A journaling exercise to boost confidence
I recently saw an energy worker who told me my solar plexus and throat chakras were a little out of whack.
She said specifically I should work on confidence, and that I should use that confidence to speak up and use my voice.
I write a lot about self-acceptance and self-love. You might think I'm a super self-accepting and self-loving being. But that's not true. Often I write the words I need to hear myself. I've come a long way in the self-love arena, but I'm still in it, fighting off self-doubt and negative thoughts.
During the session, she asked me why I wasn't confident. And I struggled to come up with a good answer. When I came home, I decided to journal to explore the why. Understanding is the first step toward improvement.
Here are the questions I used as journal prompts. I found this exercise helpful, so I'm sharing them with you:
What scares me most?
Why does this scare me?
What would help me overcome this fear?
When do I feel most confident?
When do I feel least confident?
Why don't I feel confident in these situations?
What might make me more confident?
My key takeaway from this exercise is that I'm afraid of failure. Not by anyone else's standards, but by my own (which are incredibly high). I need to work on releasing expectations and just focusing on enjoying the present.
I was hoping for some new insight — some magic pill that would make this better, like eating more carrots. Instead, it reinforced and reminded me to continue to work on the very same thing that helped me during recovery ... and that I preach to my yoga students. I'm still on this journey, too.
“When you release expectations, you are free to enjoy things for what they are instead of what you think they should be. ”
Practice and all is coming ... on and off the mat.