Self-Belief Displacement is an excerpt from my in-progress book, To Do Your Work.
To understand this third pressure point, let’s begin with this definition:
Self-Belief Displacement occurs within the mistaken notion that external authority is a more reliable source of truth than the self-belief of personal power.
To negate self-worth, Power-Over attacks self-belief.
Self-Belief expresses as self-confidence and a belief in personal capacity and discernment.
Self-Belief trusts self and trusts self as the primary source of truth. When Self-Belief is strong, Power-Over has a difficult, if not impossible, task in asserting control. A strong sense of self-belief is the foundation for a balanced and enduring sense of self-worth. One cannot exist without the other.
Self-worth asserts value of the self, of the self’s character, capacity, and coherency.
Self-Belief is the presence and acceptance of self-worth.
Thus, Power-Over maintains self-belief is untrustworthy without the input and direction of outside authority. By requiring proof of personal value, Power-Over reasons there is nothing within the self which can be reasonably relied on as truthful. Self-belief is given a no-confidence vote. Thus, to be able to live life in safety and beyond fearful attack, the individual must turn away from inner awareness and place confidence in outside experts who can safely steer away from threat and harm.
This diminishment opens the door for Power-Over to displace personal belief and instill its own belief system. The belief system of the dominant power dynamic supplants individual self-belief. With this co-dependency, Power-Over gathers momentum to spread and assert its agenda and control.
Without the trust and self-confidence inherent in Power-Within, and with a focus on external authority, personal choice is made based on the needs of external demand. Disconnected from personal power, personal behavior will follow the beliefs of Power-Over even when to do so is contrary to self’s best interest.
Warning of the unknown and its potential danger, Power-Over makes in-roads by dismissing the capacity and viability of personal power. Within the awareness of danger, Power-Over sows doubt and moves to assure safety only if the external authority is accepted.
The fallacy here is simple. Guarantees of 100% certainty are fictious at best. Fallibility is inherently possible within any human choice, action, or belief. Mistakes and erroneous predictions are not limited to any one side within power dynamics. The unknown is present everywhere and is not controllable. Thus, external authority is not definitively better than the self-belief of personal power.
Within self-worth, personal power expresses personal truth and is the dependable source of self-belief to serve the individual’s path and choices. Power-Over’s choices always adhere to the benefit of Power-Over and Power-Over only. Benefit to the individual can only occur within the focus of personal power within.
Inherent within self is the capacity to learn, explore, and understand. Knowing everything is not a requirement or validation for self-worth or self-belief. With the support of self-belief, one can discern the difference between not knowing an idea or concept versus the inherent inner capacity to know and understand.
Also inherent is the self-trust held within self-belief. With trust, the individual can choose life within What Is.
Yet, without the confidence of self-trust, the capacity and belief in self-determination jumps the tracks of life’s journey. The foundation for self-belief is undermined. The powerful intersection of self-worth and self-belief make present the ability to trust, choose, and live life.
With intrinsic self-worth established, personal power inspires life. Power-Within expands, and personal growth and spiritual practice are natural expressions of the exploratory nature of self.
The focus of self moves from the externalized approach of Outside-in to a trusted internalized process of Inside-out. Self-belief steps forward fully embedded within personal power. The power of self-belief creates and reinforces self-confidence and the reliability and capacity of self.
The release path of Self-Belief Displacement is to come to this awareness:
Because my inner core of personal power is trustworthy, I believe in myself.
Let’s explore this further.
My Story
I love stories and have been an eager reader my entire life. I also love to hear a storyteller weave a tale from nothing but a tiny thought or prompt. The creative imagination embedded in a good story is awe inspiring and a joy to receive.
Early on in my journey, I realized I had stories I told me about myself. Some reinforced positive self-belief while other stories hurt and infuriated me. With some stories I remembered the origin, while others seemed to lurk at the darker, unknown edges of my awareness not knowing from whence they arrived.
The habit of telling these hurtful stories had negative thoughts and beliefs echoing in the chambers of my mind and heart. I named the sound of this oppressive habit: critical voice. Maybe you have the same habit? The same critical voice? An inner voice which has nothing to utter but criticism and doubt, judgment and fear.
My critical voice tried to convince me that I was useless, unworthy, the least aware person of all. Plus, this voice constantly repeated the stories which supported my perceived lack of self-worth. Increased attention inflamed the voice to become even more strident, harsh, and incessant. My critical voice gained strength in the repetition of story while stories gathered strength in the repetitious voice inside my awareness.
For days, weeks, months, I was convinced of both the lies of the stories and that I did not have the capacity to break the cycle and overcome the voice. Refraining from not framing each life experience within the criticism and judgment enmeshed in the accusation of voice and story was insanely challenging. One built on the other creating a relentless, insurmountable drone constantly present within my awareness.
As I look back, the thought that I could have a different experience of life seemed remote at the time. Plus, what was happening in my life wasn’t just in the crazy demands of my critical voice.
I was a wife and a mother feeling pressed to deliver a perfect, carefree life to my family. Within the press of these responsibilities, self-care and self-belief became distant experiences.
At that point in my life, my critical voice instilled a self-fulfilling prophecy that I would never get what I wanted no matter what I did or how hard I tried. Joy was to be had by focusing away from my heart towards anyone but me. I followed this voice which worked to a degree. My family was happy and thriving. If my success could be measured by the achievements of others, then I was successful. But I felt a failure, an abysmal flop without excuse.
I tried listening to various spiritual teachers, desperately trying to find the secret to my failure and hopefully to find a path to the perfection seemingly just beyond my grasp. Several of these well-meaning folks explained that success was already mine if only I believed. Like attracts like. If you want success, be success. Arrange your thoughts and behave as if what you want has already happened.
Well, that sounded simple enough, I thought to myself. I can do this. I lined up my thoughts on what I wanted. Day after day. I want this. I want that. On and on until one day I realized I had thought myself into an even darker place of despair. The constant chatter of my critical voice was still present telling me how I thought of myself and my life was wrong. I can’t think what I want and get it. The failure to do so proved the impossibility.
According to the teachers, I had no one to blame but myself because I hadn’t aligned my thoughts properly. I’d allowed thoughts which had dragged in negativity. Hit over the head by evident failure, my critical voice won that round. Self-Belief was sucked down the sink of void and despair.
For me, that was a period of depression like no other. I had never thought myself as unintelligent. But it was the presence of my intelligence which made the failure of aligning thought incredibly painful. My failure to manifest as instructed, I experienced as a failure of my intelligence, of my inner capacity, of me. I had no value to believe in me.
In the failure, my self-belief and my self-trust plummeted. No amount of chocolate chip cookies could resolve the dilemma or reduce the pain.
One day as I was cooking dinner, like I did every day, I stopped and stared out the kitchen window and asked myself this question:
Am I wrong? Am I a failure?
A tiny voice on the other end of the spectrum from my critical voice responded softly but clearly with one word:
No!
I dropped the wooden spoon in my hand. I stepped back and sunk to the floor. A huge wave of relief rolled over me. Then a flood of puffy tears erupted. Frustration – anger – humiliation — shame – huge emotion came pouring out, down my face, and onto the floor. I heaved and gulped and dumped all the false charges and fabricated lies of all those stories hammered into me that said I was at fault from the earliest of my days.
I was not at fault. I was not a failure. I was not wrong.
The soft inner voice spoke clearly and quietly. She nudged me in the opposite direction, calling me to hear from my heart the truth I felt there. No! I am not a failure.
Instead, I am capable. I can create the life I want. I can and do believe in me.
In asking this one question, I shifted the Power-Under response to the habit of my critical voice. In asking, I was questioning the validity of the criticism embedded in the voice and each story. The answer to shifting my self-belief wasn’t in just having positive thoughts. The solution was to challenge the truth of any negative belief and release the oppression of harsh judgment. In doing this, I released judgment on my personal thoughts and began re-telling my personal story.
Looking back, I see I had been trying to find my truth outside of me through external authority. Coached by my critical voice, I did not believe in myself or that I had what I needed. Plus, I’d gone down a path that held certain forms of my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs as suspect, unworthy, and undesirable. Getting what I wanted in life rested first in self-belief and trust in my belief.
My question opened the door to releasing self-judgment. In this shift to self-belief, I learned to deal with negative thoughts by understanding their source and motivation. Instead of blind reaction which creates more self-judgment, if I investigate the story of the negative thought, I can learn important self-truths and past limitations on these truths. In the openness, I found the space to question and explore the validity, release whatever no longer serves, and create a new story for myself which supports the best of me, and opens the door to paths of success emerging from personal power.
In this, I found that there is a motion both within me and beyond me which creates possibility in my life beyond my imagination. Paradoxically, this unseen possibility emerges from my unknown. The unknown need not be feared and avoided. Instead, by seeing negative thoughts and beliefs as a possible source of learning and expansion, I don’t stand in resistance to or judgment of either my critical voice or the negative stories it spouts.
Instead, listening to myself, learning, and questioning reduces the hold of my critical voice over me. In the release, Power-Within steps forward and becomes the focus of my attention. I let go of worry and fear, of self-judgment and self-hatred. I can view and experience my life within thoughtful response rather than reactionary judgment and blame. I embrace the unknown as support rather than threat. Fear is no longer in control in my life.
Under the influence of my critical voice, I could also see I was giving up myself in trade for a guaranteed path toward a promised destination. With the hush, I could also see neither that path nor that destination exists and, more importantly, neither are mine.
It’s not that I can’t have what I want. It’s more about how I understand what I want.
First, want is not destination, want is direction. Want begins my journey. Want is expression of me in a particular moment. Want helps me assemble the requirements of the journey. Want helps me focus on the process of my journey. Within process, within how, my life experience unfolds.
In the experience, I work out the details of my want. By being open to the process, I can be aware of how experience may shift the want. Possibility I hadn’t initially considered can shift the shape of my want as I journey, moving me beyond limits, beyond who I was then into who I am now becoming.
While the superficial directions of external authority are “do XYZ to get ABC,” when I see want as direction instead of evaluating success solely based on attaining ABC, I open the door to the unseen possibilities of DEF and PQR. In other words, want as direction moves me beyond the limits of my imagination and perception, and beyond any remaining bits of critical voice.
Thus, the guaranteed path and promised destination are limitations of perception of the best of me and are no better than the imposition of external authority by Power-Over.
In fact, the whole line-up-my-thoughts business exists superficially if I do not acknowledge how I feel and think in the moment. When I try to tell myself to feel differently without understand the whys and the how-comes, I diminish myself. There is so much more to life than the flatness of a concept or dictate which destroys my belief in myself and turns natural response into proof of failure. My struggle with my critical voice illuminates the power I find within my presence to me, my awareness of the content of my mind and heart, body and soul.
Yes, my focus and my attitude towards life affect my perception and reception of the events and experiences of my life. But to suggest awful things happen because I didn’t think properly and thus attracted a horrible situation is erroneous and detrimental. This judgment on self perpetuates destructive self-criticism, further damages self-belief, and fuels an unrestrained critical voice.
To ask if I was wrong, isn’t to say that I’m not responsible for me in my life – because I am. The question I asked was aimed at examining underlying intention and understanding my inherent worth and value. I was asking if I believed in myself and my capacity to thrive. With the question I uncovered the fallacy of an old failure story of mine.
In a moment of simply asking, the truth of me flowed into my awareness and shifted the trajectory of my life. All those tears shifted my story and made it extremely difficult for my critical voice to ever vocalize again what had now become a release of falseness and a claim of my truthful reality. Because, very simply, in that moment, I claimed my Power-Within!
I am not inherently wrong. I am infinitely capable. I live in my power.
I believe me, in me, for me.
Fallacy of Self-Belief Displacement
Self-belief is a crucial aspect of living life through personal power and claiming Power-Within. Acceptance of your truth, conviction of the validity of self-trust and self-choice support a growing and deepening sense of self-worth.
As the conviction of self-worth expands, self-belief also expands. Proof is not necessary – or, rather, proof is in the experience of self-worth. Resisting the push of Blind Production, personal worth is believed. Self-belief and self-worth go hand in hand with the emerging awareness of personal power.
Thus, Self-Belief Displacement is only possible when self-worth is denied, and personal power remains unclaimed.
The fallacy of Self-Belief Displacement perpetuates this false belief:
As untrustworthy, Power-Within is incapable of safe, self-determination.
This erroneous notion strikes at the heart of self-belief by challenging personal capacity to be safely self-aware. This is a strike at the very foundation of personal power and choice. A strike against the capacity to believe in self. The beginning and the reinforcement of critical self-judgment and self-effacement.
This type of criticism begins in the earliest days of life in the explanations given about behavior, response, and reaction to life’s events.
Emerging from the innate desire to learn, explore, and understand, the personal narrative is formed from stories which explain the nature and tendencies of the individual. While these stories can have positive, personally supportive attributes, the negative factors form the narrative of the critical voice and are reinforced not only by self but also family, friends, and society. A negative feedback loop is created as additional experience is explained by the gathered stories to influence self-perception and community perception of the individual.
Experience creates stories. Stories influence experience. A circular habit, which buries and can obliterate the self’s essential nature and personal growth over time. This effacement empowers the critical voice and increases stories criticizing self.
Blocked by the critical voice, trusting to look inside self for truth, understanding, and knowledge does not feel safe. Power-Within does not appear to be a viable choice in these circumstances.
From a spiritual practice perspective, Self-Belief Displacement sets up an Outside-in approach where truth and knowledge are always sought first outside of self. Outside-in finds self-belief faulty and unreliable. Outside-in is maintained as the only reasonable choice. Outside-in is how the smart people, the good people, the right people live and experience their lives. Outside-in maintains that any other way is too radical and too dangerous to be considered.
When personal capacity asserts itself, Power-Within awakens and begins to direct behavior and choice. Power-Within questions the benefit of Outside-in. Power-Within questions self-judgment and harsh personal criticism. Power-Within prepares self unburdened by a false tale to be the narrator of personal experience.
Power-Within emerges imbued with the truth of its inner capacity. Power-Within shifts attention away from judgment and the Outside-in dictates of what must be. Power-Within focuses on what is here, now, in this moment.
The focus is not on the perceived lack of yesterday or the potential for failure tomorrow. Power-Within arises within the honest assessment of this moment. Power-Within sees the good, the bad, and the neglected. Power-Within seeks truth and trusts self to live without turning on self in judgment and disdain. This is how self moves away from the habit of Outside-in. This is how self claims the truth and support of Inside-out.
Inside-out turns the search for personal truth away from external authority. Inside-out returns the focus of self-determination, self-belief and self-worth to the center of being as the true nexus of personal power. Inside-out doesn’t see inadequacy in self-understanding and seeks expanded understanding wherever truth resonates and supports the awareness of essential self and personal power.
If thoughts and emotions feel negative or unsupportive, the Inside-out approach first seeks to understand the embedded story and belief to find a path of release and connection for all levels of self, body, mind, heart, and soul.
Within Inside-out what was displaced is now restored. Within this restoration, Power-Within can look honestly now at What Is, at the real circumstances of life beyond the delusion of Power-Over. Power-Within identifies that which no longer serves and, in this acknowledgement, retells the story of self as inherently capable and trustworthy. Thus, it is not about eliminating story completely. Rather, through Power-Within, your explanations to yourself about your life speak truth in a manner which supports you and your continued learning and growth.
Daily Life with Self-Belief Displacement
Everyone has issues with self-worth and self-belief.
Thus, self-belief is easily and frequently displaced, whether by a domineering parent, authoritarian teacher, or an abusive spouse. The external message to self is persistently one of doubt, fear, and mistrust.
Everywhere constantly is a barrage of questioning statements, hurtful innuendo, and direct attacks meant to undermine belief and self. Words of discouragement attack foundation and imbue the sense of self with questions to torment, instill doubt, and forced resignation to the inadequacy of personal capacity.
For example, Linda came with questions about improving herself to help her relationship with her boyfriend. Her questions were all about her perceived failures.
“If I can just figure out how to fix myself, then my boyfriend will be happy with me and our relationship will be happier.”
Among her many inadequacies he had counted out, she related the following in one giant exhale:
- I don’t fix his dinner on time.
- I’m not skinny enough.
- I asked him to help pay for the groceries.
- I ignored him while taking care of my daughter.
- I expect too much from him.
Essentially, she was a failure in all ways, and he was doing her a big favor by tolerating her presence in his life.
Often abusive relationships begin with kind words and thoughtful actions. But then, at some point, comes the critical judgment and shaming words meant to undercut confidence and create dependency on the abuser’s superior assessments and beliefs.
When Linda showed up at my door, she had been through eight months of derision and attack which started a month after they moved in together.
“He was so kind when we first met but after the first month of living together, he began to pick at me for this or that. First, his words and actions went unnoticed by me because I was so focused on making sure I was likable. Plus, much of what he described, had a ring of truth. So, at first, I didn’t question his demands or his criticism.”
Linda turned away for a moment. As she turned back, a tear slid down her cheek.
“Last week we got into a fight because he didn’t think I had dinner ready on time. I thought he said 5:45pm and he yelled I was wrong. Then, he slapped my face and told me he was always right.”
Another deep breath, another tear.
“I just stopped and stared. I was caught by the memory of my father yelling the same words at my mother.” Linda broke down in a rack of sobs. As the tears slowed, she said, “I swore to myself I would not become my mom. But yet, there I was being yelled at by a madman making it clear that I was an utter failure.”
Linda explained the nightly yelling matches she witnessed as a child, the hateful words seared in her memory and frozen in her soul.
“I thought he was the answer. What do I do now?”
Now it was time for my own deep breath. I consciously pushed aside my own memories of abusive partners. I sidestep the hurtful words and the painful episodes. I stood witness in her Akashic Records and communicated their response.
“You have two choices,” I began.
“First, completely lose any sense of self and do exactly as he demands. If you do this, you will never ever please him. Control over you is all he wants.”
We both took another deep breath.
“Or … second … leave. Now.This relationship will never be better. You aren’t at fault, but your willingness to give truth to his demand is what perpetuates the situation and literally puts your life in danger.”
I watched a tear roll down her cheek as she looked down at her hands. She muttered something than looked up at me.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
Over the next couple of months, I witnessed Linda make her way through this painful chapter. She created a new home for herself and left behind a critical voice bent on her destruction.
“Until the day I first talked to you, I hadn’t been able to find space for myself. As I told you my story, I was finally able to hear myself – to hear me, the true me, the me I had lost in the turmoil. I felt my truth begin to bubble up. Like a huge weight being lifted from me, I felt able to experience me for the first time in a long while.” Linda paused and smiled.
“I know I’ve got work to do, but I’m ready because I have me back.”
Situations can very easily make you hit pause or ignore your core of personal power. Especially when your sense of self-belief is challenged or displaced, words can trigger bad times and hateful events. You go astray and forget yourself. But the same words can also trigger your inner awareness and presence and call you back to yourself. What is displaced can be recalled and remembered. Awareness can be painful when harm is encountered and acknowledge. However, awareness ignites presence, shining a light on the capacity of your Power-Within.
Another client, Lacey, was caught in a similar fashion, but not by the words of another as much as her own beliefs and stories about herself.
Enduring the pain of childhood incest, Lacey tried to bury all with alcohol and dishonest men. Lacey found herself caught between the belief I’m no good and the belief I am only good if a man desires me. The alcohol tried to numb the fear that she would never be good enough to amount to anything.
These false beliefs dogged her everywhere despite the success of her million-dollar business.
Overwhelmed, Lacy found no support in her own critical voice, or from the wise mouth jerks in her life and employees robbing her when she’d been drinking.
Lacey had little inspiration, but she did have one positive anchor, a daughter she loved and a desire to keep this daughter safe and happy. Then, after a near-death experience drunk driving, Lacey finally saw and helt how her actions were threatening her daughter.
“I’m going to stop drinking,” she promised. “It’s been five days, no alcohol.”
Three years of painful effort with lots of backsliding and readjustment – yet with every step forward and every step back, Lacey also challenged her fears of doubt and shame. Not all at once. One by one, repeating when necessary. Lots of self-judgment which lost traction as the self-defacement was replaced by words of positive acknowledgement for self and an emerging ability to trust her worth and value.
This is not an easy road, rather a road which is very easily abandoned. By finding someone to live for Lacey gave herself space to slowly come back to herself and find old stories of her childhood no longer held traction in her life today, nor in the life she wants for tomorrow.
Both Linda and Lacey had their sense of self-belief challenged through psychological and emotional manipulation, blackmail, and coercion. They each suffered challenge to their belief systems and to their fundamental sense of self-belief. Intelligent, thoughtful, productive, neither realized the show slip into disbelief.
Taught at an early age that self-worth must be proven, self-belief can quickly be displaced especially by those who are considered sources to validate self-worth. This is how moving into Power Under is done. When self-belief is displaced, and the external belief system is able to enter, personal power is weakened and questioned and intimidated. In the questioning of self, and as violent threat escalates, safety seems to only exist in the acceptance of the external demand and self displaces not only self-belief but also self-awareness and trust. Power-Under’s validation comes in reinforcing the “value” of turning away inner power and choosing a external source as truth.
Self-Belief Displacement is a clear expression of the abandonment of personal power within for Power-Under. From the perspective of Power-Under, Power-Over is always right, never wrong. Power-Over has a line on truth which must be respected and closely followed without question. Within Power-Under, self-belief becomes an expression of an external belief system.
For example, look in your environment to see how Power-Under is expressed in political or social perspectives and judgments against those who do not properly follow the chosen leader or Power-Over’s approved political party.
In society, Self-Belief Displacement supports polarization around almost any topic of social discourse. The Power-Under perspective of the true believer, swayed to see truth only through the belief system of Power-Over, will only understand self in opposition to those deemed wrong. The extremes of Self-Belief Displacement can be seen in conspiracy theories and the distortion of fact to fit delusional beliefs and polarizing agendas, and to the degree that outright lies are not challenged and relied upon as unassailable fact.
The child’s story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is a great example of Self-Belief Displacement. The social push to accept outright lies as truth can be difficult to resist. Those without a strong sense of Power-Within will find resistance difficult, if not futile. While those able to endure the challenge and stand firm in their personal self-belief will choose not to be swayed by lies and faulty interpretation.
Fundamentally, people want to do right and enjoy life. But when these get mixed in such a way that self-presence disappears and self-worth is questioned, then self-belief takes the hit and absorbs the harsh judgment.
When self-presence is able to question the situation and delve into the assumptions, then self-belief surfaces.
In fact, as the individual begins to shift focus away from the superficial and the false, self-awareness deepens into what is true and authentic, independent of external voices and the harsh internal critical voice.
The growing strength and awareness of self-presence provides a safe place for inner focus to rely more on a sense of self-truth than feeling compelled to allow external authority to supply truth.
With self-presence, personal stories shift, negative thoughts quiet, and Power Within steps forward to guide.
In this motion, the self feels the opportunity to simply ask, “What do I want?”
Gone is the judgment that this question is selfish. Gone is the sense of inner division. Gone is the numbness and the disassociation from denying self-truth and self-belief.
Tenuous at first, yet with practice, the self’s connection to personal power is restored and life is no longer driven by an Outside-in approach.
Inside-Out fuels inner peace and calm. No longer blindly reactive, self feels empowered to encounter life’s experience and challenge within trust and belief.
This question leads to another question and then another. Not questions of judgment and doubt. Instead, questions exploring possibility, connection, and authenticity. Questions which foster release, insight, and resolution.
Often described as question the premise, the process of opening to and thoughtfully evaluating judgment and assumption creates space for self to make choices within the support of self-belief.
Power-Over questions self-belief’s validity. By claiming personal power, self seeks to understand how to support the self-determination inherent in Power-Within. Connection within self supports awareness of connection within all. This is a sense of shared connection which is no longer a reaction to the fear of the unknown. Instead, this is a balanced and positive interaction with the unknown as opportunity to experience an authentic life lived for self within a firm belief in self.
The Release within Self-Belief Displacement
How Do I Believe in Myself?
Essentially, self-belief comes with presence, capacity, and trust. Plus, self-belief gains strength as self-worth strengthens.
The awareness and experience of self-worth begins by truly accepting that a lack of worth is a false assumption perpetuated by external power and its urge to control and dominate.
The truth of you is this: My worth is intrinsic.
Self-worth is the experience of feeling and knowing your authentic, intrinsic value coupled with a decreasing need for outward validation of personal worth. As you feel your value, your need for validation lessens and melts away.
Self-belief arises as personal value is experienced as essential personal truth. Self-belief is confidence in self. Self-belief acknowledges ability, capacity, and personal choice.
Without self-belief, self is stuck in the harsh story of I’m not good enough. Caught in this derision, self wavers and sinks.
In this loss of self is the time to feel pain – especially the pain of being disconnected from the core of self. Harsh judgment, lies, and deceptive accusations create a barrier within center. This barrier reflects all the lies and deceitful words as if they were truth and fills the critical voice with garbage to spew.
This hurts. This feels awful. The pain lets you know. The pain is relentless. The pain will not shut up.
And it is the pain that will push you to finally ask: Am I broken? Am I a failure? Am I not good enough?
The pain is the result of trying to absorb lies. Pain comes because harsh judgment of self-worth is out of alignment and balance with self’s intrinsic worth. Pain is trying to get you to pay attention to you and your inherent value. Pain will bring forward the questions and get you to the answer.
No, you are not inherently broken. No, you are not a failure.
Yes, you are more than good enough!
By looking for false assumptions and moving beyond false stories, you have within you the ability to change your story and say to yourself: I believe in me!
However painful it might be to recognize, just a tiny sliver of belief is all that is needed to bring self back from the edge of self-annihilation. Even if you think you are already over the cliff, all that is needed is the first chords of your new voice which begins with: I am learning to believe.
The willing awareness of this emerging self-belief begins as a few drips and will soon shift to a might river:
I believe in me.
Self-Disbelief Displacement is an excerpt from my book, To Do Your Work. To read other excerpts from this work-in-progress, start here.
To learn more about the concepts within To Do Your Work, begin with this article: The Spiritual Practice of Personal Power.
