Self-doubt is a swift wind that blows you off course and deflates the belief carrying your dreams. It is the kryptonite that weakens your creative superpowers and covers your inner knowing with an invisible cloak.
You know self-doubt has swooped in when you’ve been derailed by the crushing fear that has you flip-flopping in the realm of thought that says “you’re not enough”, “you don’t really know what you’re doing”, and “you can’t really have what you want”.
Self-doubt can leave you breathless on the battlefield gasping for inner support.
Having been crushed under the weight of self-doubt one time too many, I’ve come to realize:
The antidote to self-doubt is self-belief.
Knowing there is an antidote to self-doubt is different than actually swallowing it. There is some effort involved in letting the antidote in.
When you’re aware of how damaging self-doubt can be to your dreams, your health, your finances, your relationships and your overall pleasure in life, you have the perfect blend of incentive and desperation that opens the door of willingness to explore new options.
Over the years, and many creative projects later where self-doubt made an appearance, I’ve developed some simple practices that keep my self-doubt in check so I can go for my dreams and believe they will manifest!
I’ve put together a list of 7 simple consciousness shifts to cure any crushing encounter with self-doubt and transform the experience into a liberating opportunity for your true power to rise.
7 Consciousness Shifts to Cure Self-Doubt
1. Allow doubt to get your attention
Rather than resisting the feeling of doubt, breathe it in and express appreciation for your awareness that allowed you be conscious enough to notice what you’re experiencing. Invite the doubt in like a friend, say “Hello, welcome my doubting friend. Why have you come to visit me today? What do you want me to be aware of?”. Typically self-doubt is coming for a visit because it is trying to bring your attention to an outdated belief system that is falsely running your life, and it is time for a tune-up in your thinking.
Consciousness Shift: What inner belief system is self-doubt bringing to your attention?
2. Acknowledge the truth
The truth is your soul’s knowing. You know you are connected with your truth when there are tingles and shivers of recognition running through your body. When you feel self-doubt, you can trust this is not your truth, because it doesn’t come close to the experience of your soul’s knowing.
When in the grips of self-doubt, it can be hard to remember to look for your soul’s truth, so you may have to wait for the experience to settle and then do some exploratory work in your journal to get to the truth after the incident. But, eventually you’ll reach a place of clarity that you can apply to a moment of self-doubt.
Consciousness Shift: How does your soul perceive this situation?
3. Don’t abandon yourself
When self-doubt makes an appearance, the most crucial thing is to stay with yourself, don’t self-abandon, don’t ignore or deflect your feelings by muscling through a false idea of who you think you should be. Listen intently, reach for the truth if you can, but most importantly, hold yourself with love and kindness. Don’t punish yourself for feeling scared and vulnerable, support yourself to find the strength to regain your belief in yourself.
Consciousness Shift: How can you be present for yourself in difficult situations?
4. Cultivate courage
Courage is an action that in not void of fear, but rather fully aware of fear, and still consciously choosing to move in the direction of love. There are opportunities to cultivate courage every day. When faced with self-doubt, it takes an immense act of courage to choose love over fear, to choose to believe in yourself over being caught in the net of doubt.
Consciousness Shift: What would it look like if you believed in yourself?
5. Get Risky
Every creative act is a risk, because you have no way of knowing with certainty how it will go. Creativity by its very nature is risky because you must enter the unknown. Self-doubt can camp out on the border between the known and the unknown. You have to practice bursts of intuitive risk if you’re going to leap into the land of your dreams.
Consciousness Shift: What is an intuitive risk you can take in honor of your dreams?
6. Take a stand for yourself
Your dreams can get clobbered under self-doubt. Taking a stand for yourself is about getting back up when you’ve been knocked down and using your voice and your actions to show what you really care about.
Consciousness Shift: What do you really care about?
7. Let your dreams win
Self-doubt can feel like an inner battle that has guns firing on both sides.Your dreams aren’t on either side of the battlefield, they’re in a different space altogether. To let your dreams win, you have to march out of, or through, the fight. Exiting the fight can seem impossible in the moment, because it requires a different kind of thinking, it requires a higher perspective to show you other options. To let your dreams win, you must find the portal that takes you through and beyond the fight.
Consciousness Shift: How can you let your dreams win?
Transforming self-doubt into self-belief is a practice of shifting your consciousness.
I’d love to hear what you think about these 7 consciousness shifts. Are there any that you would add to the mix to cure a bout of self-doubt?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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