EXPANSION JOURNEY: FROM SELF-DOUBT TO SELF-TRUST
Do you trust yourself?
What might life be like if you were all able to navigate through your experiences with a deeply rooted sense of self-trust?
What might become possible?
Anxiety would lessen.
Tension would melt away.
Fear would significantly diminish.
What is the opposite of self-trust?
If most people aren’t experiencing life through the lens of “I trust myself...” which lens might be a more accurate description?
Doubt.
Self-doubt.
Self-doubt moonlighting as anxiety, tension, and fear.
How often have you thought to yourself,
“Damn, I knew that X would happen… I wish I would have listened to myself.”
Or,
“I wish I would have listened to my intuition…”
“I knew better, I should have…”
Building trust with ourselves is a life-long journey; it’s an ongoing relationship.
As with ANY relationship, it requires attention, presence, and intention to thrive.
And, there will always be natural crests and falls.
Self-trust is less of a destination and more of a journey.
Being alive is the ultimate learning curriculum for our souls.
And what is the best way to learn?
Messing up!
We are supposed to make “mistakes.”
Except they aren’t really mistakes - they’re simply our life curriculum.
For example, even *if* you “knew better,” that particular mistake was - apparently - a required course for your soul.
If it wasn’t - you wouldn’t have made the choice you did.
If you truly “knew better,” then chances are you would have made the “knew better” choice.
We will keep re-experiencing the chaos, discomfort, and unrest that comes from the consequences of our choices until we have fully integrated the lessons we learned.
Once we start to implement our wisdom (which is the process of becoming embodied), then we start to feel more trusting of ourselves.
It’s when we don’t take the time to slow down enough to process the lessons we’ve learned, integrate them, and then become embodied in the wisdom of them, that we further damage our sense of being able to trust ourselves to navigate through life with integrity.
As we go through the process of “messing up” (aka living), we are either building a stronger relationship of trust with ourselves, or we are fueling our self-doubts.
I define self-trust as: the ongoing process of strengthening one’s self-relationship such that one can rely upon oneself to respond to life with integrity.
Integrity: the state of being whole and undivided.
Integrity is being in constant communion with that which matters the most to you - your values - and then choosing to respond to life in alignment with those values.
That’s what being whole and undivided means - being united within yourself.
To live from a place of internal wholeness and unity is easier said than done.
How often do we SAY we want to be a certain way, but then behave in the opposite way?
For example, “courage” is a core value of mine.
I say that it’s important.
I desire to be courageous.
When I watch a movie and one of the characters makes a courageous choice, I associate myself as being “like” that character.
And yet, the reality is that I’m not always courageous.
I don’t *automatically* respond to life with courage.
There have been *many* instances in which life presented me an opportunity to respond with courage, and I did not choose that.
Instead, I’ve chosen to hide. To sugarcoat. To avoid. To procrastinate. To shirk off to someone else.
What were the consequences of my behavior?
Among the damage done to my relationships with others, the main consequence within myself was that I LOST integrity with me.
I began to doubt that I could trust myself to interact with the world in a courageous way.
Doubting myself then led to a subtle hum of anxiety, which built tension.
That tension then shifted my energy.
The energy I was emitting shifted who and what I attracted into my life.
It’s a cycle - every choice we make ripples out beyond us, impacting our lives in a variety of seen and unseen ways.
I’m not sharing this to frighten you, but to explain what is at stake.
Our choices MATTER immensely.
It’s the build-up of our choices over time that either STRENGTHENS or ERODES our self-trust.
Which then directly impacts our quality of life.
If you’re reading this blog, then I’m guessing that you desire to have a HIGH quality of life. You do not want to be limited by your auto-pilot, habitual behaviors.
I imagine that you don’t feel satisfied living in an anxious, tense, or self-doubtful way because you know it’s possible for you to Expand into living in a self-trusting, integrous way!
This brings me to the final chapter of our topic: the five steps I have implemented (again and again) in order to cultivate and strengthen self-trust.
A Five-Step Method to Cultivate Strong Self-Trust
1. Spend time contemplating what your values are.
Spend a significant amount of time contemplating what YOUR authentic values are. Your CURRENT, updated values. What matters the most to you? What are your ideal “ways of being?” Narrow this down to five or fewer. Simple and powerful. How do you want to BE each day? For example, mine are courage, authenticity, generosity, and love. I want to be courageous, authentic, generous, and loving.
2. Connect with your values, intentionally, daily.
I recommend checking in with them every morning so that you can consciously infuse your day (and your actions) with your values. If you don’t do this, chances are your well-formed habit patterns will run the show - which are rarely in alignment with your chosen values.
3. Practice pausing before reacting to life.
The difference between reacting and responding is, generally, a matter of spaciousness. Instead of replying immediately to that text or email, can you take some deep breaths? Clear your mind? Interrupt your auto-pilot program? The more space you can give yourself to take in life before reacting, the more responsive you’ll become. The more responsive you become, the more you'll be able to respond in alignment with your values.
4. Practice forgiving yourself when you break integrity.
You are human. Being alive is the curriculum for your soul. You’re going to fuck it up. For sure. You will make the “should-have-known-better” choice sometimes. You might feel shame. You might feel guilt. Those are both features of the human experience. How swiftly you shift into self-forgiveness-mode, and taking-responsibility-mode, will determine whether you sink into self-doubt + self-loathing OR expand into greater self-trust.
In those instances when you “mess up,” so to speak, take the time to state to yourself what you COMMIT to doing differently, next time. It’s not enough to hope you’ll make a different, go the extra mile, and detail, for yourself, how you will respond next time.
5. Rinse and repeat steps 2-4.
Every day or as often as needed.
How will you know when you’ve strengthened self-trust? When your levels of anxiety, doubt, and fear have lessened.
Instead of bracing yourself for the unknown calamities each day, you’ll feel more at ease with life.
Perhaps even optimistically curious about what might unfold next?
This is my dream for all of us:
To soften our edges, lower our guards, and gaze with curious wonder at this wild, weird, wise existence we are in.
I hope this blog topic and five-step method support you on your journey of Expanding into your most integrous, joyous, and radiant self!
With love,
Zoë
p.s. I absolutely love hearing from you, if you resonate with this blog, it would mean so much to me to read a comment from you!
But it requires something of you: a total mindset shift. A willingness to GIVE UP your doubt, fear, and endless-analysis and instead make bold, faith-based requests of the Universe.
“Dear Universe, please guide me to the best-case-scenario for X….”
The Unknown is Life. Discomfort is life.
I am sharing this story from my life to BLESS YOU UP.
To crack open your being so that you may spill out into the world in new ways.
Anything is possible. Life is utterly limitless.
May all of your worst-case-scenarios alchemize into best-case-scenarios instead. May your moments of despair lead to the longings of your soul being materialized.
With love, love, love, and more love,
Zoë