I used to spend hours trying to work out the “right” answer to the big questions in my life.
I’m not talking about the things which clearly have a right and a wrong solution.
There’s a right way to set up my ironing board. There’s a right way to apply for a driver’s license. There’s a right answer to most maths problems.
I’m talking about the questions which aren’t so black and white. Things like:
Do I want to move to another country or would I rather build my life here?
Who is the best choice of partner for me?
How much time and energy do I want to invest in my career, versus the other areas of my life?
Is there a God?
How do I feel about important issue in the news
How will I cope if I regret the path I’ve taken later on?
Of course we all think about these things. That’s a natural and normal part of being a curious human.
But I used to agonise over them. I often ruminated late into the night, thinking about every possible consequence. I spent hours on Google reading other people’s opinions, and desperately trying to find someone who sounded exactly like me, so that I could just adopt their opinion.
My body shook with anxiety every time the big topic of the moment entered my head and my stomach contracted in fear as I considered all the nightmarish possibilities that could unfold if I didn’t work this out RIGHT NOW.
My self-trust was extremely low.
I believed that other people held the answers to the big topics in my life, and that it was my job to go searching for what they were.
I believed that if I didn’t make the “right” choice my life would be a disaster and I would habour painful regrets forever.
And I believed that the key to figuring all this out lay in just thinking hard enough.
Inner safety
I thought I was only allowed to trust myself if I had all the right answers at my fingertips. And given that I was a normal human who made mistakes and worked things out as I went along, I decided I wasn’t qualified.
I tried CBT, talk therapy, mindfulness and stress control techniques, and while they all helped me to understand myself more deeply, and weaken the power my persistent thoughts had over me, none of them really helped me to get to the bottom of what was going on.
It wasn’t until I found embodiment work that I discovered the real solution.
The first embodiment course I ever studied was “Safety Within” by Healing Embodied. The purpose of the course was to help you to handle persistent feelings of doubt, overwhelm and rumination by learning how to create a felt sense of safety in the body. Through the course I learned how the nervous system interacts with our brains and started practicing embodiment daily.
After a few weeks some amazing things started happening:
When a big topic would come into my head, I no longer felt like I had to get rid of all the uncomfortable feelings I had about it right away. This gave me time to pause and decide whether I really wanted to go down a Google spiral, or if this was something that I didn’t have to deal with immediately.
I started to understand myself more deeply which led me to feel more accepting of my own preferences and my unique way of engaging with the world. This shifted how I asked myself questions. Rather than thinking “What should I do?” I started asking myself “What course of action feels good to me.
Knowing that no matter what was happening I have the ability to create spaces of calm and contentment inside myself immediately lowered the stakes of all the big questions I had. Instead of feeling like each decision would determine the entirety of my future happiness, I realised that no matter how things turned out I would always be able to find safety and contentment in myself.
I learned how to hold more than one feeling in my body at a time, which got rid of all the black and white thinking that had driven my anxious Googling sessions. Instead of searching for the “perfect” answer I realised that all my choices had the potential to bring joy, sadness, excitement, boredom, pride and regret. The best thing I could do was to make the most of the moment that was right in front of my eyes, and listen to the little whispers inside that guided me to the best next step.
All of that thinking, worrying, and analysing I was doing wasn’t really about making the best choice - it was about trying to find a place of stability in the middle of a world that often feels random and chaotic.
That’s why mindset work had never helped me. The thing that I was really looking for was a feeling of peace that lay deeper than all of my thoughts. And learning how to reconnect to my body not only taught me that I was already able to handle all the complicated emotions my mind had been trying to protect me from, but it helped me to discover the pockets of peace that already existed within me.
The foundation for self-confidence
After that first embodiment course I was hooked.
I devoured books, podcasts, study courses and personal programmes which took me into deeper and deeper connection with my own body.
I learned how to face difficult emotions like shame, guilt, regret and fear, and instead of running from them, listen to the wisdom they have to offer me.
The more willing I was to sit with things I found uncomfortable, the more I learned about myself.
Now that I wasn’t so terrified of things going wrong, I started to think about what I really wanted in life. I stopped playing the game of life to ‘not lose’ and I started playing to win - in other words I was now less concerned about avoiding pain, and more interested in pursuing joy, genuine pleasure and satisfaction.
This was how my self trust became a foundation for my self-confidence.
In the Embodied Confidence Workbook I define confidence as an awareness of our own power and an attitude of trust towards ourselves.
By practicing the skills of self-trust day after day - showing myself compassion, choosing to face my experiences rather than control them, and developing the capacity to handle a wider range of sensations - I had cultivated an attitude of trust towards myself. This created the space I needed to exercise greater power over my choices. The space to choose to do something differently even if I couldn’t predict the outcome.
I started making bolder choices.
I spoke up for myself in my relationship, and told my partner the truth about how I had been feeling.
After years of being afraid to drive, I decided that I was ready to get back in the driver’s seat again, and get my own car.
I quit a job that had become extremely stressful and travelled around Ireland visiting sacred sites and deepening my connection to the land.
I started my own business. I failed 100 times more than I succeeded, as I explored all the new skills I would need in this part of my life.
Getting to know myself gave me greater clarity about who I was and what I really wanted in life. The more I chose to pursue these things, the more my confidence grew naturally. I was now willing and able to face the pain, failure and uncertainty that would inevitably arise along the way.
Self-confidence is really about seeing yourself as a capable person who is able to do hard things. And the simple truth is that the only way we become that person is by doing the hard thing, just as we are right now, and then picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off when it doesn’t go perfectly!
And that is a hell of a lot easier when you’ve learned how to treat yourself with kindness and compassion.
Despite the fact that not everything I pursued worked out exactly how I would have wanted it to, life feels more satisfying than ever. Because real satisfaction doesn’t come from getting everything we want, it comes from expressing ourselves fully in the world, and allowing our unique essence to shine.
If you’re ready to say goodbye to the endless loop of racing thoughts, and build a solid centre of self trust and self confidence, download my free Embodied Confidence Workbook today to get started.
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