Journaling Quest: Confidence

Something that waxes and wanes. Like the cycles of the moon - perhaps in alignment with the cycles of the moon, there’s a thought… confidence comes and goes. It’s not a fixed constant. It’s more present now in a truer way than it was in the past. At times I’ve needed to push on through and pretend I was confident. That time as a child when the woman said ‘you’re a very confident little girl’ and I replied ‘not always, sometimes I have to pretend’. My goodness. Those words from the mouth of a babe. So wise and self-aware. And I always saw it as a good thing. My mother’s pride when she heard me. That it was good to pretend to be something we’re not. And perhaps at times it is. That ‘fake it til you make it’ thing - and yet, and yet… and yet, what? There’s something else here. Something to do with the hard edges of that pretended confidence. The thing that at times left me feeling brittle, depleted. Having to push so much energy out, there was nothing left within. But the learning is that confidence CAN be a softer thing. When I am fully settled in myself, it is a pale blue cloak that wraps around me, protecting me from the feelings of unworthiness, reminding me I am enough (and not too much). It is helpful here, seeing it in this way. A way to keep remembering to wrap it round me when I feel the urge to push or am feeling pulled.

Softening, softening, softening. Oh gosh, it feels so hard to write that. Why? As though the unlearning of what I believe confidence to be is the unlearning of something so ingrained. And I know that those around me would see confidence as being something that comes with ease for me. And in many ways it does, because it was such a currency in our childhood - we weren’t allowed to be anything else (at least that is my reflection). It was taught as a life lesson, a skill - and I am grateful in many ways. Yet there is a rebalancing that I sense now, writing this, that is still in play. A settling in of what I know in my deepest self: of how it feels when I am fully aligned and what I perceive true confidence to be. So the answer here is softness. A surrendering into the everything. And with that surrender comes the most profound confidence I can ever imagine. I am smiling as I write this. It feels like such deep truth. That when we fully surrender, and are no longer pushing out or being pulled along or trying to pull things our way, then, THEN, we are standing in our most confident self. I’m mindful here that my definition of confidence may be changing. And perhaps others reading this would see I’m describing something else, but here, right now, writing this, this is how it feels. So, becoming aligned with what I imagine and what I experience means surrender (and that feels like a joyful thing).

Oh, my. There is one word that shouts out at me as I read that question. And it’s the very thing that I think so often DRIVES our sense of confidence - or, rather, drives what we perceive confidence ‘should’ be. Ego. That is what I need to release. The fragility of that egoic part is what has created the brittleness and defensiveness of the past. It’s the part that can not bear not to know, the part that finds being wrong so hard, the part that wants to always get things right, the part that hates to be at a loss, to be fragile, vulnerable, alone. Oh. That part. Bless her tender heart. And of course, I can not release her, because she is a PART of me - and as such she is worthy of my warmest love. So maybe ‘release’ here means something else. Rather than ‘let go’ it means ‘let be’; it means allow. To notice when she gets agitated and put that pale blue cloak around her shoulders and remind her she is loved. Remind her that there is nothing she needs to do to be worthy, she is enough just as she is. Remind her she is not alone, that I am here - that ALL the many parts of me are here - and that together we will find our way through.

That confidence is not a hard thing. It’s not a tough thing. And that so often what I have perceived as confidence in the past was a pretence. True confidence is a pale blue cloak that both protects and reveals me. With confidence comes vulnerability - and that is my truest strength. That when I falter (as I know I will at times) then all I need remember is that everything is possible, I simply need to surrender into what will allow it to be so. That sounds a bit… something… can’t think of the word. I need to explore that idea a little more: I simply need to surrender into what will allow it to be so. Hmmm. Do I believe that? There’s a part of me that doubts it. But I also sense a part of me that KNOWS it to be true. Because with the surrendering comes the release of all resistance and with that comes a clearer mind, a moving on from the need to control. And therefore a moving on from the clinging to a particular outcome… and an acceptance of what comes. That feels deeply confident to me. A profound trust that everything is as it needs to be. And that all will be well.