Finding my confidence

I have been accused of thinking too much, about enjoying introspection too much but it is amazing how different self awareness is when it moves from “something you know about yourself” compared to “something you believe about yourself”. Believe in the truest sense of the word. One that radically changes the way that you act and conduct yourself.

Last week I had one of those moments that feels life changing. It wasn’t anything crazy that happened but rather knowledge about myself turned from something I was aware of to something I genuinely believed. Insecurity is something that I have always struggled with. Through introspection I had rooted most of my self-deprecation to a conversation I had with parents very early in life. I remember clearly being in the second grade and my parents had pulled me aside and said that they had noticed I was bragging a lot and that i needed to be more humble. They told me no one likes someone who is arrogant and that I needed to be humble. This is an incredibly important conversation to have with your child but surprisingly it took deep root in my psyche. I have gone through most of my life with a fear of being perceived as arrogant.

I developed a practice of deflecting affirmation and self-deprecation as a way of combating these perceptions, but of course it appeared the deflected affirmation was perceived as phishing for more affirmation and didn’t do anything to reduce a perception of arrogance but rather reduced my self confidence. I have been working on this for the last few years and thought that I the awareness of this would combat the inclinations. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I really found this new self-confidence.