I hear often the words “if only, then I could” especially any time I begin working with someone we will address the issue of confidence or lack of it.
So let me take you on a self-confidence building journey, grab your tea, a notebook and come sit with me, and let me spin you a story.
The definitions of confidence are as follows.
A FEELING of one’s powers
A BELIEF that one will act right
The STATE of being certain
A RELATION of trust
A RELIANCE on
The SUPPORT of,
A COMMUNICATION of.
Let’s break this down even more.
The first part, A feeling of one’s powers. Take a moment and think what does confidence give you? Only you can answer this as it is different for everyone. Write that down. If I had Confidence I would……
Now can you see yourself doing this action? Stop everything and visualize yourself accomplishing your “I would” story. See yourself having the confidence to do this.
How did that feel? Kinda warmed you up a little didn’t it? Perfect – you have just fulfilled the first definition of Confidence. A feeling.
Can you continue to visualize yourself doing this action daily? Here is where the secret voices in your head can get going to derail you.. the voice from unresolved trauma begins to speak… “what would people think if you did THAT” or “Seriously, what makes you think YOU could do this” or “you don’t think that idea would really work” or anything else that keeps you small and “safe” to this voice. But in reality, this voice is lying to you. It is keeping you in a small safe pattern so that you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t change. The brain doesn’t really like change until you teach it to. Then it can thrive on change and become your best friend. But in order to do that, we have to retrain the brain’s pathways that it is actually safe, secure, and fun to change.
The way this works is by training the Limbic System, otherwise known as the Emotional Center of the brain. This part of the brain is where every trauma, memory, thought process, responses to situations, emotional state, and life experiences are stored, not only yours but also those of your parents and grandparents on up through all the generations to the very beginning. The brain isn’t overly systematic in situations, just did it feel good, or did it not, was I safe or not. If it is not a great feeling then we create a story to make sure we don’t feel that way again. This can be done without much conscious attention on our part. But ultimately our brains like us to feel good and safe and have created a world explained by stories to ensure that this can happen. Any potential change to this story, the voices or narrators of our story show up to ensure we don’t change. i.e. the limbic brain goes on high alert.
So how do we relax and rewire this portion of our brain so that positive change can occur? The limbic brain relies on the five senses to survive, smell is one of those. In fact, the reliance on smell is so important that the olfactory bulb is located within the limbic portion of the brain! When we smell things our brain categorizes them as either safe or unsafe smells and remembers that for a lifetime, or as epigenetic are showing we may even pass this information down through the generations. This is how we have survived, in many ways smell is written in stone. Safe or unsafe. When we smell roses, our brain draws a mind move based on past experiences and those experiences are safe and we relax. When we smell rotting meat our brain goes on defense or high alert and the stress response heightens.
Here is where I love using Young Living’s essential oils to assist me. I use one or more of the essential oils Awaken, Cedarwood, Clarity, Cypress, Bergamot, Genyus, KidPower, Rosemary, Orange, Stress Away, Sandalwood, Ylang Ylang, Winter Nights, or Valor by opening the bottle and inhaling deeply. From here, I then picture myself doing the action or having the confidence (that you wrote down earlier), inhaling the oils deeply again. I like to make sure I inhale with both nostrils left and right while picturing and creating that action one more time.
If you follow along with how I just showed you with the oils, you will be doing what is called brain training. This training creates a BELIEF that one (you) will act right, and have begun the action of creating the STATE of being certain, simply because you have calmed the negative narrator and seen yourself (though your brain) being certain and creating a safe action.
Your next steps? Consistency.
What are you doing to consistently reinforce this new way of feeling and then acting? Those are the next steps to write down, If I had confidence I would do ABC and for me to do XYZ, I have to take these action steps.
Now breath in your oils and see yourself taking those action steps every morning. This is creating within your brain a RELATION of trust and a RELIANCE on your new idea. THEN reward yourself by DOING those steps!
Finally, who in your team, family, friends will support you with this new change?
Don’t have one? I would love to welcome you to ours.
The main reason I created Our Essential Life (link bit.ly/Drjessica), was to not only teach these tools to women but also offer them a safe, loving, supportive community that could fully celebrate these new life changes.
Need more information on this subject? I have a whole course that takes you through each of these steps to create your Life Dream! (link LifeDreamToday.com)
And that my dear is the final definition of confidence you need. The SUPPORT of, or a COMMUNICATION of. your new plan. I can’t wait to meet you and watch you transform.