Let me start by sharing with you why belief, self-belief, is such an important topic to me. It is because there was a time in my life when I had the most incredible belief in myself. I exuded confidence and success. I was untouchable and unstoppable. Believe it or not, it was about a year after my divorce.
I had been in a marriage for 10 years, and our lives started to drift into different directions. We had moved from my home Atlanta to his home Cincinnati, so I was really starting my life over again.
We were well off; he and I both worked in high paying jobs. He flew planes for fun, so we traveled often on weekend trips up and down the east coast. For a short time, life was amazing. But we just grew apart as I longed to be with my family in Atlanta.
At first, it was difficult to get used to the idea of being alone after we separated. I had just started a brand new job, and my doctor found a lump on my right breast. Fortunately, that turned out to be nothing, but I suffered through a few panic attacks at the thought that I might have cancer, and I didn’t have my family.
That apartment building was NASTY!!!!!!
I hated the shitty little apartment I initially lived in. It smelled awful! It was like every stench from the 12 apartments on the upper floors congregated on the ground floor. So disgusting.
I had to sleep on the couch because there was a very loud air conditioning unit outside of my bedroom. It was a nightmare. It didn’t even go away in Winter, which was really weird!
When my lease expired, I moved to a different community with an apartment on the third floor, and I loved it! Imagine bright natural sunlight with wonderful vaulted ceilings, awesome neighbors, and my best friend living in the condos across the way from where I lived.
Everything was once again right in my world. My job was awesome, I was traveling again for work and with friends, going out almost every weekend, and there was nothing I couldn’t do. The world was mine!
But I fell in love again.
Fast forward 10 years later. I’m married again, and I hate my surroundings. Our house has been under renovation for 6 years, and everything is just a freaking mess.
At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, I went into a deep, dark depression after the deaths of my brother, sister-in-law, and father. I had severe feelings of hopelessness. I hadn’t even dealt with the death of my mother four years earlier when they passed away. My will to live was slowly fading.
Obviously, my confidence took a serious hit. While I’m getting back on top of becoming a new version of me, I noticed before the holidays last year that something was still missing.
My self-belief was missing.
For some time, I was faking confidence just to make it through each day. I wore several masks and tried to “act” like a confident person, but at the end of the day, that just left me drained and tired as hell.
I didn’t want anyone to worry about me. People were walking around me on eggshells. Some were treating me with kid gloves even. I just wanted to avoid people at all cost.
But after several months of refocusing, realigning, studying Reiki, and lots of personal development coaching, I’ve begun to turn my life around and deal with my many issues.
Psychotherapists say the death of a parent is extremely traumatic, and one of the most significant events someone can go through.
The loss of both parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law was incomprehensible.
Along my journey, I’ve found several methods and strategies that work for my specific situation; dealing with death. I know that there are others out there like me who are dealing with their own personal tragedies, and I hope the steps I’ve included will help their healing process as they did mine.
Find a quiet place where you can do the following exercise and really look at yourself with open eyes and an open heart. Make sure that you can do this exercise uninterrupted; somewhere away from screaming kids, noisy roommates, and barking dogs. You may even want to put some calming music on that soothes you but doesn’t put you to sleep. I like to listen to Meditative Mind playlists on YouTube.
Are you ready to shift your belief?
Let’s get started.
Step 1. Write down three things (and/or people who) that have happened to you that made you feel less self-confident.
Step 2. Write down three things that (and/or people who) make you feel more confident.
Step 3. Write down three things about yourself that make YOU feel good about you and who you are.
Step 4. Realistically, what is holding you back from doing what would make you feel most confident (your answers to Steps 2 & 3)?
Step 5. Write down 3 things that you can do in the next 48 hours that make you feel good about yourself.
Now that you’ve completed the exercise, go back and read your answers and touch up anything you feel you missed or need to update.
Let’s analyze each one.
Step 1 Analysis.
The three things or people that happened to you and made you feel less self-confident will never ever be erased. They happened. The good news, beautiful, it’s over, and you have identified it as hurtful. The key now is to literally remove yourself from the situations and/or people who cause you to feel less confident.
I know, right!? Easier said than done. But you have to have the belief that you can. Or, at the very least, try to avoid these situations if you can or meet them head-on. One of the people I identified who made me feel less self-confident was my husband.
He has been there for me through all of the depression, despair, sadness, and death. However, he had a shitty way of dealing with me when I was upset. He would tell me to stop crying and act as if he couldn’t believe that I was crying AGAIN. Typical narcissist, right? Maybe.
The truth is that he was used to me being strong and solid, no matter what occurred. But I was broken by loss.
Now I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, “No one can MAKE a strong person feel bad. You allowed yourself to let this person make you feel bad”.
To hell with that!
There are some instances where that applies, but there are many more where that does not apply. I’m here to tell you that other people can make you feel bad. The point is whether you openly blame them with malice and anger or if you confront them with the specific words that made you feel bad.
- For me, I had to be rational in my explanation to my husband, and I didn’t get emotional.
- Then, I curbed my sass, my defensiveness, my attitude, my anger, my frustration.
- I spoke with confidence and gave specific examples.
- Finally, I used language like, “I felt, I feel, I found.”
Step 2 Analysis.
These are the people and/or experiences that you should seek out more often. Neuroscientists have proven that those experiences and people that make you feel good aid in the number of natural chemicals that your body produces and give you the positive feelings of happiness and joy.
These chemicals also aid you in being able to be positive, pumping up motivation, be productive, and have all-around positive well-being. Think of what your life would be like if you were able to channel more of the positive more often. You’d be manifesting the life of your dreams, huh?
Step 3 Analysis.
Oh, my beautiful friend! Don’t be modest when it comes to what you love about yourself. You are an amazing being with an abundance of gifts to offer the world. There are qualities about you that only you may adore and appreciate. So, the hell what?
Embrace it!
This leads back to Step 2. If it makes you feel good, then you need more of it in your life, and you should celebrate it as long as you’re not causing harm to yourself or others.
I love my guilty pleasures. I love some pretty “wicked” things about myself, but I don’t always share those things with others. Things that society would label as “wicked” that I’d rather keep to myself instead of engaging in unproductive conversation about. Because it’s mine all mine and I love it all to myself.
My guilty pleasures raise my vibration and put me in a place where I feel like I did a year after my divorce again or better. It’s the reason why I had one of my most successful months in sales since I left my #soulsuckingcorporateamericajob.
Step 4 Analysis.
Now I’m about to get real with you for a minute Sis. Your answer to this one should vary on “me,” “myself,” or “fear.” If it’s anything else, you’re bullshiting yourself and need to get real about what’s going on in your life.
That’s a conversation for a different blog, so let’s focus on those who did, in fact, answer “me,” “myself,” or “fear.” Give yourself a pat on the back if you did. Seriously! Reward yourself because you’ve made it to this point, and you are definitively READY to start feeling more positive and consequently develop incredible, unwavering self-belief.
I’ve already given you what you need to gain unwavering self-belief. Believe in yourself. Have faith in you. Fill your life with the people, places, things, events that make you feel more confident. Do what makes you feel more confident.
Don’t be afraid to say no to anything that doesn’t positively feed your soul.
Step 5 Analysis.
Do the 3 things that you wrote down. Email me, kristi@kristimfreeman.com, and tell me how you felt after doing those 3 things. Would you be willing to do any of them again in the next month?
One of the 3 things on my list was hanging out with my friends Greg and Sue. So, the next time I got a chance to hang out with them was Sue’s birthday dinner. I got there a little late but not too late for a tall cerveza and dós tacos.
Much to my surprise, I met the woman who could confirm my original suspicions about the house Jeff and I live in. My suspicion that it had a pool at one point!
Her name is Sara, and she is the reason the pool was removed! It’s a funny story that I won’t go into right now. She had lived in the house I currently live in for several years, and she knew intimate details about the house and property. Sara and I ended up having more in common than I could have ever expected and now we’re close friends.
You never know who you might end up meeting, places you might go, and things you might manifest when you suppress the pain, heartache, and negativity that hold you back.
It is possible to overcome the agony of loss and feel unwavering self-belief and self-confidence.
Once you practice purposeful self-belief over time, it becomes an integral part of who you are. You start evolving. As you evolve, you are able to handle whatever hurdles come at you. And, the next time something devastating happens, you are able to channel the things that you have learned to help you cope more positively.
And when you can do that, you can help those around you who need your strength and guidance. Be there at that time to help them with what you have already been through, it’s what you are meant to do. Pass on your learnings and love.
