100 days of trust: Lana Molodtsova‘s social experiment

HOW much trust do you have for the people around you? Would you trust them to look after you?

Russian-born graphic designer Lana Molodtsova lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn but grew up around grey Soviet Blocs where she developed her love of creativity and design.
But there’s one area of her life where she craves more. She has a desire for more emotional and physical trust. So Lana decided to embark on a social experiment called ‘100 Days of Trust’.
“I am a self-professed control freak and I am working hard to overcome it,” she wrote on her website.
“During the next 100 days, I will try to complete 100 activities that are going to confront my issues with trust and hopefully help me with letting go. These activities will fall into two categories: Emotional trust and physical trust,” she said.

Catch me when I fall

Her aim is to set up a collection of tasks each week, and post about how she felt before, during and after each task.
“Each day I will do one thing that will push me out of my comfort zone by putting my trust in someone else’s hands,” she said.
By the end of the 100 days she anticipates she will have completed 50 physical and 50 emotional trust exercise to help her answer which is harder — emotional or physical trust.
By performing simple exercises like a ‘trust fall’ where she allows her classmates to catch her, or allowing her friends to feed her, Lana hopes that she can let little things go each day and change her world for the better.
She has even allowed people to cut off her hair, pick out her clothes, and she also crossed the street blindfolded.

Cutting off hair

Sharing the experience
Around 60 days into the experiment Lana trusted news.com.au enough to share an update. She admits that trusting isn’t easy, but it has also helped her let go.
“I’ve learned that it takes guts to do this. Most people are very excited to help out and want to be part of it. People don’t take advantage of your trust and go out of their way.
“I learned that physical trust can be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I learned that the more you trust, the bigger the rewards are.
“I do feel it is working and I am letting go step by step. I am learning so much about myself. “The walls that I have built up in order to cope with life, by doing this project, I am chipping away at them and revealing my true self,” she said.

Climb above fear

Lana said the process had also brought her some surprises.
“For day 57, I cut my hair off into pixie cut, the shortest that I ever had it. It was a liberating experience. I felt such relief. I was very hesitant to do it at first, but now I am glad that I did it,” she said.
“Also, I was surprised by how much people are willing to help out. I have a hard time asking for help and this project requires participation of others. My friends and acquaintances have all gotten behind me and are willing to help out and participate.
She believes the act of trust can be very rewarding.
“Trust, because when you trust, wonderful things can happen. You connect to other people, you become closer to them and you open up your world to new possibilities. By trusting others and yourself, you learn so much in the process,” she said.

Developing trust

Dr Matthew Bambling, senior lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Queensland said Lana’s experiment is an interesting project.
“She is pushing herself to the point of discomfort and taking risks with the trust exercise. All of these things will create change as long as all goes well with her program,” he said.
“Of course the risks could in something may go wrong or her need for control means she avoids important areas of work, this is where a therapist is useful,” he said.

Change my look

Advice for creating trust

Dr Bambling said the first step in creating more trust in one’s life was to identify the issues.
“How much is my experience and how much is me? Do I not trust to protect myself, control other or not take risks? What are the costs of not trusting for me, eg: poor relationship satisfaction?” he said.
Once issues were identified, the next step is to take action.
“Like Lana, the next step is to take some chances and risks — but not too extreme — calculated risk by taking steps towards trusting behaviours with people who are safe, not psychos,” he said.
“It is very important to practice trust with people who are trustworthy. If it is done with people who are not, it will reinforce distrust.”
Next: Try sharing more, asking for help with something, helping someone else. Make more friends and increase your social circle.

“Say what you mean and communicate honestly and clearly, only then will people understand your needs. Listen to others carefully and try to meet their needs, you will make lots of new friends,” Dr Bambling explained.
“Distrust makes for poor communication and unmet needs, trust opens communication and the meeting of needs.
Finally, try to interpret differences and conflicts from other points of view.
“Sit with the frustration and anxiety of not knowing what the other is doing and not checking up on them to reduce anxiety. For people who have serous trust issues, they probably can’t manage this on their own as it will be too difficult.
“It is best if they seek professional help and they may be surprised by how quickly things improve for them,” he said.