I have been struggling with a lack of self-confidence my whole life. I can tell you that self-doubt is paralyzing. It invariably leads to sub-par outcomes. All my life, I have heard people say, “You just have to have a bit more self-confidence, believe in yourself.” As if. They really believed their advice was helpful. All it told me was that they had no clue what they were talking about. All it did was add to my self-doubt.
Some people go through life with natural self-confidence from a very early age, they somehow are unimpressed by what other people think and say. All I can say is that I wasn’t that way at all, I was a very impressionable little girl. There are three areas in my life where I have no to very little self-doubt, as a mom, as a cook and as a mystic. Interestingly, these areas came along later in my life, and the effort I put in yielded immediate positive results. With every other thing, my efforts either remained unnoticed or unvalued. To this day, I mostly feel that I have nothing of value to offer. I know it isn’t true, but it is what I have come to believe about myself.
Being very driven, wanting to share my story with the world, wanting to impact other people’s lives for the better, feeling that what I have to share has no value is somewhat of a challenge. Fortunately, I am in the business of undoing beliefs, of pinpointing them and releasing them. I will not be ruled by beliefs that don’t serve me. I will not live a life defined by the impressions of other peoples’ limited beliefs. I know I can change my life. I have confidence in my abilities to transform my emotional caterpillars into butterflies. I know that one day I will have released all the old beliefs that keep me crawling. I know that one day, having released just one more old belief, the pull of the butterflies lifting me up will be greater than the weight of the caterpillars keeping me down. I know I will fly.
picture by Andreas Krappweis