Self Doubt

Posted on October 2, 2007
Filed Under Society, Spirituality |

Shatter your self doubt Why do we doubt ourselves? It really is a totally underwhelming feeling. I used to suffer from this myself a lot - and from time to time it still rears its ugly head. When you step back and take a close look at the issue of self doubt, it really is almost a joke. Firstly we doubt our thoughts, then we doubt our feelings, we also doubt our capabilities. There are a number of categories that self doubt could be divided into. Personal self doubt where we doubt our selves, and physical self doubt - where we doubt our interpretation of the environment and reality.

Have you ever thought you heard a sound or saw a flash of light, and then decided you couldn’t have done. Have you ever had a moment of intuition where you just knew something was going to happen? Say the phone was going to ring, or a certain person was going to turn up at the door. Perhaps you intuited the winning lottery numbers, yet thought - “Nah, that’s a waste of time.” When these things occur, it is because we have tapped into senses that exist beyond the five physical senses. Humans are far more in touch with reality than we realize - we are connected to it on a very deep and personal level. In those moments such as I just mentioned, we are personally communicating with reality itself. Yet we ignore it - because we doubt. After all, no-one can know the future. No one can feel what is going to happen before it happens…and it isn’t possible to hear others thoughts or feelings…

…is it?

We doubt our higher-intuitive functions - because we have only been taught about the obvious. We ignore the subtle because it means we have to rely upon personal interpretation rather than mass general-consensus. We trust in the opinion of the majority more than we trust in our own personal experience.

Objectivity is meant to be an ideal to aim for in life. But who is truly objective? To be objective you would have to stand outside of your own thoughts and feelings - and you would have to be detached from the beliefs and opinions of all others. Who can really claim such a thing? And would they really want to be like that; possessing all the objectivity of a rock?

Failing to relate to your own sensory awareness, is a measure of insanity. We believe at a deep level in the superior awareness of others. Perhaps this is a left over from childhood, where we have unquestioned faith in our parents understanding of the world. Think about that; we go from childhood dependence towards dependence upon systems, government, money and the media etc. Do we every truly learn to stand on our own two feet? This is the true challenge in life!

We can learn to have faith in ourselves, but sometimes that means undoing years of conditioning that has been placed upon us. It can often be a slow process - but we have to start somewhere.

Try some of the following:

Make sure your bathroom is safe so that you aren’t going to hurt yourself on anything. Then blindfold yourself, and run the bath - keep yourself blindfolded the entire time. From when you turn the taps on, until you get back out the bath again and let the water go.
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Go to bed without setting your alarm. Tell yourself what time you are going to wake up at, and know that you will awake at this time. Trust that your sub-conscious mind is more than capable of keeping track of time.
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When the phone rings (and this is a good one!), answer the phone as though you know who it is. Say the name of the person, “Hello John!”. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t John, you are taking a step into the unknown - and telling yourself that it is perfectly fine to be wrong. And if it does happen to be John - well imagine his surprise.

It is all about breaking the conditioning. We can do this in many different ways, although many of those methods go against what your ego wants. Try creating some variations on the above themes, or come up with your own methods. Let me know what ideas you have, and your success with them!