Opening to Inner Confidence & Self Esteem
Over the weekend my husband and I filmed four videos. While we were editing them, per usual, we both doubled over in laughter at a few places where I messed up. At times the mess up would be such that I was tempted to dive into a doubt spiral…I should just delete this video and not put it out. The truth is why not put it out there? I am leading with this video because I need this video too.
All of us fall into temptation to entertain thoughts of doubt and uncertainty. Most times before I post a video, it sits in draft form for a few weeks as I grapple with doubt. But if I didn’t put it out into the world, others wouldn’t get access to whatever was coming through in the video. If there is something written on your wild heart to share, it’s important to bring it forward. The world needs your words of love, truth and inspiration, whatever they might be.
Usually it’s not the big, wild moments that chisel away at our self-esteem…it’s often in tiny moments of commentary. One of our family myths is my mom’s “worst parenting moment.” Let me just preface this story with, my mom is and was an incredible mom. And she is also one of the most talented singers I know with a voice of pure power. She is a presence to be reckoned with whenever she is singing. Mom came to my 6th grade class to give a guest lecture on opera, since she was classically trained. One kid in my class asked who a better singer was, my brother or me, and without thinking my mom made a quick off-the-cuff comment that my brother was more musically inclined. Up to that point in my life I had thought I was a very talented singer, wanting so badly to be just like my mom.
Now we laugh about that story at family dinners. However, I went nearly a decade without really singing out loud after that one tiny, seemingly insignificant, comment. We are all human. We all have these stories, both as the one making the comment and the one receiving it. Someone drops one tiny line, and BAM, we never write, sing, dance, play, imagine, create again. It’s amazing how much power we give to our doubts and fears. Usually, we already have a sliver of self-doubt to begin with, and someone’s comment just reinforces that inner belief. After singing kirtan and oms in yoga teacher trainings, I found my voice again. The truth is my brother is more musically inclined, and I can still sing, even if it’s off key. If we are filling our cup up on self judgement or doubt, we end up not having space for the joy, delight and love that is possible.
The first step to being with our feelings of low self-esteem is to invite in a bit of kindness and self-compassion. Perhaps there is a place where the voice of doubt thinks it’s doing you a favor. Maybe it feels like it’s just trying to protect you from embarrassment or shame by siphoning off aspects of your creative and authentic self to try to belong. One tool I use to tackle my own self-doubt is to give it a voice. Ask it everything it wants to say, then meet it with compassion, as if I were speaking to a child. I honor the fears and the worries, validate the feelings, and thank it. Then I draw on other parts of myself that are feeling more courageous and inspired that day. It takes enormous bravery and deep love to be with our voices of low self-esteem and self-doubt. But remember, anytime you light just one candle, it fills even the darkest of spaces with illumination. A little bit of love, a little bit of kindness, a dash of curiosity goes a long way.
Julia Cameron, in her book The Artists Way says jealousy is like a map of what we have not yet been brave enough to do. I think of envy and jealousy as an invitation to try moving in. Rather than attempting to be like anyone else, even me trying to sing like my mom, the best thing we can do is just try the thing as ourselves. If you find yourself envious of someone’s artistic skills, try carving out ten min to draw daily. Envious someone wrote a book? Try writing ten minutes a day. Jealous of someone’s harmonic melodies? Try belting out a song in the shower or the car with the windows down. Julia Cameron’s book is an excellent resource for reclaiming your inner artist from the claws of the inner critic. In her words, “once we are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly, our options widen.”
I used to love the idea of being a dancer. In college, I had the chance to take a modern dance class and absolutely fell in love. I wasn’t necessarily talented at it. For our final project, my idea of embodying prana, the life force energy of breath in yoga, through dance ended up just looking like ghost sex under a sheet. At least it led to many laughs. A few years later, after graduating, my college let me come back to teach an intuitive movement class in the PE department, all about the sensory exploration of movement and dance. We had glow stick parties, wild animal embodiments, and rolled around the floor like serpents…decades after that little dream to be a dancer, I was teaching intuitive dance at a college.
Some of the most powerful chains are the voices of doubt and fear and our own limitations of ourselves. A helpful question when stumbling into imposter syndrome is “why not you?” There has never been anyone else on this planet just like you with your epigenetics, personal history, and perception of the world. So why not you? Imposter Syndrome is a term coined by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978; it is, “despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter syndrome phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.” Women who are often educated and aware enough to know what they don’t know, can be tempted to doubt what they do know. Furthermore, at times historical and cultural contexts actively led to festering environments of self-doubt through microaggressions, bullying and oppression.
Beyond the jobs and performances, self-esteem and self-doubt for many people is rooted in the body itself. Many people experience self-doubt through transitions in life. Just say the words “middle school” and most people can easily conjure up a time of awkward limb growth, braces, acne, and unruly hair. Puberty is a hallmark season of change, as is pregnancy, postpartum, and overall aging. The only guarantee we get in life is things are going to change, and yet we are so often bombarded with advertisements to try to not change by defying the aging process. What we resists persists. Placing value and worth in our looks, unwrinkled skin, hair or anything physically is to place our value in unsolid ground, because our body is something that inherently is going to change. It can feel more grounding and connecting to anchor our worth into unchanging jewels, like courage, bravery, curiosity, kindness, memories and pearls of inner wisdom. If the fact that our body changes isn’t enough, another important cue is to remember everyone is fighting a hard battle. If we are envious of someone else’s body, we are only taking them at surface value. We might not realize the hard battle they are fighting internally or the challenges they are walking through. Honor our humanness by not just putting value in the shell.
“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you and allowing that goodness to emerge.” Eckhart Tolle
Here are a few of my favorite tips for transmuting feelings of low self-esteem into confidence:
If you find yourself stuck in a funk, try going for a walk or sitting outside in nature. I think of self-esteem like the roots that grow deeper with years, wisdom and experience growing into deeper authenticity. We just have to tap into the root essence of who we are and let go of over identifying with the leaves which will inherently change. Trees, animals, and nature show up as they are. A tree is not thinking about what it’s wearing, how it sounds, what others perceive it as—a tree just is. Surrounding yourself in nature can be so helpful.
Another great tool is cleansing out the triggers for a bit by dropping mirrors and social apps. Mirrors can lead us into micromanagement traps, picking ourselves apart without much joy or purpose. Try covering all the mirrors around you for a week and see how you feel. Similarly social media can be a lot of smoke and mirrors, where people with the supposed “perfect body” are angling and moving in a way to try and look airbrushed. Invite yourself on a social media cleanse. Notice which accounts you’ve been following that lead you to stumble into the comparison trap and try dropping those accounts for a while. Then get curious about any subtle shifts in your mood.
Read the works of others who have worked on embracing their truest natures. Brene Brown has some amazing resources for building healthy self-esteem. I particularly love her book “Braving the Wilderness,” and honor the importance of her work, “The Gifts of Imperfection.”
“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.” -Brene Brown
Get out of your head and into your body. Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way” invites participants to write three morning pages each day. Journaling can be an excellent way to cut through the thoughts into truth. Humming, singing, dancing, placing one hand on your heart can all be ways to tap back into embodied wellness.
If you have found other tools and resources that help you boost self-esteem and confidence, please drop a comment to share them! And remember, there has never been, and will never be, another person that is just like you in this universe. You are splendid, spectacular, and superbly unique.
