Information sheet: Confidencer
Confidencer
Lacking confidence, I seem to see it in abundance in everyone around me.
Other people seem direct and assertive while I am evasive and hesitant. Where they self-assuredly work through obstacles or shrug them aside, I shy away or struggle to think my way out. Where they confront, I retreat; where they dissent, I comply; where they reject the unacceptable, I acquiesce in my own downfall. Where they meet face-to-face in the dance of relation-ships, I retreat into a corner with my eyes on the floor. In relation-ships and at work my lack of confidence opens me up to being taken for granted, doormatted and bullied. I've been recognised as a soft touch, someone to put-upon. Passing a policeman in the street I feel guilty, though I've done nothing wrong (or have I?). I worry in case someone else's unhappiness is somehow my fault. In place of certainties I have conundrums. I don't understand how life works.
Confidence seems a remote, magical quality and life a locked door to which I have no key. I plough through self-development books and haunt assertiveness websites only to have it driven home that I lack whatever-it-takes to just do it! If I do manage to take a step for-wards it feels like a confidence trick and I'm soon back where I started.
"Low self-esteem" is usually equated with "low confidence".
The word "esteem" comes from "estimation," which means "measurement". An estimate is made by an estimator who measures something by comparing it to something else. "Self-esteem" is therefore a misnomer: estimation comes not from the self but from others, from whomwe learned how to measure ourselves in the first place.
We have all been measured and estimated by outside forces. Estimations from parents or caregivers primed us to take on board the judgements of teachers and peers at school, and in due course we were exposed to the verdicts of society at large. Examination boards, interviewers, employers, work colleagues, acquaintances, and vari-ous "authorities" all scrutinised us and often found us wanting. We didn’t "measure up". In early life this may have been painfully borne in upon us by punishments and withdrawals of love.
We have often accepted others’ estimations in order to feel loved.
When parents or caregivers withheld love I felt guilty and unlovable. Consciously or unconsciously, I internalised their assess-ments and these became what I now take to be my own estimate of my own self-worth.
This valuation of myself may be so low that I feel incredulous if anyone shows affection or finds me "estimable". They must be delu-ded! How can I possibly live up to their exalted image of me? If I accept it I'm liable to become dependent: they "value" me, "give me value," and if they withdraw it I am cast adrift in a limbo of devaluation. Yet maybe that is easier than living in fear of being found out and unmasked as a nobody. Better to keep a low profile, even at the expense of being intimidated and exploited.
I might try to compensate by gaining qualifications and status or developing a skill. Keeping this show on the road demands constant effort. This could drive me to develop some stress-related illness or condition that provides a warning sign, inviting me to take time out from struggling to prove myself against the odds.
"Self-worth" might seem interchangeable with "self-esteem".
However, it has a quite different meaning. Self-worth arises not from outside estimation but from the life-force of the essential self. My self-worth is my innate value as a living, breathing human being. This will seem to be nothing but an exotic concept if my upbringing and education failed to encourage me to find out about myself. What, then, could possibly remain to be discovered about me that hasn't already been defined by the experts?
What's been left out of the picture is energy. At birth I overflowed with it and through it I embraced a new world. Perhaps some of us can still remember the excitement and optimism and fullness of being we knew in childhood. This is the energy of the real self, which is distinct from the personality moulded by social forces. "Personality" comes from the Greek word persona, which signified a mask worn by actors. The personality is the mask grafted on from outside. The real self is the actor, who has a grasp of the entire drama and a vital comprehension of his or her part in it.
A true definition of confidence is energy.
Energy enables us to feel equal to other people, to our surroundings and circumstances. Energy gives us a sense of comprehension of the world and its ways which is analogous to the comprehension the actor has in regard to the play and his or her role within it. How did we come to lose touch with the energy that gave us faith in ourselves?
As an infant or child under parental or caregiver scrutiny, I might have suspensefully held myself back from expressing my feelings when needs were not met. I vented my disappointment and rage by sobbing and trembling; but wasn't this considered as out-of-order as my scrutinised behaviour? With my need for warm, positive valuation denied and my need to give expression to the resulting stress prohibited, I felt trapped. This insoluble double-bind pushed me into a corner, where I painfully adapted to it. Even then I was criticised for sulking; but I learned to feel at home in corners and seem to have inhabited them ever since.
With repetition over time, a self-effacing personality developed that related to the world only with great trepidation. The resulting disconnect-ion from my bodymind unity leaves me with no real self-awareness – only a dogged sense of unworthiness. Unable to under-stand this process, I attribute my state to "the way I am," "fate," or "genetics".
Counselling and therapy can help us help ourselves to experience our innate confidence.
Talking with a skilled and impartial Centre worker is an important first step; it marks our recognition that we do matter, and that we matter enough to deserve help. A non-judgemental listener provides an opportunity to get hurtful and humiliating memories off our chests by talking about them confidentially. This paves a way for the development of self-understanding, through which we learn how past relationships and experiences could have contaminated the confidence of the real self. Those stresses can be explored at our own pace while gentle encouragement is given to our self-healing powers, which release stress naturally and effectively and enable us to recover our integral sense of worth.