Self Confidence

Question: I used to be a very confident person. I was self-assured, socially adept, and believed in myself. I am now 35, have a wife and child and a good career. Last year I was laid off from my job. Even though I got a new job right away at the same level, I lost my sense of confidence and have been besieged with self-doubt and worry. When I try to regain my sense of authority and leadership it just isn’t backed by any conviction or power. I feel like I can no longer make a decision without doubting myself. What causes this loss of confidence and how can I get it back?

Answer: Many things can impact our feelings of self-confidence such as your losing your job. Most often confidence and self-assurance is built on worldly success (which you have enjoyed). With the accumulation of achievements such as academic success, prowess in sports, popularity, job success, status, money etc., we tend to identify with these rewards as the measure of our worth. As we all know, we can lose these “goodies” in the ‘blink of an eye’. Unless we build our confidence in our self on spiritual power, we will always be subjected to the ups and downs of outer circumstances. Confidence is built on trust; trust in the enduring and abiding quality of love as our essence. Self-assurance requires balance; it is not merely a “high” or feeling of being “on top of the world”. Although these feelings make us feel good, they are not stable and we have to learn how to enjoy them while they’re there, but not get attached to them or mistake them for anything other than what they are. Eventually the pendulum swings oftentimes in the opposite direction. Life then becomes a scramble to ward off the inevitable “crash” and to seek the next fix to get back the “high”. This emotional see-saw is very exhausting and causes a depletion of energy and emotional fatigue. n When you cultivate emotional balance and achieve inner peace, you develop true empowerment. Accessing your inner power, (i.e. spiritual power), is a life-journey. It takes the same commitment as developing mastery in anything else. Through a meditative practice you will develop the inner discipline from which true self-confidence is born. Self-confidence comes from knowing and accepting yourself. By uncovering all the pockets of denial and excuses you give to yourself and the world, you will be able to face the underlying fears which drive the self created illusions we all dwell in. Through accepting yourself without judgment, with love and compassion for your weaknesses, you will be able to integrate these denied and defended aspects of self in a matter of fact way. Accepting means appreciating the whole self, and being able to laugh at your baser side while continually working towards refining your energy and to function at the highest (most loving) level.
If you live strictly an exte
al life, consumed with the demands and obligations of making a living, family relationships, success and failure, etc., you will ignore the call to plug-in to the internal reality of your being. We are multi-faceted and multi-dimensional beings. When we live only on the outer dimension we are constantly being batted about by the ever changing circumstances of material reality. As you develop inner discipline through a meditative spiritual practice, you become rooted in a deep sense of self and are able to access the power within. This is not a power that necessarily manifests in any showy way. It is often a quiet and steadfast power that makes you immutable. The quality of equanimity lets you restore your balance when life pulls the rug out from under you. Without this quality we drown in the emotional reactions from our attachments, desires, and fears. It opens your intuitive capacities so that you trust your decisions. And when indecision and self-doubt are present, you can accept that too as part of the human condition and learn how to be with that aspect of yourself without fear or judgment. Instead you will have the confidence of knowing you can heal these “emotional colds” that befall all of us, no matter how together we may be. n Sometimes a crisis in confidence serves the purpose of re-directing our lives to commit to making time on a daily basis for a spiritual practice. The excuses we use to not do it, is part of the self- deception that we can keep running on empty, and not pay for it. The symptoms of anxiety, depression, self-doubt and worry are all signs of a depleted nervous system. Psychological and/or psychiatric help may be in order if these symptoms become exacerbated and impair your functioning. However, you need to work on all levels as symptom control is not sufficient for permanent change. I hope you will use this experience in a positive way for yourself as a prompt to connect with a spiritual practice to discover the true source of confidence and self-empowerment.nnnnnnnnn n