with who he actually is.
3. When trusting yourself means letting go
Real estate agent Eve Underhill entered the program emotionally exhausted. She and her longtime partner had been holding on through years of strain, frustration, and unspoken disappointment. They shared history, children, and friendship, which made leaving feel impossible, even as staying took a toll.
To break up, or not to break up—that was the unanswered question plaguing her mind.
As she moved through Calling In “The One,” guided reflection and emotional release brought long-buried feelings to the surface. The inner tug-of-war began to ease. “The first day after the program,” she recalls, “I had clarity knowing that I must decide on letting this relationship go.”
And so she did, unflinchingly… which is why she says she’s happier and freer than ever today.
Frequently asked questions
How do I learn to trust again in a new relationship?
Here’s the thing: learning how to trust again starts with being honest about why you want to open up again in the first place.
Too many people, Bastian points out, rush back into connection to relieve loneliness. But that, he explains, “is not readiness. That’s escape.”
This aligns with research in adult attachment theory, which shows that people often seek connection prematurely to soothe emotional distress, not because they’re genuinely ready to form secure bonds. In Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change, psychologists Mario Mikulincer and Philip R. Shaver explain that emotional readiness for healthy relationships always begins with a secure attachment with yourself first.
Trust falls back into place when you stop running from what hurts and start paying attention to your own frame of mind. It’s how you can spot and reframe old patterns that hold you back in relationships.
“Healing,” Bastian exclaims, “doesn’t begin when you find someone new. It begins when you let yourself meet your own pain without looking for the exit.”
Can trust ever be fully rebuilt?
The short answer? Yes, it can… if you understand how it comes back online.
At the core of it, Katherine says, “trust isn’t about knowing everything will work out.” What it is, instead, is “about knowing you will be able to handle yourself no matter what happens.”
Research on interpersonal trust can back her wisdom. According to a 2009 study, trust can be repaired when integrity is present, even after serious violations like affairs. But it requires the offender in the relationship to:
- Acknowledge the harm they’ve done,
- Make genuine, visible efforts for amendments, and
- Maintain long-term behavioral consistency.
When these three things are in place, it’s easier to march ahead, embrace all the good in life again, despite the betrayal.
And if it doesn’t, and a new dating prospect or family reunion doesn’t work out? There’s no need to internalize and see it as a setback or failure. Instead, just reflect on what boundaries need reinforcing, take ownership of your emotional safety, and move forward with self-respect.
At the end of the day, you know your self-worth.
How do I trust myself again?
Start where it actually counts—the everyday moments where you’re still overriding yourself.
That can look like:
- Saying yes when you actually mean no.
- Laughing at an off-color comment or joke to keep the peace.
- Giving someone the benefit of the doubt for the third time, despite the gut feeling.
Sure, none of this is dramatic. But they matter, because it’s the little things that can impact you the most in the long run.
When you consistently go against your own needs or intuition, it creates inner conflict and weakens your emotional well-being. And as psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan explain through their Self-Determination Theory, autonomy and internal alignment are the way back to self-congruence, a.k.a., the stuff of inner peace.
“When you stop abandoning yourself, you don’t need to control outcomes as much,” says Katherine. “You begin to feel safer in uncertainty.”
Heal. Rise. Thrive.
There comes a point where protecting yourself stops being helpful and starts limiting your life. At this crossroad, healing becomes the way forward.
And when you’re ready to leave “survival mode” behind, Calling In “The One” by Katherine Woodward Thomas is here to support you every step of the way. The Mindvalley program calls out the patterns that hold you back in relationships so you can transform them and set a new starting point for yourself.
You’ll learn to:
- Be more aware of the emotional habits influencing who you open up to,
- Release unresolved pain that keeps resurfacing from the past,
- Develop a stronger sense of self in a new connection,
- Set clear and strong non-negotiables to preserve your values, and
- Open your heart to love again without losing yourself.
So, unlock your access by signing up for Katherine’s free class to see what it’s about and what you’re made of once you step into your inherent greatness. And that deep love you deserve? It awaits you on the other side of that choice.
Welcome in.
