Learning to tune in and trust ourselves
I recently shared a post on my Instagram feed on learning to trust ourselves. At the time, I had recognised through my own experiences and my work with my clients how a lot of us struggle to have assurance in ourselves and our decisions. Since I shared the post, I have given myself space and time to reflect on where the lack of trust comes from.
My context will always be from an African millennial, which hopefully resonates with some of you.
Carrying on from last week’s post on unlearning shame a lingering symptom of the shame that we endured in our childhood was this shortage of self-trust.
How can you trust your decisions when you feel ashamed and isolated?
How can you be quick with your decision making when you have a sense of worthlessness?
How can you know that you are doing the right thing for yourself when you’ve been conditioned to pursue perfection?
How can you be assured in yourself when you fear recognition and have a fear of saying the wrong thing?
Aside from our education system, the societies that moulded us (a better word would be conditioned) are patriarchal, hierachical and leadership is held by elders (gerontocracy). In this context, everyone knows better than us. If we have to make any decisions even our own personal ones, the appropriate thing to do is seek counsel from someone older who knows better and has more life experience.
Any decision that is made solely by yourself is questioned, is it right? am I doing the right thing? Rather than is this decision right for me, does it align with my values, does it matter to me?
I am throwing it to you, if you have any anxiety over trusting yourself here are 3 questions to explore;
What can you trust yourself to do?
What would you do if you didn’t have to think about anyone’s opinion?
How would it feel to put your interests first?
May we remember that innately we know ourselves best, we know what we want and we need to tune in to that.
