What Is Self-confidence And Where Does It Come From?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Yesterday I held a four-hour workshop "I want to change", which was a test of the pen for a large training on the same topic.

We dug deep yesterday. Digging about how to distinguish their true desires from the "correct" and "logical".

They also dug about how a traumatic experience from the past fonites stops in the here and now. And this part of the work is charged with such deep feelings and processes that all day today, doing other things, I feel myself turned somewhere deep inside. I am looking for answers to new questions that have appeared after yesterday's group processes. The topic of changes is so rich that you want to disassemble it again and again, consider it, chew it piece by piece. And so, I want to share one more important piece in this big topic.

I was drawn to listen to Misha Dubinsky's lecture. The topic of the lecture, in fact, is like only for specialists, but it made me come back to it. And, having listened again, I understood why and how it correlates with the theme of changes.

The topic is rich, the thought excites my brain, so I will try to briefly describe the main idea, bypassing the terms and the therapeutic jungle.

Here we have desires. Some are satisfied, some are not very good. Much attention is paid in therapy to investigating how these desires are interrupted and how to satisfy them. And this is a very interesting topic for research. But in this whole topic there is one most important context in which all of these desires of ours are born and live: the desire to be successful, socially adequate, accepted by significant people.

Agree, it's much easier to satisfy your hunger if you eat with your hands. Why bother with these cutlery, does it complicate things? No, it is important for us to like others, to feel that we belong to a society of people that is significant to us.

Why choose clothes to match, if it is more convenient to put on just about anything? Yes, if I am alone with myself, then it may not be so important. What if I'm going on a date? Or business negotiations that are important to me?

Have you heard about such stories when a girl refuses to meet with a man she adores because she cannot choose clothes so that she would feel attractive on a date? And what about a man who refuses to meet with a desired woman because he does not feel confident if there is not enough money in his pocket?

I have seen such stories many times. Why, I’ve been in similar situations myself. And more than once. I didn’t even go to school once because my bangs didn’t fit correctly, but I still couldn’t get them to fit correctly. It was important for me to get the response "everything is ok with you" inside myself. Well, okay, school and bangs are a funny story, there are not funny stories in my experience, but I won't tell you about them. It's important for me to save face in front of the audience. Therefore, I will simply say that I have something to remember, from which everything inside still freezes.

But there are people for whom such things do not float. Such people know how to find a way out of almost any situation. They replace the lack of money for a restaurant with charisma or charm. Or they come up with some kind of dating activity that will overshadow the experience of going to a restaurant.

Ridiculous clothing magically begins to look on them as part of their unique image, as a manifestation of personality that is attractive to those around them.

What is the difference between the first and the second? Those who are ready to give up their life dreams because of self-doubt and those who boldly go to meet the unknown, risking changing their lives, satisfying their own desires?

People often say about such people "he (a) is confident in himself." But such a formulation is so general that it is incomprehensible. More precisely, it is clear what it is, but it is not clear where this stable internal "everything is OK with you" is taken from.

It is important for each of us to know somewhere deep inside that everything that is in me is important. That the world as a whole is glad to me, that for me the way I am, there is a place in the sun. Legal. My. That in this world I have the right to be to the end.

Further, there could be a boring psychoanalytic theory, which tells about the stages of a child's development and how important it is for him in his first years to get the approval of everything that is in him (what he pooped, what he drew, etc.) … I will go through this part a little, so as not to drown in its description, and move from a coherent psychoanalytic theory to the place that most often occurs in practice.

The vast majority of us have parents who are never psychoanalysts. Yes, even if there are psychoanalysts, this does not negate the fact that they are living people with their traumas, dramas and the resulting processes. Therefore, sometimes, where there is a need to know that I will accept people who are significant to me the way I am, I will remain good in their eyes, I get rejection (they reject for deuces, bad behavior, they call them talentless, insult and devalue the type " your hands don't grow from there "and so on).

If the experience of rejection was a lot, then as he grows up, it kind of flows inward.

And so, a person becomes an adult, no longer depends on parents / teachers / substituting the necessary, he can already do whatever he wants with his life, and inside this adult and independent person, voices from the past begin to come to life "How? You will go to work with such a bang how is lakhudra the last one? "," How, here you are like an asshole come on a date, a woman in a restaurant will order caviar with truffles, and you will turn out to be a complete loser and you will not be able to pay for dinner? "," How? The tone of your underwear does not match shade of your eyes and you will come all so not stylish and your prynts will be disappointed in you, will expose you in your imperfection."

I exaggerate, of course, in examples. But the bottom line: an inner critic begins to sound inside, who questions his own goodness. The more significant a person, or society, or project, the louder and more significant this critic begins to sound. Sometimes he reacts so quickly to internal impulses and desires that many of them die without being born, not even reaching the realization:

"Yes, I don't really like this lakhudra, I'd better sit at home", "Oh, I feel bad, I'll write an SMS to a prick with refusals, and I'll go on a diet myself", "Come on, all of you, miserable people, evaluating my bangs, but you finally mean nothing to me!"

We all need a good inner parent who will lovingly look at our inner child, in which all the wishes live, which means a huge power of life energy that allows us to cope with difficulties, to risk going where there is a place for our desires.

This is the difference between people who find ways out of different situations, do not worry about what everyone in the world will think of them. The so-called confident people have a lot of inner support, an inner advocate, an inner good parent who broadcasts to them "even if you are rejected on a date, I will never leave you", "even if the whole class laughs at your bangs, I will defend you, you should fight for "," even if you fail in these negotiations, you will remain a talented negotiator, we will just look for new strategies. You can be wrong, but you still remain good, you will learn everything. " These are the words that many of us have lacked in experience. These are not even words, this is such an experience - I remain good for those who matter to me. Even if I am greatly mistaken in something, even if I am far from ideal.

I know from my personal experience and from the experience of my clients and friends what it feels like when an inner critic paralyzes his own "wants", questions his attractiveness and goodness in general. And, at times, and your right to just be. Sometimes this critic grows to such an extent that in order to survive, you need to go into depression. In depression and apathy, everything is cut down, this is such an emergency switch that is turned on in order to stop the destruction. Such a kind of emergency mode.

I know in the same way how inner shame cuts off your cherished desires and aspirations at the root. And this is a very important and significant topic for me. Because I know to what extent this story can grow and how it feels to be in such an experience.

What to do?

Anticipating this question, I indicated that here I can only share a theory. Because traumas in a relationship can only be straightened out in other ways. In those in which there is no eternal depreciation, shame and rejection, but there is an experience of acceptance and support. And here is the same loving look, broadcasting "I see you different - mistaken, doubting, unseen, but you are still good for me." This was not enough from the parents. And it is also possible to correct such injuries in a relationship where there is a parental figure. In therapy, it is taken over by the therapist if a working alliance is formed between the client and the therapist, that is, mutual trust. A partner, or friends, is unlikely to be able to become such a figure. For such a relationship initially presupposes equality of roles and exchange.

BUT.

There is one practice that will not replace therapy, but will definitely help get things off the ground. What you can do if you want in a relationship with yourself.

This recipe, as usual, is simple to describe, but requires painstaking inner work: watching your inner critic.

Study it by parameters: when it sounds louder, and when it is not. What intonations does it usually sound within you. What words. With what volume. When he pushes you into doubts about yourself, and when he cuts in at full capacity and inside a hail of self-devaluation and self-abuse poured in. In general, study this part of yours in as much detail as possible.

This practice allows you to interrupt automatism in several ways:

1. First, as soon as you are able to neutrally observe this inner critic, you separate from him. That is, you observe this critic with some other part of you. And then he ceases to completely possess you, he has boundaries and he ceases to be absorbing you.

The most important thing here is not to slow him down, that is, not to scold yourself for scolding yourself, but simply to observe. Otherwise, it’s a return to the same circle.

2. Also about the boundaries of this critic. The more you study it, the more you will learn in which places this part of you gains its power, and in which situations the aggression directed at yourself subsides

The better you recognize this mechanism, the less unconscious = automatic it becomes.

And sooner or later, after ten thousand times or after a million, you will be able to push it back. In other words, you will have the opportunity to arbitrarily choose what to rely on in yourself. For if I am well and clearly aware of how I am doing something with myself, I have the opportunity to choose how I do something differently.

But I want to say right away that this is not a fast path. For if this mechanism has been working in you for more than a dozen years, it would be strange if you stopped it for one or two times. No need. Abrupt and drastic internal changes are not helpful. It is useful to be aware of what is. And the clearer you notice something in yourself that is not suitable for you, the more acute the question arises "how else is it?" And until it appears "differently" the old will not go away (thank God).

3. Balance is important, not extermination

The inner critic becomes destructive and toxic only when it is not balanced by the supportive part. This means that in reasonable doses, the critical part is very useful. Without it, it is easy to sink to the level of a three-year-old child who expects those around him to rejoice at the brought pot of poop.

In general, the complete extermination of the internal critic leads to social maladjustment. Therefore, the inner critic, in general, is a good friend, who allows both to develop and feel good in society. It is only important to balance it with the experience of your inner goodness.

Here you go. On this, perhaps, I will stop.