Kindred Trust: How to Build Trust That Heals

Trust is the foundation of every great relationship—but if trust were simple, we wouldn’t keep repeating the same painful patterns. In this episode, I sit down with my husband, and fellow trauma survivor, Christopher, to explore a different kind of trust—Kindred Trust—where both people feel safe to be themselves without fear of judgment or rejection.

We unpack:

✨ The difference between survival-driven trust and love-driven trust

✨ Why trust isn’t something you “earn” but something that grows naturally through small moments

✨ How Christopher’s simple act of whispering “It’s me” transformed my ability to feel safe

✨ How to recognize Kindred Trust in your own life

If you’ve ever felt like trust is something you have to work hard for—or something that breaks too easily—this episode is for you.

00:00 Introduction to Trust in Relationships

01:15 Understanding Kindred Trust

02:48 Personal Stories and Trust Building

06:29 Survival-Driven vs. Love-Driven Trust

08:11 Recognizing and Nurturing Kindred Trust

09:45 Conclusion and Next Steps

Take the Next Step:

📝 Reflection Question: Who in your life accepts you just as you are? Write down the details, and if it feels right, let them know what you appreciate about your connection.

🎧 Next Week: Christopher and I dive even deeper into our trust, including how we caught ourselves falling into old survival-based trust patterns and how we helped each other heal.

🔗 Resources & Free Guide: Want more support in building trust and setting boundaries? Download my free guide at anniecampanile.com.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review—it helps more people find the show!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Trust is the foundation of every great relationship. But let's be honest, knowing that doesn't make it any easier to build, because if trust were simple, we wouldn't keep repeating the same patterns. Oversharing too soon, holding back too much, or assuming we have to earn our place in someone's life. 

I'm Dr. Annie Campanile, trauma survivor and professional coach, and in this episode of Heal Your Trauma, find Your Voice I'm sitting down with my husband and fellow trauma survivor, Christopher, to break down the type of trust that turns surface level relationships into deep, lasting connections.

We'll unpack the small but powerful shifts that help trust grow naturally instead of feeling like something we have to force; and what we've learned from our own relationship, including the moments that tested our trust and the habits that made it stronger.

So if you're tired of protecting yourself from getting hurt or believing that mutual, secure connection is out of reach, let's dive [00:01:00] in.  

Welcome back to episode nine. If you've ever felt like trust is either something you have to work really hard for or something that gets broken too easily, you're not alone. A lot of us have learned trust through survival, always proving ourselves, always protecting ourselves. But today I want to show you another way, something I call kindred trust.

Kindred trust is the kind of trust where both people feel safe to be themselves without fear of judgment, rejection, or disappointment. You don't have to prove your worth, protect yourself from being hurt, or constantly scan for signs that something is wrong. 

[00:02:00] Imagine walking into a room and feeling completely at home. You don't have to second guess your words, prove your value, or wonder where you stand with the other person. Kind of like when you're hanging out with your pet. That's what Kindred Trust feels like. 

With Kindred trust, you don't have to hold onto tightly and manage the other person's emotions like we do with Velcro Trust, or constantly protect yourself from getting too close like we do with Cactus Trust.

You simply know that you're valued, you're respected, and it's safe to be yourself. This kind of trust isn't something that happens overnight.   

It builds through small moments, small choices that help your nervous system learn that safety is real. And sometimes those choices are as simple as whispering "it's me" at the right moment.

That's what my husband Christopher figured out when I was struggling early in our relationship.

​Okay. Mr. Chris 

Yes, ma'am. 

So why don't we start looking [00:03:00] at how each of us came into this relationship.

Okay. 

We each carried into this relationship triggers that caused us to move into either Velcro trust or cactus trust to protect ourselves.

Hmm.  

 When we met, I had been by myself for more than three years. Before that, I had been nursing my late husband when he was sick with cancer for a year, and I created a very sensitive response to any kind of sound happening at night. Mm-hmm. If I was alone in the bedroom. And there was a sound. I just immediately jumped up and my heart raced because I was worried, is he alive?

Does he need something? Even though it had been more than three years, I hadn't shared a home with anybody. So my nervous system was still very much primed for if there's any sound, there's a problem. And so, because you and I have very different circadian rhythms, I go to bed sooner, right? I was so [00:04:00] uncomfortable with going to bed alone and you being in the living room and you would sometimes fall asleep in the living room, which was normal for you. 

Yeah. 

But it took me a long time to not wake up and notice you not in the bed and not panic like, oh God, is he is he breathing?

Like literally that would go through my mind. So part of how I became comfortable or calmer was self coaching. I would lie there and remind myself of what year it was and who was in the living room. It was you. It was not Doug. Right, right. You are alive. Anyway, I had to coach myself through that. Yeah. But then also you had such a lovely idea, which was when you would open the door, because I'm such a light sleeper, it would wake me up and you would whisper. It's me. 

Yes. So I called it Death by a thousand [00:05:00] Doorknobs. And even if I just had to wake up in the morning step out and come back in, I knew you were gonna hear every creak because you have supersonic hearing powers.

And I would just whisper, "It's me," so that I knew that you could hear it and you could go to sleep. And you, we've heard death by a thousand cuts, you know, which on one hand is a bad thing. You know, each tiny little cut makes a big difference. This was death to the fear of a thousand, "It's Me"s. So I wanted to put your mind at ease, every time you heard that sound, "It's me. Everything's safe. You are okay. We're good here." 

And that seemed to really work because just, I think it was just this prior year. After what? Four? How long have we been together? Five years. Five years. After five years. You said, "I think I'm okay now. You don't have to [00:06:00] whisper it's me anymore."

And so I think it worked.  

What Christopher did for me in those moments when he whispered "It's me," wasn't about proving to me that he was trustworthy. It was about creating safety so that my survival brain and my nervous system could slowly over time recognize that I was really, truly safe. 

And that's the difference between trust that's driven by love and trust that's driven by survival. Let's look one more time at the difference between survival- driven trust and love- driven trust. 

When trust is driven by survival, it looks like this bracing for rejection and assuming that people will leave, pull away, or lose interest, so we always prepare for the worst. Trying to control connection by proving our worth, overexplaining ourselves, or feeling responsible for making somebody else stay. And avoiding closeness, keeping people at arms [00:07:00] length or hiding what you really feel. 

Love- driven trust looks like this. Knowing that you don't have to manage the relationship in order for it to last. You know that you don't have to check in constantly, track the other person's mood or predict their reactions. And feeling safe to speak honestly.

You don't have to sugarcoat your feelings or pretend that you're fine when you're not, or hold back out of fear that the other person will change their mind about you and pull away. You know that you can say, "I need a little space today," or "That joke actually hurt my feelings," and the relationship will not end. You'll have a conversation and work through it. 

And trusting that consistency matters more than perfection. If your friend or your partner are late to dinner, you don't spiral into stories like, "They don't respect me" or "They don't care." Instead, you trust their overall actions. 

You remind yourself " They care about me. I know I can rely on [00:08:00] them." Kindred Trust doesn't mean we never get hurt. It means we know how to repair and reconnect instead of protecting ourselves with distance or control.

No matter what you've been through in the past, you can develop kindred trust. In fact, I'll bet you've experienced kindred trust before. You just might not have noticed it. 

If you've ever had a friendship, a romantic partnership, or even a work relationship where you felt completely seen completely safe and at ease, that's kindred trust. It doesn't have to come from a romantic partner. It might be a friend, a teacher, a pet, even a stranger who showed you kindness when you needed it most.

Changing our trust patterns takes time and repetition. Every time you dwell on a positive experience, you're calming your survival response and building kindred trust, just like Christopher and I did when he whispered "It's me." I did the same for [00:09:00] him, and you'll hear that story next week when we share our full conversation.

To help you connect even more with Kindred trust, I wanna encourage you this week to pay attention to small moments when you feel safe and connected. Ask yourself the following question, and then write down your answer so you can begin to recognize kindred trust in action.

Who in your life accepts you just as you are? Who allows you to just show up, be real, and not worry about losing the relationship? 

When you ask yourself that question, write down as many details as you can, and if it feels right, let the person know what you appreciate about your connection. It's a simple way to nurture the trust that you already have. 

Thank you for joining me for another episode of Heal Your Trauma find your voice. If today's episode resonated with you, please write a review. It helps more people find the show. And if you'd like additional guidance, download my free guide at anniecampanile.com. [00:10:00] 

Next week you'll hear my full conversation with Christopher, including the moments when we caught ourselves falling into old survival based trust patterns and how we learned to help each other heal.

We'll talk about how he used to tense up when I walked into a room because his body expected bad news, and how we turned that reaction into a moment of connection instead of fear. If you want trust, that is relaxed, reliable, and mutual tune in because the strongest relationships, whether with a partner or a close friend, aren't built on perfect communication or never making mistakes.

They're built on the small daily choices that remind us we are in this together. Until then, I'm Dr. Annie Campanile reminding you that healing is possible and you don't have to do it alone. See you next week.