How To Trust Yourself
Hello everyone.
Today I'm gonna to talk to you about self trust.
Most of all, I'm going to teach you how to trust yourself.
Self trust can be summed up
as the assured reliance
on your character, ability, strength and truth.
Most of us have spent our lives listening to our parents,
to our government, to our teachers and to our bosses.
We've been raised with the idea
that we do not know what is best for ourselves.
Instead we're taught that other people who
"know more than we do",
know whats best for us.
Because of this, we choose what we think we are supposed to choose.
We try to live according to what our society says is right.
We allow ourselves to be who we are told that we are.
And we are caught in an endless struggle of seeking approval
and reaching for recognition.
The result is that we lose trust in ourselves.
The cost of shaping ourselves
to fit the desires preferences and expectations of others,
is losing ourselves.
And when we lose ourselves we become frozen without direction,
unable to make our own choices.
In my opinion, the two most painful states
that you can be in, in this particular universe
is the state of self-hate
and the state of self-distrust.
But the funny thing is,
one of them comes from the other.
Self-hate comes from self-distrust.
Self hate is the result of you proving to yourself
that you are not on your side.
Instead of beating around the bush,
I'm just going to jump right into the tips.
I'm going to give you a handful of tips
for how to begin to trust yourself.
Tip number 1 is:
Develop Self-Confidence.
Self-trust and self-confidence are like a married couple.
They go hand in hand.
When we use the word confidence,
what we mean is your ability to depend on yourself.
If you don't have self confidence
you wont feel able to depend on yourself.
When we understand that lack of self-trust
goes hand in hand with self-confidence,
we can easily see that not trusting ourselves,
is a self-worth issue.
It's an issue if devaluing and invalidating ourselves.
We don't trust ourselves,
we lack self esteem
and we do not perceive our own values.
One of the reasons that we don't trust ourselves
is that we do not accept our own abilities, talents,
intentions, and value.
This means, that step one is,
you have to begin to acknowledge
and take not of your own abilities,
your strengths your talents, your virtues.
Anything that you could see as positive about yourself,
is going to enable you to find more trust in yourself.
Tip number 2 is:
Allow yourself to do what you're good at
and what comes easily to you.
We live in a culture that's based around the idea
that effort is virtuous.
You'll notice that things
which you are really passionate about,
that you are meant to do, are actually things that you are very good at.
But we keep telling ourselves the lie,
that anything worth having is hard won.
So we don't allow ourselves
to the thing which comes most naturally to us.
This is a detriment to society
because imagine the kind of society we could have
if we could allow ourselves to specialize in what they're good at?
And allow other people to specialize in what they're good at?
And now we have the perfect society made of people who specialize
at what they are good at.
If you continue to do things
that you are not good at, that you struggle at,
that you think you need to or should do,
you'll continue to feel as if there's something wrong with you,
as if you're not good enough.
This will decrease your ability to trust yourself.
If we always feel as if it is a struggle to do things,
we will always feel as if we are behind the pack.
So own up to the things which you excel at
and focus on designing your life around those things.
Give yourself permission to take pride in them.
And give yourself credit for your successes.
These steps will give a hefty boost to your self confidence
and subsequently, your self-trust.
If we're doing the things which we're really meant to be doing,
which really give us joy, and of course, we honest about that,
what you'll notice is that they are effortless.
Even if you have to extend some sort of energy towards them,
it wont feel like effort.
It's not going to feel like struggle.
Tip number 3:
Let go of your attachment to finding the right answer,
and instead, find your right answer.
those of us who have a decreased self-confidence
and a lack of self trust,
are obsessed with idea of right and wrong.
We have to figure out the right answer.
The problem is, we cant get anyone to agree.
Because this life is lived through perspective.
And no one person share their perspective exactly
with someone else.
That means, everyone is going to disagree.
Those of us who don't trust ourselves,
fear making the wrong decisions so much,
that we procrastinate making any choice.
We trust everyone's opinion except for our own.
It's important for us to realize
that when we're facing a problem or decision,
there is no such thing as one right answer,
that we have to somehow find.
So, we have to gain perspective
By eliciting other people's opinions,
but by not weighing them in order to make our final decision.
Instead, we need to make our own decision.
We can use inquiry to question our current perspective
and consciously choose a perspective
which serves our highest good.
Every single person experiences the world in their own way.
So we make decisions about what right,
based on our own individual assumption, judgements
perceptions and past experiences.
And like I said, no two perspectives
will be the same.
And no one can see the situation from your perspective.
Your also never going to be able to have all the information
that you would like to have, in order to make your decision.
You can't know everything.
And so sometimes you have to take a risk
by making a choice anyway.
You cannot find a right answer,
all you can find is your right answer.
Tip number 4 is:
Take risks.
Even if those risk might result in mistake
or what you would call failure.
Those of us who don't trust ourselves,
hate the idea of taking risks,
because we hate the idea of mistakes,
because our self worth
is so wrapped up in getting everything right.
But here's the thing,
if you don't take a risk, you've failed already.
I'll tell you a personal story;
Way back when, I was in my sports career,
I was a professional skier.
And as usual before races,
I would be in the bathroom throwing up.
Because I hated the idea of potentially losing.
But one day,
I was on the chair lift, on the way up to the start of the racing gate,
and I realized,
I've lost 100% of the races that I didn't run.
It was a really important epiphany for me.
One that people could really benefit by
when they're struggling with self distrust.
We like to think that if we don't take risks, we don't fail.
But the truth is exactly the opposite.
If we don't take the risk, we've already failed.
While it can be scary for us to take risks in life,
It's one of the best ways that we can build our capacity for self-trust.
Taking risks takes courage
and courage makes us feel better about ourselves.
It allows us to see what we're really capable of,
which in turn, helps us to trust ourselves.
And don't forget...
If you don't take a risk,
to see if you can trust yourself,
you'll never know that you can.
Tip number 5:
Take responsibility for your choices
and the consequences of those choices.
Both if they be good, or bad.
Owning the responsibility for the decisions we make is crucial
when we're developing trust in ourselves.
We need to experience both the process of making a decision
and the process of directly experiencing the results of that decision,
so that we can learn.
if we fall into the trap of denying our part in the decision,
or blame others for the decision we made
we end up depriving ourselves of the opportunity to learn.
Likewise if we escape from the consequence of our decisions,
we miss the opportunity for getting the feedback we need,
so we can make different decisions in the future.
This is the same thing as robbing ourselves
of an improved life, in the future.
Also, you can't blame someone else,
without simultaneously acknowledging your own powerlessness.
When we're trying to trust ourselves,
we have to see ourselves as worthy of trust.
We cant see ourselves as powerless and weak,
and trust ourselves at the same time.
When you blame someone else,
you're recognizing them as the victor and you as the loser.
Who are you really going to trust?
Someone who is going to let you down?
By blaming someone else,
you acknowledge the fact that you can let yourself down,
that you are the one who is powerless.
And so, instead of it benefiting you in any way,
you may have removed the blame from yourself,
but you've also acknowledged yourself, as incapable.
Tip number 6:
live your life according to a sense of integrity.
If you don't life your life according to Integrity,
you cannot develop self trust.
Take some time and ask yourself:
"What does integrity really mean?"
You'll find that authenticity and integrity, go hand in hand.
What does it mean to be authentic?
Lack of integrity can reflect out into the world in big ways
such as intentionally sabotaging someone else
or stealing from them.
It can also reflect out into the world in small ways such as,
telling little white lies, gossiping, or not standing up for yourself.
Any lack of integrity, erodes the self concept.
Identify what it means to you personally,
to have integrity.
No one can decide this for you
because no two people have the same values, morals or ethics.
Identify the areas in your life where you are not living with integrity.
And then pick three changes you can make right now
to restore that integrity.
For example, in order to restore integrity
you could write an "I'm sorry" letter to somebody
who you've been feeling guilty about for quite some time.
You could come out of the closet, and admit that you're gay.
You could repay money that you stole, when you were younger...
The list goes on and on.
Tip number 7:
Acknowledge the ways that you do trust yourself.
We, when we identify that we don't trust ourselves,
often feel like that's it's own statement.
"I don't trust myself, period, the end."
But the reality is, we all trust ourselves relative to some things
and we distrust ourselves relative to other things.
And when we're trying to develop our self trust
we have to acknowledge the things
we do trust ourselves with.
When we are looking to develop self trust,
like anything else, we are looking to strengthen a vibration.
Focusing positively toward the ways you already do trust yourself,
strengthens the vibration of self trust.
So me, for example,
I might not trust myself to rebuild a car,
but I can trust myself to make a really good dish for dinner.
Take some time to compile a list
of all the ways that you currently know you can trust yourself.
Compile this list,
by filling in the blanks as many times as you can.
I trust myself to ________.
For example,
"I trust myself to be loyal to the person I've committed to."
Or,
"I trust myself to be loyal to my own happiness
regardless of weather or not that means
breaking a commitment that I have made to someone."
some other examples might be...
"I trust myself to care for my pets."
Or, "I trust myself to do exactly what I say, I'm going to do."
Nothing is too small or too large to be included in this list.
Any kind of trust,
no matter what it is in,
is important because it is trust.
Tip number 8:
Listen to your feelings.
Feelings always have an important message to share.
They always have value.
Most of in this world have no idea
what emotions actually are.
We've lost touch with the fact
that they are the compass leading you through life.
They are always the instant feedback about the truth
of who you are and where you are in this moment.
If you're ignoring that,
then you're out of touch with yourself completely.
The average person views feelings as a menace,
something to fight, something he or she is powerless to,
a drawback, and even something to distrust.
The average person has no idea what purpose they serve.
So most of us are living in a tug of war
between being a slave to our emotions
and flipping around to wage war with them.
We have a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry
set up to make a profit from chemically aiding people
to suppress their feelings and change them.
This is especially sad considering that your feelings are the compass
guiding you through this adventure called life.
They are all the guidance you will ever need.
That's why intuition speaks to you via the root of your feelings.
It is only when you ignore your feelings,
that you become convinced that your feeling have ever failed you,
or are negative in nature.
This tip goes hand in hand wit the last tip,
when it comes to trusting yourself.
And the reason I saved this one for last is because
it is the Holy Grail of self-trust.
The reason you don't trust yourself,
Is because you have made
a living practice of abandoning yourself.
The reason that you don't trust yourself,
is because you abandone yourself.
You do this by not listening to
and not honoring your feelings.
You violate your boundaries,
you run from your negative emotion.
The Holy Grail
of learning to trust yourself,
is to stop abandoning yourself.
So, I've invented an acronym.
The acronym is STAY
Stop Abandoning Yourself
The first way to stop abandoning yourself
is to stop running away from your negative emotions.
This might sound a little interesting
because self help experts like myself
are always trying to teach you how to feel better.
But the reality is, when you are attempting to fell better,
or feel different,
some part of you is abandoning the truth of how you actually feel.
Have you notice that when you start to feel negative emotion,
that negative emotion,
is overlaid with a kind of panic.
It's overlaid with a kind of panic because
one aspect of you being knows that the minuet you feel bad,
your gonna want to escape yourself
and escape that feeling.
You can't try to escape a feeling
without simultaneously trying to escape yourself.
That is the same as abandoning yourself.
So what we do
when we're learning to trust ourselves, is exactly the opposite.
Instead of trying to feel better
or change our emotions or escape the way we feel,
we learn to completely be with our emotionalism unconditionally,
regardless of weather they feel good, or feel bad.
This teaches you
that no matter how you feel,
you will be there for yourself.
Which is the opposite of how the people in your childhood life,
dealt with you.
Their participation and approval of you,
was conditioned upon you feeling good.
Every time you felt bad,
they tried to immediately change it as if something was "wrong"
or they tried to leave,
until you felt better.
All of those types of actions
taught you to do the same thing to yourself.
And a lot of us do it in very harmful ways.
A lot of us use addictions.
We try to escape our emotions
by doing something that ultimately harms ourself.
So the message is, when I feel bad,
not only am I going to try to escape myself,
(which is abandoning myself)
I'm also going to harm myself, as well.
I teach a process which enables you
to be with yourself unconditionally
in my other video on YouTube titled:
Healing The Emotional Body
So if I were you,
I would look back at that video, and follow that process
and it will help you to learn how to not abandon yourself
by running away from negative emotion.
If you begin to stop abandoning yourself
when you're experiencing negative emotion,
you will come to trust that you will always be there for yourself.
You will feel a deep sense of inner peace arise within you,
a deep sense of inner peace you never knew could exist.
The next part of the equation,
of not abandoning yourself,
is to develop healthy boundaries.
So I'm going to talk to you about boundaries for a minute.
Boundaries basically means
having a sense of self versus other.
When it come to participating in the physical dimension,
the individual perspective,
and experience is what is currently serving the expansion of this universe.
And so, we perceive a difference
between ourselves and the rest of the world.
This individual perspective is a kind of boundary
that defines us form everything else.
We have to hear again and again from self help experts and physiologist
that it is crucial to our well begin to develop healthy boundaries,
but what are boundaries really?
Boundaries are guidelines for how someone relates the self
to the rest of the world.
They are rules of conduct
built out of a mix of beliefs,
opinions, attitudes past experiences
and social learning.
Personal boundaries operate in two directions,
affecting both the incoming and the outgoing interactions between people.
Personal boundaries help to define and individual
by outlining likes and dislikes,
what is right for them personally, or wrong for them personally,
defining these things helps us to know how we will and won't be treated
by ourselves and by others.
Here are some sign that you may have unhealthy boundaries:
Saying yes when you mean no,
or no when you mean yes.
Feeling guilty when you say no.
Acting against your integrity or values in order to please.
Not speaking up when you have something to say.
Adopting another persons beliefs or ideas so that you're accepted.
Not calling out someone who mistreats you.
Accepting physical touch or sex when you don't want it.
Allowing yourself to be interrupted or distracted to accommodate
another person's immediate wants or needs.
Giving too much just to be perceived as useful.
Becoming overly involved in someones problems or difficulties.
Allowing people to say things to you or in front of you,
that make you uncomfortable.
Not defining and communicating your emotional needs
in your relationships.
Now the biggest problem when it comes to boundaries
is not other people violating our boundaries,
It's us violating our own boundaries.
Every time you let
yourself do something that doesn't feel good to you,
you are violating your own boundaries.
You are betraying yourself.
If you let someone violate your boundaries,
you are violating your own boundaries.
Because you are betraying yourself.
Anytime you go against, your personal boundaries,
you violate yourself, you abandon yourself
and you allow self-hate to rule the day.
I'm going to simplify
the concept of boundaries for you in a very concrete way.
Your boundaries are defined by your feelings.
Your feelings will always tell you
whether a boundary of yours
has been violated.
No matter what boundary it is.
For example, if someone said something that hurt you,
it means they crossed an emotional boundary and you will feel hurt.
Which is you indication that your boundaries need to be reasserted.
Another example could be,
someone ask you to a party which you don't feel like you want to go to,
but you go anyway.
You feel bad. which is you indication
that you have violated your own boundary.
This is why it is so crucial to be in touch
with how you feel all day everyday.
We can think of a boundary as an imaginary line
that defines and separates your personal happiness,
your personal integrity, your personal desires,
you're personal needs and therefore, your personal truth,
from the rest of the universe.
He who doesn't listen to and respect his own feelings,
violates his own boundaries.
End of story!
So it's crucial to start paying attention to
and listening to and discovering how you truly feel.
It's so important for you to know why you like
and what you don't like,
what you want and what you don't want.
To start to define who you are,
and really know who you are,
so that you can live in a state of authenticity.
Because then and only then,
will you be able to live according to your own boundaries.
Because only then,
will you be listening to your feelings.
Your feeling are speaking your personal truth.
It is crucial that we not only know who we are
and what we really want, but also,
that we know that we are know for who we are
and what we really want, by others.
When we are ashamed of who we are and what we want,
we have poor boundaries.
And we are shamed for who we are by others, all the time.
This person has no self trust.
This is the person who's feeling
were invalidated as a child.
So you can understand what led to this issue of yours with self trust,
I'm going to explain a common scenario
that arises from childhood;
A child begins to feel angry
because their parent is always working and never has time to be with them.
The child expresses that anger and is invalidated.
The parent says:
"I spend more time with you than any other parent I know
spends with their child."
And the child is shamed for being ungrateful.
The child learns that the way they feel is not true
and that they should be ashamed for feeling the way they feel.
That emotion is suppressed.
Anger is not acceptable,
so the child creates a false self that cannot express anger
and who says: "thank you", all the time.
Over time he or she believes
that who they really are is happy grateful.
They have never really admitted to the fact that deep down,
they truly feel angry,
So how do you know if you have setup a false self?
You fear other people thinking negatively of you.
Ask yourself these questions:
Do I know what I really want?
Do I let other people tell me what to think
or believe or how to feel?
Do I do things I don't really want to do?
And say yes when I really want to say no, or say no when I really want to say yes?
Am I afraid to let people know how I really feel?
Am I afraid of people thinking negatively of me?
Beginning to pay attention to how you feel and honor your emotions,
which leads to not abandoning yourself,
is like Pandora's box.
You can't open that box and ever close it again.
It changes everything about your life.
Absolutely every aspect of your life will change
as a result of doing this final step
of the how to trust yourself process.
Now, trusting yourself is a process.
It's not something that happens over night.
But trusting yourself is the inevitable byproduct,
of beginning to really honor who you truly are
and admitting to who you truly are.
Have a good week.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com