Finding the Confidence

My new friend Sarah and I have the greatest email discussion about confidence, "feeling comfy" when expressing emotion, how what we believe about ourselves effects our level of confidence, and what to do when we feel "emotionally hijacked" by big waves of irrepressible emotion. This is so good!

This discussion stimulated tons of ideas for articles, posts and topics for the "Become the Star You Are" TeleClinic. So, stay tuned!

Â Sarah’s blog, Finding the Confidence, digs deep. She’s looking for answers. She wants to know what really works at a core level. No tricks, no gimmicks, no confidence-in-an-hour schemes.

I especially appreciate her postÂ "Eureka! Is it confidence? Or complete craziness?" Here’s a tidbit below:

"But what if…what if…confidence is about being okay with exactly whatever feelings come up? Calm or upset? Peaceful or alarming?
But not only being okay to feel the feelings coming up, but also being open about them with others? (Not hiding them?) What if confidence is being okay as a human to share the experience of our feelings, in the moment, with other humans who are with us?

Hey, tell me, how did we as humans in a society get so scared and embarrassed about expressing what we feel? If we are speaking and we start crying, why is that embarrassing or shameful? What are we embarrassed about? Being real and human? Having strong emotions?

So often in Unconditional Confidence trainings someone will start talking about something and they will start crying. Immediately, they will apologize and try to stop. They feel embarrassed and inappropriate.Â

I always tell them, "Just let yourself cry. This is your wild voice right now. This is your authentic expression right now. Crying, laughing, snorting, they are all ways to have your voice, your true self-expression." Well, maybe I don’t go on THAT long, but that’s the gist of it.

What’s that about, that embarrassment? We need to question that response to our own flow of expression.

As my friend Sarah reminded me, I think part of what scares us it that we feel out of control. Like our emotions have carried us away. And if we’re not used to trusting those emotions, if we aren’t used to letting those emotions flow, crest and subside within us, we feel at the mercy of that emotional energy, and we get scared.

Oh, I could go on and on!

Check out Sarah’s blog, www.findingtheconfidence.com and join the discussion!

Tags: Confidence Self-expression Speaking Fear Blogs