Doubting yourself vs. TRUSTING yourself ✨
How many ways do we doubt ourselves? Let me count the ways! It’s become so ingrained in our culture, especially if you identify as a woman, to doubt yourself - what you do, how you dress, how much you do, what you say, what you look like… Yet, this is not our natural state. We weren’t born doubting. We learned to doubt. And we can make the empowered CHOICE to begin to TRUST. Yes, it’s a choice, and it can be practiced and learned.
This was one of those weeks where I sat and wrote and wrote, and still was unclear what my exact message was. I think because there was SO MUCH to share within it all.
So I decided to scrap all of that and start over.
What I really need to share with you today is this realization of just how much we doubt ourselves. And we think it's normal, or don't even think about it at all, because we're so used to it and it's gone unconscious for the most part.
There are so many ways we can doubt ourselves. We can doubt:
what we wear
what we say
what we do
how much or how little we do
our value and worth
who we are
what we want
what we decide
Maybe you’re thinking of others ways you doubt yourself right now too.
But with as many ways as there are to doubt ourselves, there are just as many ways available to trust.
I keep hearing this call right now to TRUST ourselves more.
Just like everything we do, there is a positive intention behind the doubting. I know with the things I've doubted, the positive intention was often to help me succeed, to avoid pain, or to figure out the "best" solution.
The positive intention usually isn't obvious but if you do some inquiring it's always there.
But doubting ourselves is something we learn, and not our natural state of being, which is more intuitive and instinctual. It's a pattern or conditioning that was added.
In the natural state of who we are, there's no need to doubt.
Women especially are unconsciously taught to doubt themselves. You can notice it in so many ways including the way we use our voice. For many women, there's a fear to speak up, to share your honest opinion, or to ask for what you want. For example, you can hear it in intonation, when the questioning upward tone is used at the end of sentences, even when it's a statement or a command.
One of my favorite teachers, Mama Gena, speaks so well about this doubt that women especially feel, how it affects us from a cellular level all the way out into the world. We doubt our desires, our power, our instincts... It’s become ingrained in our genetics, and so commonplace.
But it can be changed, and it’s time to change it.
I’m being called to trust myself by trusting the messages I hear from my inner wisdom and from the Universe.
By trusting my choices and decisions.
By trusting where I’m at in life.
Trusting the process.
Trusting in the support that is always here for us.
It’s a radical idea to not doubt and to not worry, isn’t it? 😝
I’m feeling an ease in trusting who I am and what I have to offer in the world. This is a huge area where I used to doubt, yet now I feel grounded and peaceful in those knowings.
I’m trusting a decision to do less and simplify. It's so in line with the seasons as we transition into Fall! And in a society that worships busyness, you can probably understand why it would be easy to doubt these messages. Yet, I trust. I'm trusting like never before.
There are so many things we can do to help ourselves trust more. But more than anything, it’s a CHOICE and a DECISION we can make within ourselves, to first become aware of the ways we’ve been doubting ourselves, and then to choose to switch our energy to trusting.
It happens in our mind and at an emotional, spiritual, and energetic level.
Over the next couple weeks I want to share with you specific things that are helping me embrace TRUST and let go of doubt. Things like simplifying, clearing out the noise, connecting to myself, and being kind to myself in the process.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this:
We are SO POWERFUL when we trust ourselves.
Xoxo,
Angie
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The chaos, the critic, and TRUSTING ✨
photo credit: Jess Lowman Photography