Learning to Trust Ourselves
This is the first episode of my podcast (and YouTube series) Pause for Coffee - a daily dose of inspiration and motivation. I’d love for you to follow wherever you listen to podcasts.
Something I've been thinking about is trusting ourselves and the efforts that it takes to create that as a practice.
I was prompted to think about this because of a passage in the Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie.
This is something that I personally struggle with in my life. I've spent a lot of time, many years in fact, feeling like I could not trust myself. I think this happens when we're surrounded by people who constantly question us or belittle our choices. I've also struggled with depression, anxiety, PTSD, which have all made me feel like I couldn't trust my brain and couldn't trust myself. And there was a period of my life when I was an active alcoholic and I was making poor choices - ones I probably should not have trusted.
So to rebuild that trust in ourselves takes a lot of really small actions. This is what I try to focus on. For example, if you tell yourself that you're going to do something, do you do it, do you follow through or do you push it off because something comes up and you say, “oh, well, it's fine, it's only going to affect me”? Every time we do that, we teach ourselves that we can't be trusted; that we can't trust ourselves to take care of ourselves.
Recently, some things happened,which made me realize that I needed to sort of have a reset in this area. What I did is I promised myself that every single day for a week, I was going to make sure that I was outside, that I made an effort, to see either the sunrise or the sunset. It wasn't always convenient for sure. There were a lot of things that happened and scheduling things came up. And within that one week, which is a short period of time, I had a couple of different days where I thought, “you know what, it's not that big of a deal. I did it yesterday. I'll make sure I do it tomorrow. I can skip today.” But because I know that this is something I really want to work on, that I want to be able to trust myself and the way I can take care of myself, I made the effort to show up for myself. I did meet my goal and see either the sunrise or sunset every single day and it was beautiful and it helped me in a lot of ways.
We build trust in ourselves by keeping our word to ourselves in small areas. Eventually that grows and we can learn to trust ourselves more and more as we continue to show up and do what's in our best interests for our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. But it all starts with those very small actions.
If you’re unsure of how to take your goals from conception to reality, consider signing up for my 5-day email course, Your Life, Planned. I will show you in practical, bite-sized pieces how to use a planning method to reach your goals. It’s free, with no commitment! I hope to join you in your inbox to make your journey just a bit easier! The course is available now!
For more information on my other services, please visit my website or my Instagram page. I look forward to connecting with you!
