Therapy for Self-Confidence
“Why can’t I just trust myself?”
If you had a dollar for every time you heard someone prompt you to “just be yourself,” or “just be confident…” you’d have a lot of money now. People, trying to help, make it seem just so simple.
When you aren’t confident, however, everything that matters feels complicated. Life forms a cruel labyrinth with transparent walls. The target is right there, but you can’t reach. As you attempts to work around your limits, the list of what you can’t do grows. The harder you try, the further away your goal stretches. It’s pretty brutal.
As you relax, slow down, and start to pay close attention, you might realize – some of these walls you can walk through if you don’t force it. And then you see it: a faint outline; a slightly clearer part of the maze. Where your talents and priorities meet, a subtle path forms. You exit the maze your way. But you don’t have to do it alone.
Here’s how we’ll approach this process together:
Grounding
It feels counter-intuitive, but the first step is to stop fighting. Take stock of your relationship to yourself. Where are you frustrated? What emotions come up in this stuck place? As you become more curious about your feelings and reactions, you’ll begin to notice tension. As we build safety, that tension will start to relax on its own.
Planning
You have an intuitive sense of who you want to be. Now, let’s make it concrete. We’ll get clear on what you want to achieve and how you’ll feel while doing it. We’ll take inventory of your values, strengths, and past accomplishments for guideposts. With a clear map of where we’re starting and where we’re going, we start to trace a path.
Exploring
It’s one thing to visualize the path ahead; it’s another to walk it. As you go from baby steps to leaps, you’ll encounter resistance from yourself and the world around you. We’ll work together to make sure you have support and tools to observe, adapt, and keep going, even as you start to encounter what you were most afraid of.
Integrating
Now we look back at the progress you’ve made. Previous difficulties have become easier, and maybe you can just be confident - you’ve created that for yourself. Now you have a chance to return to some well-deserved comforts, or push out into uncharted territory.
If this sounds helpful, let’s connect.