Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best place to start because it seems many people don’t believe the word expert applies to them.
But hear me out, because I think that’s a significant problem.
I come across far too many gifted practitioners, people with important ideas – ideas that could change people’s lives – yet they just don’t feel like experts.
At the same time, all too often I’ve seen people who have simply read a book, or gone to a workshop, (people who know far less than you do) and voila! Suddenly they’re an instant expert. I’ll bet you’ve seen them, too.
In fact, you might have even thought, “They barely know what they’re talking about. They don’t know nearly as much as I do.”
So what do these people have that you don’t? In a word . . .
. . . confidence.
Many of us have just finished a time of reflection, having lit candles for Hanukah and Advent, so maybe it would be good, once and for all, to deal with this issue of self-doubt.
You see, I believe this world needs your gifts. The world needs your expertise. Don’t hide your light “under a bushel.” Please bring it into the open so that other people can be blessed by it.
So let me ask you, what holds you back?
Could it be a lack of confidence?
When you take on bigger challenges in life, you inevitably have to deal with issues of self-doubt or lack of confidence and that can be kind of scary. Unfortunately, some of us haven’t done anything scary since the day we left home for college.
If you haven’t done something scary recently . . .
. . . is it possible you are playing too safe?
How you handle a lack of confidence becomes a critical part of your journey. My business coach Dan Sullivan, says that too many people wait to take action until they feel confident.
But there’s a problem with that.
According to Sullivan, you won’t feel confident until after taking action. Confidence comes as a result of achieving success.
Initially, taking action requires courage, not confidence. Courage is when you act even while being so scared you feel as though you might “pee in your pants.”
And you know, in many of the world’s best stories, we cheer on those heroes who initially thought they didn’t have what it took to step out and offer the world the gift that only they could give.
I’m thinking about people like Moses who, despite his stutter and initial reluctance, led his people out of slavery. And Rosa Parks, whose refusal to yield sparked attention and ignited nation-wide movement toward greater civil rights.
In each case, confidence came after taking action. Confidence follows courage. Those who are waiting until they feel confident enough to take action are likely never to get going.
As we head into a New Year, I’m wondering if you’re ready to take action and let your light shine. What is your area of expertise? And what challenges would you like to take on in the year ahead? Please leave a comment below.
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When I left corporate and became self-employed, I had no idea what it would take to rewire MY brain so that I could do it! NLP explained a lot, and helped me get through it, and everything you talk about too backs that up. It’s good to know I wasn’t just going crazy! 🙂
Ruth, I would like to know if you at one time were on the Wisdom channel?
This comment doesn’t have a lot to do with this blog post. However, I need to find a professional who can help someone who has turned to me for help, but I am not a trained clinical psychologist. She turned to me because of my blog on mind-body medicine and a post I made about PTSD and the Rejected child. It seems that she was rejected by her mother and suffered severe early childhood trauma. Obviously, because of that rejection, she lives in poverty. She is also a single mother, raising a son under 3 years of age and is very scared that she might treat her son the way she was treated. The fact that she has suggested that she might commit suicide is the reason I am turning to the NICABM crowd to find someone in Ohio (she lives in Nelsonville, which is SE of Columbus) who might be able to treat her for free, at least to get her past this dangerous time period.
I know that Dan Siegel has told us that childhood trauma can be easily treated, however, I do not believe that EARLY childhood trauma is quite that easy to treat, because of the blocking of memories that will occur. All the changes in wiring that happen within the first 3 years makes it difficult for the brain to properly categorize the memories for easy recall. Because of that, they remain accessible only to the unconscious brain for help in forming quick circuits for the body to respond well to anything that happens later in life that resembles any of the sensory inputs from that traumatic memory. Often, “responding well” involves a panic attack, so what is a good response to the brain at 2 years of age may not be acceptable to the adult brain.
Because she has little time, and probably lacks the means or money to travel to Columbus, I suspect that she would prefer to get at least some treatment by phone (I suggested that she get Skype, if she has a computer with internet access). Mindfulness and other mind-body techniques can be used as “homework” by the patient to get faster treatment than relying upon a scheduled appointment. It works 24/7, not just 1 hr a week.
It sounds like she is living in a very isolated region. Honestly, I see that bibliotherapy and a kindly local librarian who can order in books (inter library loan) may be your friend’s best hope for healing, given the economic barriers and geographical circumstances. That’s how many get started. Reading to find answers. IF she is not a reader, there are audio book formats as well.
I think what I am blessed with as a skillset is making the complexities of Integral Consciousness, Neuroscience, and Self Actualization simple and easy to follow.
The challenges for the year ahead will be maintaining and building a practice in an environment of cultural warfare in the San Francisco Bay Area. Only techie-millennials are “allowed” to live here now, as the rent and the cost of living quadruples. All the people I’d normally work with are moving out of the area in droves.
Challenge: Building confidence while serving others coming from a heart-centered space.
Just finished watching 3rd installment, haven’t soon homework yet. Difficult reproducing one-self without teammates that are with me physically. Blessings to my team mates who are with me in Spirit. Peace
I know my material but would like to be more focused and in control when presenting it. I know others see me as an expert in mind body fields but I am not consistent in my confidence factor. I would love it if you have ideas. I do practice mindful meditation and love it. It helps me remain calm and in control. What else do you suggest???
Trying to fan the flames of my light. I am recovering from the personal and emotional challenge
of forced retirement due to a political coup in my profession. It was not handled professionally nor
humanely. After 40+ years as an RN,BSN, I felt totally devastated and worthless. This is getting better now with help from a very smart UU minister.
Still trying to discover gifts to share with the world. Looking forward to more self discovery to share
with the world.
This article helps us know that life; as a challenge it may be, can be faced through understanding and shared experiecnces for self-growth and determination despite the many obsticles that are present or perceived.
I would like to take on the challenge of sharing with new teachers that they have the power to create more joy and experience more success in their classrooms by implementing different approaches to presenting curriculum to their students.
Thanks, Ruth! I’ve been working mainly through Beth Israel Medical Center, and do hope to acquire my own space at some point.
The challenge am going to face this year is on human resources management. Human capital development. I will expect your co operation in this field
Thanks Ruth, for reminding me of what I know but don’t always put into practice. Life is a gift, it serves no purpose for me to play small
Due to life circumstances, I now find myself doing therapy from a wheelchair. I wasn’t sure how patients would respond to this. What I’m finding is, that ongoing patients simply accepts that this is still me. More surprising, I’m finding that in a unexpected way it is becoming a plus. I get most of my patients from my County Behavioral Health Services, with whom I have been contracted for over ten years. Now, it seems that there are many patients with disabilities who feel I may be able to relate to them better. I hope so. Still a learning experience.
I am an expert in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have spent a lifetime getting thru it – tho’ some symptoms still flare up – I am mindful of them and I “self help” – I do my best to spot the symptoms in other people tho’ many refuse to understand what they are responding to…as much as responding to the term “mental illness” – however, getting their Trust is a big thing. So showing someone I can be trusted (over a period of time) is SO important.
On another level, I am becoming involved in social activism – which brings out my best qualities.
The Book of Ruth…that’s what you to write; this morning when I saw ur email I read my story. Have worked for others almost my entire professional life as a child and adolescent psychiatrist knowing that I see more have more to offer than the confines of my “specialty”. Have been seeking the skills that would bring more to my practice than narrow parameters of what is is known as the standards of practice.
I have begun to understand that I feel anxiety due to not honoring my light and my gifts as a healer and that I’m the only limiting factor. Feeling the fear and going forward to organize my skills/tools.
Keep encouraging the agents of change; those who can’t sit down or shut up because the mission of enhancing life is to important.
Thank you so much Ruth, you just touched me perfectly. I want to distribute the message of how important it is to consider our bodies when we suffer from depression, anxiety or other disorders. I believe that body therapy is a very important aspect while doing any other treatment.
Ruth, thank you for these encouraging words.
My plan this year is to complete the Looking for Light book which complements the website. I have collected hundreds of quotes from living and historical experts validating the effectiveness and spiritual essence of this mindfulness practice.
If my confidence is lacking, it is in the area of having the necessary skills and resources available to bring this book into fruition. Your webinars have been a valuable learning resource and I am extremely grateful for them.
Warm regards,
Patricia
I am a mostly retired 68 year old psychotherapist and ordained minister, I would like to create a telephone consulting and coaching business and possibly do some public speaking which I have done before. I am missing the work that I love, but may need some new skills such as power point to do so.
I would like to do workshops again and inspire people to live the reat lives that are possible for them
I have a long history of spiritual searching. This is includes indigenous spiritual circles and ordination as a Minister of Peace. These have been interwoven with practice as a nurse since 1981 and as a Nurse Practitioner since 1999. I pray for discernment in how, at 58, these learnings can be used to better serve others
In my experience, the sequence is fear, taking action, failure. Now the time is gone.
Whoops! I forgot to say how appreciative I am that NICABM webinars have so greatly contributed to my education. And I would also love to hear from others who may share my passion for getting vital information about the needs of young children out into our culture. I’d love to be part of creating a kind of ‘Think Tank’ of people from diverse perspectives – or if such a things exists I’d appreciate hearing about it (I prefer to avoid having to ‘re-invent the wheel’ whenever possible).
Ruth, I’m most definitely ready! My current passion – which I feel confident will carry me through to the end of my life (I’m closing in on 69) – is: studying Early Childhood Education and Development, and working with preschool-aged children and toddlers, and their parents in progressive preschool environments. My mission includes protecting PLAY as a childhood right, not a ‘privilege’ as our off-target culture seems to think it is. After working for a lifetime in several different social service/mental health professions, with a wide variety of populations and ages, from pre-teen to adult, I’ve concluded that the core societal dysfunction that produces damaged teens and adults is: very few adults really understand the importance of childhood. Even the best of parents rarely understand child development well enough to realize when they’re putting unrealistic demands and expectations for performance on their children, who then grow up burdened by not having their psychosocial needs recognized and met appropriately. They then have to function as adults with so much of their emotional ‘bandwidth’ tied up with inner anxieties, their capacity for being creative problem-solvers is very limited.
I speak from my own personal experience. My last 50 years has been spent exploring various forms of psychotherapy and spiritual practices in order to heal my own wounds – but nothing has helped me understand myself as much as has my more recent study of child development – which now includes Attachment Theory, Neuroscience, and Trauma work.
I feel grateful to be alive at a time when research is providing us with much more reliable information than ealier theorists have given us, about how human beings really function. Attachment theory in particular has the potential to radically change our society for the better. The big question for me is: how to get the newer, more reliable information ‘into the bloodstream’ of our culture so that it can be widely disseminated, and in time to wake us up to the need to protect the environments we need for all life on Earth. To not just survive but to joyfully thrive. Our best chance for survival lies with raising children free enough from the burden of becoming ‘adulticized’ early that they retain their innate, instinctive curiosity and capacity for creative problem-solving. God knows we’ve left them enough problems to solve!
Hi Sandy,
I just finished reading Bessel Van Der Kolk’s new book. The Body Keeps The Score.
From what you have shared above you may find his book an absolute wealth of knowledge and wisdom with regards to everything you have mentioned.
Enjoy.
Cheers!
Lucy Beiler
Hi Ruth, So glad to read your post which popped up on my FB page this morning…immediately underneath was a post from a friend that seemed to be in sync with your words (copied below):
ONE DAY YOU REALIZED
…so that one day you realized that what you wanted
had already happened, and long ago and in the dwelling place
in which you lived before you began,
and that every step along the way, you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise,
that first set you off and then drew you on, and that:
you were more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way
than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach:
Excerpt from ‘Santiago’
From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte
©2012 David Whyte
Thank you, again for your kind words of wisdom that are spot on for me and probably most of us…May you be well and this new year be one of creativity, courage, joy, and loving connections!
Warm regards,
Karen
Photo © David Whyte April 2014
Path Up High: Tobar Phadraic, Co Clare.
Perfect pep talk for the new year. I love it: confidence follows courage. I found your talk very thought provoking and affirming. thank you and happy new year to you and all your followers. Caroline
Thank you for your encouragement, it got me thinking about the next step/goal I would like to take /achieve in my life…