Confidence: Belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities.
I’d say that confidence is the ability to be yourself. That’s easier said than done. We’ve all been there. A situation arises and your self-confidence goes out the window.
It can look like:
- Can’t say no
- Can’t say yes
- Can’t make a decision
- Can’t control your temper
- Anxiety/Panic Attacks
- Second guessing oneself
- Replaying a social interaction over and over
- Can’t stand up for yourself
- Can’t take a risk
So Where Did it Go?
Part of the reason people are so confused about confidence is that there is a misguided view of what confidence really is. We think it means we should be different than who we really are. If I were: smarter, thinner, more voluptuous, in better shape, richer, more successful, more assertive, less anxious, less angry, less depressed, happier, a better parent, a better lover, a better ___________ (insert your own thought here) then, I would feel confident! And herein lies the misguided view- confidence isn’t a single, solitary feeling that is the equivalent to “nothing bothers me,” or “I’m perfect,” or “I never feel any anxiety.” Notice that confidence is defined as a belief. It’s actually the ability to believe in oneself and one’s abilities regardless of what one is feeling, and because of this, it is directly tied to the relationship we have with our emotions.
Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence writes, “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you aren’t able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”
Confidence Demystified:
Confidence is the ability to:
1) feel a wide range of emotions
2) be compassionate towards yourself regardless of your emotions
3) express yourself in a skillful way that honors one’s experience as well as the other person’s experience – aka- be compassionate towards others
1) Feeling Emotions
Usually when I ask people what they feel they tell me what they think. Here’s an analogy: You hurt your arm and go to the doctor, and the doctor says, “Tell me where it hurts.” Thinking about emotion is the equivalent to responding to the doctor, “The guy that hit me in the arm was a real jerk! I couldn’t believe it when he started blaming me! Let me tell you about our fight… ” You wouldn’t say this to the doctor because it wouldn’t help him fix your arm- it wouldn’t help you heal. What will help the doctor is for you to pinpoint the pain, and to explain what you are feeling. “It’s a sharp, shooting pain from my wrist to my elbow…” It’s the same with emotional pain. We want to focus on the story about what happened, but it’s not really going to help us heal. To quote Julia Butterfly Hill, “We have to feel to heal.” Feeling emotion means directing your attention away from the thoughts in your mind and feeling the physical sensations in the body. This takes cultivating the skill of self-awarenss. Strengthening your ability to feel your emotions will increase your confidence because your behavior will no longer be a knee jerk reaction intended to help you avoid your feelings.
2) Self-Compassion
This is a hard one for most of us as we’ve all been deeply conditioned to believe that self-aggression is the key to “self- improvement.” So we beat ourselves up in the form of mean, aggressive thoughts. “You idiot!” “How could you be so stupid!” “You have no right to feel that way.” “Why did you say that?” When we do this we invalidate ourselves. We give ourselves the message that we don’t matter, that our experience is wrong. This wreaks havoc on our ability to be confident because we don’t trust our experience. Pema Chodron explains self-compassion using the term maitri, and sums it up as being able to relax with one’s self. Watch Pema’s video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s-rRMUl04I[/youtube]
3) Being Skillful (Not Spewing Rose Petals or Volcanoes)
A client of mine gave me this awesome metaphor. She said, “I go to talk to someone about something I’m upset about, and before I know it, I’m taking care of them emotionally. By that I mean making it easy for them, making excuses for them, saying it was ‘no big deal,’ and not actually communicating what I had intended. It’s like I’m spewing rose petals!” To not spew rose petals often means to stand in discomfort. Because it’s hard to tolerate whatever uncomfortable feeling is coming up, we will often do whatever it takes to avoid it, including spewing rose petals! On the flip side, when we repress ourselves long enough, the pent up energy in the body will eventually find it’s way out- and that can look like an eruption of anger or anxiety. This is what I call the volcano syndrome. Ironically, this also is a way of not feeling our emotions. We spew our anger out onto someone else or we have a panic attack. This is why #1 and #2 are so important. We really can’t have compassion for others if we can’t have compassion for ourselves.
Why is it so hard?
For most of us, our culture and upbringing has reinforced the idea that it’s good to avoid our emotions. Plus, there are so many entertaining distractions out there! Why feel my emotional pain when I can watch an exciting movie instead? Like any new skill, to treat ourselves differently and communicate differently takes practice. We’ve all fallen into ways of being in the world that are habitual and to undue those habits takes persistence, patience, and above all, compassion.
How do I start?
Start with #1. Take time to feel your feelings . Make a daily practice to check in with yourself and ask yourself, “How am I feeling right now?” Then pause and feel your experience. Then move to #2. Notice- what are your thoughts about your feelings? Are they self-aggressive? See if you can offer yourself compassion instead. 90% of being compassionate with ourselves is not abandoning ourselves – that is staying with our emotions/physical sensations. If negative thoughts are present, notice them, but don’t get sucked into believing them. Now #3. Is there something you need to communicate to someone about what you are feeling? Often our lack of confidence is occurring in our interactions with others. I highly recommend Compassionate Communication/ Non-Violent Communication as a strategy to insure skillful communication. It stresses compassion for one’s self as well as others.