As we grow older, we tend to lean more towards fear and as a result, we become less trusting. Our experiences can also lead us to doubt ourselves and we may even lose ourselves in the noise of other people’s opinions and societal expectations.
Author, Speaker and Coach, Nicky Rowbotham notes that when we stop trusting ourselves, we become untethered in life. “When life happens, as it always does, this lack of trust in ourselves allows us to become buffeted about by everyone else’s expectations, agendas and the shoulds of societal conditioning. Often it’s our own judgement or comparison of ourselves, where we doubt ourselves, that can leave us feeling ungrounded and uncentered, unsure in our worthiness.” Below she offers tips and advice on how you can start trusting yourself again.
Remember that you are already enough
You are more than enough. At a soul level you already know this, but you may have unconsciously forgotten it. Or life has made it hard to believe. Life happens and it’s easier to believe the hard things that wear us down through fear, scarcity or separation, rather than the good, supportive whispers grounded in love, joy and worth that accumulate and build us up. Worthiness is often something we believe is for others, or that is found outside of ourselves when we sink into the internal mist of comparison, doubt and feeling less than enough. Societal conditioning and perceived expectations – the shoulds, the things that we feel we are supposed to do or are expected to do – wear away at our sense of self as our yardstick for worthiness is outsourced to the recognition and perception of others, and overrides our own natural knowing. The natural, innate knowing that when we suppress the noise and chatter of life, leaves us centred, grounded and sure and trusting in ourselves.
Consider how conforming can stunt your growth
Conforming may often seem like the path of least resistance. In aligning to what everyone else is doing, it may feel like we’re going with the flow of society and that fitting in may be easier – safer even. But it’s not our own easeful flow and it’s not a flow that necessarily serves us. When we conform, we’re floating along someone else’s river, getting bumped and bruised as we move along in a stream of homogeneity, crashing against rocks and pebbles that we were never meant to pass. It’s what everyone else is doing, isn’t it? On the surface, maybe. However, what we actually think is going with the flow and more easeful, may in fact be creating more friction in our lives. It’s just easy, rather than easeful. But is it really? When we innately know that we are living more out of habit and on autopilot, but it’s not getting us to the life we really want to lead, we try to control, to force and to make things happen. Course corrections feel hard. Like we’re swimming against the tide. Hardly easeful. Hardly elegant. Hardly authentic.
Reclaim your power
We are not trusting ourselves when we give up our personal power to the flow and agenda of everyone else other than ourselves. We know this, whether consciously or not, and our bodies and nervous systems feel that we don’t innately trust ourselves and our own inner guidance. We all have an inner authority that guides us from a centred and grounded place within ourselves, rooted in a sense of unshakeable self-worth. It’s not intellectual; it’s more soul than strategy as we begin to recognise our own personal gifts, voice and value. We need to recognise, lean into and learn to trust that inner knowing and start to use it as an inner North Star to guide us in our lives with confidence. Like training and strengthening our muscles at gym, the more we trust ourselves and the guidance coming through for us, the stronger our knowing becomes. And when we trust ourselves from a a place of self-love, self-worth and knowing we are enough now, the game changes.
Meet the Expert
Nicky Rowbotham is author of Embrace Your Elegant Power – Your Path to Success with Ease and Steps to Finding Flow – Flip the Script on Stress. Embrace Your Elegant Power is available in all good bookstores, Amazon, Kindle, most audio formats and at nickyrowbotham.com.
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