Outsourcing Confidence
Don’t outsource your confidence to an impartial universe. Search for it from the inside out.
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Where are the sources of your own self-assurance?
Let’s get straight to the point here: When you look for validation of your own feelings or actions, where is the first place that inner voice of yours comes from? What are the first thoughts it has when you start questioning yourself?
When (or if?) you have an inner voice, is it a critical one? Is it a little put-down shit-talker who poo-poos all over your new ideas? Is it nice? Is it positive? Too-positive? Does it throw little internal temper tantrums that sometimes come out, and that sometimes get stuffed deep inside in order to maintain some semblance of sanity?
When you get excited or uplifted about something, whatever it is, does that little voice come on and say “shut the fuck-up”, or somehow make you feel guilty for being so selfish, or so foolish, or so….emotional at all?
I know my inner voice always has been like that – that little fucker – my biggest put-downer and criticizer. Until recently, that is, that I’ve started to see the results of years of second guessing and questioning my own gut feelings. When intuitions left un-abided manifest as physical pain or emotional turmoil, and you get stuck down in the deep hole of depression and wallowing, how do you find the support and the power to get back out again?
If you can’t find that source from deep down within you, it’s going to be mighty hard, and you will be mighty dependent on the good-will and good graces of others being strong enough to pull you out of a hole that you have dug your own self into.
So when you’re down there, in the pits, wallowing with your head down, you might realize that it’s the just the Earth beneath your feet, and you might realize that you have feet to begin with, and that you have a very capable and very blessed body that is designed to lift you and hold you and support you from the ground all by itself.
When you realize that, then you can start to look within your self for the strength to get up, because who else can be responsible for your feet standing on the ground. Who is telling you you can not stand up with out pain and find strength from the deepest parts of your body?
In fact, that reassurance that we are fully independent and capable decision makers – aka free thinking individuals – is not a notion many of us were built upon. No, often that little shit-talker inside of us was influenced and programmed by the external environments we unwillingly found ourselves in as young (American, in my case) children.
In America, at least, confidence is not something we naturally imbue our young ones with. From the moment of birth in our medical systems, Mother and baby are sent the message that they do not have the faculties to care for themselves or each other with out proper “educated medical providers”. Father's are excluded from the process of birth all together. No faith is inherently given in our natural ability to care for ourselves or each other.
And the process continues through life, as a sense of self is consistently removed from the body, and outsourced to various institutions that seem to hold our ability to be ourselves from just within reach. From church, to school, to sex and culture; always the things we model our approval after are held high and above our heads. Like a billboard in Times Square, holding illustrious beauty and a desirable figure up in the sky like an icon to be worshipped, but one that seems to always cost an obscene amount of money, or demand a lifestyle completely unfit for anything else but vanity.
And as adults, when we start to raise our own children, we even do this crazy thing of looking to them for approval! We have been so trained out of our own confidence in ourselves, that we put unfair and unnecessary burdens on those around us – even our kids – that have no duty or responsibility to carry them.
Think about it though? Did your Mother do that to you? Did she depend on your emotional stability more than her own, and somehow (even if unintentionally) make you the bearer of her deepest issues or superficial problems, or did she cling to you when she felt sad or scared or weak?
Or did your Father, in the typical Male fashion of being unable to express love or feelings at all, go dark, distant or get depressed when you really needed someone to be positive, uplifting and most of all...supportive.
Or did you have that exact opposite? Did your parents encourage you so much, and spew so much reward and praise on you that you never felt able to really do anything with out them? Did they use love as a way to keep you close, and keep you well-behaved?
I know, its complicated, but I'm not trying to say there is anything wrong here. You should love your parents regardless, BUT!
If you didn't find that sense of support as a tiny baby or a young person, you are going to have to find it now as an adult, or your relationships will suffer (if they haven't already), your health will decline (more rapidly than normal), and your happiness and life-in-general is not going to be the self-driven and self-determined thing it has every RIGHT to be.
So my advice is to start the process of looking inside yourself for approval, rather than outsourcing your sense of confidence to the endless externally created psychological quandaries we are presented with in our day.
The “market” has robbed you of a sense of purpose, and tried to sell you back it back to you at a profit.
The Church has claimed rightful ownership of your salvation, and keeps a hold over your worthiness to God. (Which God? Any God, you pick one, it doesn't matter) They try to claim rights to it by way of shame and guilt and 'penance' to the ordained. In the Christian's eyes, all efforts to stand up for yourself are an affront to God and his ultimate power.
My argument is this: You ARE God. God is in you, God is what makes you YOU, and God is the ultimate driving force of the universe you are now an existential part of. No one in this realm can take that power from you, and once that is realized and found within you, then you can stop judging yourself (for the universe does not judge, or rather even giveafuck about you), you can stop criticizing yourself (there is no authority over your ideas or actions besides your own), and you can start living from the deepest expressions of joy and creativity that come from sourcing your sense of self-confidence from, well....The Source. You!
-§parrow