25/09/2026
THE GIFT OF TRUST
For 15 years of starting, running, and continuously improving my veterinary practice, I’ve experienced many ups and downs.
Along the way, we meet people who teach us lessons. We meet people who strengthen what we believe in. But sometimes, we also meet people who take advantage of what we freely give and people whose betrayal can make us question everything we once believed.
I experienced both.
The brokenness came in layers.
It wasn’t only about what happened in business. I started losing my trust in people. I questioned my faith because some of the people who hurt me shared the same beliefs I had. And when my personal life was used to attack me and put me in a position of shame, the wound became even deeper.
There were days when I just wanted to work, finish the day, get tired enough to sleep, wake up, and repeat.
For a long time, I thought the answer was simple:
Don’t trust people anymore.
If I didn’t trust, they couldn’t take advantage of me.
If I didn’t let people close, they couldn’t betray me.
If I expected nothing, maybe nothing could hurt me.
I thought being guarded was strength.
But eventually, I realized that protecting myself from being hurt also meant protecting myself from experiencing the goodness of people.
And then came something I never expected.
My first property journey.
I thought I was simply acquiring another property. I thought this journey was going to teach me about negotiation, documents, numbers, property investing, and building something for my future.
Instead, it gave me something money could never measure.
It slowly gave me back my gift of trust.
From the beginning of the acquisition until the processing of the documents, the sellers trusted me with the process.
And somewhere along that journey, I found myself trusting again too.
These were people who did not know the full weight of what I had been carrying. They didn’t know that behind the veterinarian, business owner, and investor standing in front of them was someone who had spent years questioning whether trusting people was still worth the risk.
They were simply being themselves.
And perhaps that was exactly what I needed.
Then, as we reached the end of the property acquisition, the elderly seller surprised me with something I never expected.
A painting he had painted himself.
It was a painting of a waterfall.
And somehow, that waterfall became more than a painting to me.
Waterfalls remind me that life keeps moving. Water doesn’t hold on to where it came from. It falls, crashes against rocks, changes direction, and continues flowing.
Maybe healing is like that too.
It doesn’t mean pretending the rocks weren’t there.
It doesn’t mean what happened was acceptable.
And it doesn’t mean I have to give everyone unlimited access to my trust again.
It means I don’t have to stay where I was hurt.
What started as a property transaction became one of the most unexpected chapters of my healing.
I entered this journey thinking I was acquiring an asset.
I walked away realizing that I had received something far more personal: evidence that I could trust again.
Maybe that’s one of life’s strange ways of teaching us.
Sometimes, life allows something precious in us to be broken.
And sometimes, through people and experiences we never expected, life gives us the opportunity to rebuild that gift differently this time with wisdom, boundaries, and a deeper understanding of ourselves.
My first property will always be more than another property in my portfolio.
It will remind me of the season when I stopped allowing the people who betrayed my trust to determine how I would see everyone who came after them.
And this painting?
I will keep it as a reminder:
Some people will teach you why you need boundaries.
Others will remind you why you shouldn’t stop believing in people altogether.
I thought I was acquiring a property.
Maybe, in some way, I was also acquiring a part of myself back.
Dra. Ellaine | PH Vetpreneur
VET • BUILD • INVEST • GROW
Changing lives as I change mine.
