Confidence is key in having a life well lived I believe. In order for us to be able to act upon the desires that we have, we must first possess confidence enough to allow ourselves to have such desires.
I had a conversation with a friend and we were talking about vision boarding, really allowing yourself to dream HUGE with no limits and put on paper everything and anything that you desire in this life.
Upon further discussion my friend revealed that she wasn't able construct a vision board because she had never allowed herself to think beyond where she was at, and by asking her to dream as big as she could she had found that she wasn't comfortable seeing herself in a different light than the one she had on now.
I was perplexed about this because I knew that she wasn't happy where she was at which is what led us to the conversation about dreams in the first place. I asked her why she had felt uncomfortable with dreaming and it really became clear to me that she wasn't confident enough in herself to even theoretically put herself in a situation that allowed for dreams to come true.
Where did this lack of confidence come from? How are we so conditioned to accept where we are and be grateful for what we have that we don't allow ourselves to comfortably dream about a bigger, bolder life?
I can remember what it felt like to feel so stuck in your life that it felt impossible for anything to change. How could I imagine myself living an incredible life when I was so deeply uncomfortable living my rather plain and boring regular life, it didn't make sense to me to even try.
Confidence is something we are all born with, children have confidence in themselves and their abilities to jump off of stairs that they can barely climb and know they will be ok. They go up to other children that they have never met at the park and invite them to play, no judgment or fear just pure attraction and interest. They go with their heart and dive right in. Kids don't care if their hair is a mess, or if they have left their toys out and their playroom is a disaster or who their parents work for or what colour their skin is. The confidence they possess from birth is enviable and admirable and somewhere along the way we have either been taught to be more conservative and conscious of others thoughts, feelings and impressions of us or we have been taught that our worth lies in superficial and unrealistic expectations.
Either way we have let our confidence slip away or worse be taken away by other people. When we lose our confidence we begin to lose our essence. Confidence is what powers us to make choices based on heart rather than logic, to go after what feels right rather than what feels responsible, and to desire what feels good rather than what feels safe.
Confidence is the life that runs through our blood as without it we cease to live and we are merely existing, often that existence is dictated by someone or something else and is in no way authentic to who we are.
In my former life when I was indulging in self pity and loathing regularly I had no confidence, I couldn't even pick what I wanted to eat for dinner for fear that I would be judged by others around me. I was 27 years old and I was pushing 300 lbs., the heaviest I had ever been and ultimately the most self conscious I had ever been.
When we lack confidence we seem to gain ego, and what I mean by that is we start thinking that everyone around is judging us. They are watching what we eat, what we say, how we dress, who our friends are, what our job is, where we live, what we drive and so on. We think that the world has us under a microscope and is watching our every move just waiting to pounce and pour judgment all over us. The reality is that we are the only ones who are so aware of what we are doing, sure others are thinking the same thing as you but they are thinking it about themselves and NOT about you.
A confident person doesn't look to others to validate or authorize their thoughts, feelings or actions because they know from a place deep within that their actions are authentically their own. When we do something from a place of confidence we don't have to look back on it and wonder how it will be perceived in the world, we are just happy to have the opportunity to put our genius out into the world for others to enjoy and observe. We are able to make decisions out of love, like and desire rather than out of ego, fear and shame.
When we allow ourselves to truly recognize the incredible beings that we are and the immense beauty, strength and experiences that we are meant to invite into our lives we allow ourselves to be free. Free from fear, free from ego, free from judgment and free from living and un-lived life.
Please my friends and friends to be, please don't ever stop living your life on your terms and feeling beautiful, graceful, strong and incredible in every moment because you haven't reached some ridiculous social standard of weight, prestige, status, wealth etc.
Understand that you are unique and that is AWESOME, you are so special that there can never be more than one of you, you are un-replicable and that makes you priceless! We have insecurities about one thing or another at one time in our lives, that fear can motivate us to make changes, make decisions and move mountains when we use it as a point of reference rather than a landing point.