Self Confidence

It is always interesting to learn more about my patients outside of their medical conditions. I was talking to a long-time patient the other day. Let’s call her Susan.

Susan came in for a routine follow up. She has a remote history of early stage cancer that is cured. As she looked somewhat thinner than the last visit, before looking at her vital signs, I asked if she lost weight. She immediately said that she was quite conscious about that question because she was told several times about it. She did not think it was a good thing that she looked thin. She brought up that she would get anxious easily in general.

As I was curious, I compared her current weight to that from the previous visit. It was the same. I reassured her that her weight was stable. In fact, her weight puts her to the normal body mass index. She did not seem relieve about this answer.

“The other day when I went to a friend’s wedding banquet, people were not just looking me at my face, they were sizing me up and down. That made me feel uncomfortable.” Susan blurted out.

I asked, “So what if they were really looking you from head to toe?”

“It makes me feel small.” Susan’s eyes welded up.

“What were you thinking that made you feel small?” I asked.

Susan replied, “That people think negative of me. I’m not good enough.”

What does good enough even mean? A standard we set ourselves for others to judge? Or what we think others use as standard to judge ourselves?

“When you feel small, what do you do?” I prompted.

Susan went on to tell me that she did not interact with people as much as she would want to. She did want not look at other people. She wanted to hide.

“Susan, you are worthy no matter what. You are born worthy. You are capable. You just have to believe it.” As I was telling her this, tears rolled down her eyes.

Having self confidence is not narcissist. Self confidence is being secure in yourself and your own abilities. It is the ability to trust yourself that you can take care of yourself and handle any emotions.

As we learn to trust ourselves, we also learn to give ourselves more credit to our achievements instead of concentrating of our “failures” or what we are lacking. We also give ourselves compassion when we don’t hit a goal. We can handle negative emotions. We get to see clearer what is going well and what is wrong.

Self confidence is believing that we are worthy, we are strong and capable. We are enough. We develop the capability to believe in ourselves beyond our current capabilities. We get to achieve more as we are more bold to take more actions and risks. Being self -confident means that we don’t live in fear of haters (or whom we think are haters). We think less of failing in something, but think of every action as a learning opportunity to grow.

Being self-confident is a foreign concept to Susan, as to many of us. We can start practice believing in this. We will get to feel awesome. We will live into our future and realize our potential is without limits. It is alright to experience discomfort and fear while we are working toward a goal. Self-confidence is changing the way we feel about ourselves – that we are worthy, we are good and we are abundant.

I hope Susan will see that her potential is limitless and that she learns to trust herself, and that she is amazing.