Self-Awareness Versus Self-Doubt
There are times when I catch myself in a tailspin of insecurity. I sink to a pool of self doubt and shame. I feel so inadequate and incompetent. The spinning seems to never end, engulfing me deeper into a dark hole of misery, like I am being sucked down the garbage disposal of the kitchen sink that is my brain. I need to grab hold of something to get me out of my own head because I know that only I am in control of my own thoughts. I engage in personal inquiry: What is my reality? What is my belief about my reality? My thoughts create my reality. If I can break down my belief system, I can change the reality I choose to create for myself.
Sometimes it helps to see it from a different perspective: If you had to recreate this situation in your life as a scene in a film, how would you do it? You get to be the director and tell the main character (you, played by whom?) what to do and how to feel and how to act. You get to tell everyone else in the scene how to feel and act. You get to create the dialogue and the setting.
What do you see? What do you hear? What do you notice about the main character? What do you notice about how others act around her? What is causing her to act and feel that way? What are the conditions placed on her? For example, if she is good enough, then what? If she is worthy, then what? Where did those conditions come from? What if those conditions did not exist? How would the scene be different? What would be possible then? What if she were allowed to act and to love without any limits placed on her? What if the duality of good and bad were gone? What if all labels and judgement were gone? How would you direct the scene then? How would the main character feel and act then?
What would it be like to have a hand in directing the cinema of our own existence? Exploring and questioning the drama I have created in my own imagination can help me deal with the anxiety caused by embarrassment or perfectionism. By seeing that my reality is a creation of my own thoughts and that I can CHOOSE to create a new reality, I can free myself from its clutches. I can have self compassion and be gentle with myself. I can experience freedom.