Doubt Into Trust

Doubt Into Trust

When most of us think about trusting we are thinking about trusting other people. We hardly ever think about trusting ourselves.

What happens when we doubt ourselves? For some of us, we doubt our ability to be loved. We have mislearned that we are unlovable, that we are so fatally flawed that no decent person could love us, even if they really do, and we often find ourselves choosing people who treat us poorly, reinforcing our mislearned ideas of being lovable.

For some of us, we doubt our gifts, talents, and skills. Each of us has them but when we doubt them, we often forego opportunities to hone them, to refine and improve them. Perhaps we hide them at home, secretly indulging in our art or music or intellect or cooking or other wonderful things. We avoid taking chances that might make our skills and talents stronger. We fear that we aren’t actually very good at X, or we know we are, but fear not being good enough. Perhaps we fear being mocked or ridiculed. Perhaps we doubt that we have the internal resources we need to handle the attendant stuff, like acclaim, or responsibility, or money, or attention if we were to let our light shine.

Why can I trust? How do I know I can trust me? What makes me choose to believe in my own self?

As I go through my day, I choose to be aware. I choose to notice what I am doing, how I am doing it. I look for ways that I am sabotaging myself. When I spot one, I correct as best I can.

Our personal doubt is our first chunk of mislearning. We all have one; the worst thing we believe about ourselves. Mine is that I am garbage. As I have worked on this one, I have cycled through many Creative Questions. My current faves are, “Why am I strong? Why am I capable? Why am I competent?” Oh, yeah! Working on our personal doubt can bring up all sorts of interesting stuff; damaging beliefs, toxic thoughts, negative behaviors, and other ickies. Trusting ourselves, choosing to believe that we are worth the effort, that we are capable of doing what we need to do, that we can find good teachers to coach us in our endeavors, these are things that make our lives a million times nicer.

As I come to trust myself, I will change. We all change, even when we like to think we don’t. As I come to trust myself, I will make better decisions, ones that support me better. Some of the people in our lives may not like what we are doing, and may choose to leave. Since part of my personal doubt involved feeling like a victim, I am happy to see victimizers leave, even if I grieve the end of the relationship. As we clean up our act, the people whose damage dovetails with ours have to leave or change. Our relationships are like a big mobile; when one piece gets lighter, everything else has to adjust.

One of the benefits of trusting myself more is that my judgment gets better. I find that I am not only trusting me more, but I am trusting the people who want to hurt me less, and the people who want to support me more. I feel safer, I feel more connected, I feel softer, I feel stronger. I am happier. The more I trust me, the more trustworthy I become.

How have I changed from dissing myself to honoring myself with my own trust?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 07122015

Wise Guys

Wise Guys

I have been privy to a very curious phenomenon recently. I talk to a lot of people over the course of a day, and many of them are reporting variations on doubting themselves. Riffing on notions is fun, but I don’t think self-doubt is on that list.

The thing is, we are wise. Effortlessly. We accrue wisdom by just living our lives, experiencing our experiences. Sadly, for many of us, we listen to people who tell us we aren’t wise. They may even tell us we are stupid. Depending on who they are, what our mis-learnings are, we buy into that idea and believe we are dumb.

Poor we!

How do I know I am wise? How do I feel when I own my wisdom? What makes me trust my smarts?

In the dark ages, I was in so much pain. I bought into the idea that I didn’t know anything about living, but a tiny part of me trusted my wisdom. That wisdom told me to find a good teacher. My first brilliant teacher whom I found on my own was a shrink named Dan. He helped me to begin to see that my emotional pain was based on past events I was holding on to, and by habits that kept me stuck.

I trusted my wisdom more because of my time with him and started to clear out the negative, abusive people in my life. I made some big changes.

I sought out more teachers. I found good ones, sometimes they were there to teach me one lesson, sometimes more. I found a wonderful teacher who worked with me for many years. She created a space for me to find my way, my wisdom, my self.

We all need teachers at different times in our lives. They always show up when we need them. Our job is to trust our wisdom enough to spot them, and then to trust them, and ourselves enough to learn the lessons they are meant to give us. Sometimes we have a topic that is a bit treacherous, and we need to address it with more than one teacher.

Our Personal Doubt is that kind of lesson.

Our Personal Doubt is our first mis-learning. We mis-learn it very early in our lives, and we buy into it wholeheartedly. For some of us, it’s that we are wrong. Or that we hurt people. Or that we are bad. Or that we are unlovable. There are many others. It’s that bad feeling that has been with you for your whole life. We may not even be aware of it.

My Personal Doubt is that I am garbage. It informed many of my choices for many years. I have worked on releasing that belief for a long time, and bit by bit it has gotten much less powerful. Like all our really important stuff, no one else can fix this for us. Like happiness, the truth behind our personal doubt will come from inside us.

The more we practice trusting our wisdom, the easier our lives will get, the less our Personal Doubt can flatten us. The wonderful teacher I mentioned above, Vi, would say, “You do know.” Oh, I hated that phrase! But she was always right. When I relaxed and calmed down, I always knew what I needed to do.

How have I changed from denying my wisdom to believing that I do know?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04112015

Felling my Fatal Flaw

Felling My Fatal Flaw

It is our first relationship, the first person we become aware of. This is the first person  whose feelings we notice, whose well being matters to us. This is often the first person we doubt. It brings up one of my favorite thinkin’ questions, “Who is the I that recognizes me?”

My most fundamental relationship is the one I have with myself. It is also far and away the most complicated one I have simply because I know so much about me. I often put the most negative emotional judgments on me, the harshest critic, the cruelest words. I say the nastiest, most cutting things to myself, and often I am not even paying attention when I do. It’s more of a stream of consciousness undercurrent that is undermining, undercutting, all under my radar.

Why would I like me? How could I treat me with kindness and respect? What makes me nice to me?

Liking ourselves is effortless at our core. We totally get it there. But as we think stuff, and observe stuff, we start mislearning, and we are usually the first victim of that mislearning. That first mislearning about ourselves will color everything for us. We call it “personal doubt” and it is wrong, no matter how certain we are that it is right.

Why am I good enough? Why am I right? Why am I acceptable? Why am I a contribution?

We often think of our personal doubt as our fatal flaw, that one horrible thing about us that makes us less than, or unlovable, or undeserving.

And it’s not true. We only think it’s true. And we react to that thought either by trying to prove it wrong, or by giving up to show that it’s right. If I believe that I am not good enough, I may bend over backwards to prove that I am. Overachieving in everything I do, as though I were striving for sainthood. Or I may say “phooey” and underachieve, getting in trouble, being mean. Or I may do one here, and the other there, and it’s all based on a wrong idea that we hold in certainty.

Maybe I feel like everything I do is wrong, or even that I am wrong for existing. Maybe I feel like I have no inherent value. Maybe I feel like I always hurt people. Chances are good that if I think about it a bit, I will notice what my personal doubt is.

When I find it, I can start using my good Creative Questions to loosen it up. If I feel like I always hurt people, I can try Creative Questions like, “How am I a contribution? Why do I help? What makes me considerate? How do I show my compassion?”

And it’s not about doing more. It’s not about work hard at it. It’s not about striving to be a contribution, a helper. We are these things naturally, effortlessly. By asking good Creative Questions, we are helping ourselves to our natural balance, our natural equilibrium. Like forgiving ourselves when we screw up, it’s hitting the reset button.

Giving myself permission to like me is, for some of us, all we need. We are battered by the media with ideas that we are lacking. I should be the way I see other people. When I give myself permission to like and accept me as I am right now, I can choose to like me. I am free.

How have I changed from owning a fatal flaw to liking me as I am?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07122014

Looking at the Onion

Looking at the Onion

I talk about unconscious material here fairly often. You know, the stuff that is buried deep in our minds. We react to it. It directs a lot of our behavior. It makes decisions for us. They are often not very good decisions because they are born from our mislearning. And then we wonder what the heck happened.

Part of coming to know ourselves is being willing to look at our unconscious stuff. Many of us try to avoid it. We are afraid that we will uncover stuff that might wreck our relationships. We are afraid that we find things we don’t like about ourselves. We are afraid that we will unearth terrible secrets. Or that we will find out that we have to make a change we think is too scary.

One way to tell what is going on in our unconscious minds is to look at our circumstances. Our situations can let us know what creative questions we are asking unconsciously.

Do my days feel effortful or effortless? Do my days feel easy or challenging? Do I feel peaceful? Do I relax?

Why am I alive? What makes me choose? How do I feel when I feel alive?

Sometimes, we have a situation that feels overwhelming. We feel like we can’t solve the problem, so we push it deep down into our unconscious and start asking bad creative questions, like, How can I avoid dealing with this problem?

Uh, oh.

We are wildly, wonderfully creative beings, and we will come up with amazing ideas for avoiding stuff. We get busy, we get pregnant, we have affairs, we get in trouble at school or work, or with the law, we have a bad accident, we get sick, and if it feels really big, we might just die.

Maybe we get obsessive about work, or housekeeping, or exercising, shopping, or glamorizing. running errands, taking on commitments, volunteering, extra jobs, well, you get the idea.

If we discover that we are doing some of these big avoidance things, we can start to look for our big topic. We may get caught up in details, the trivia of the situation. I can usually tell that I am doing this if I am feeling like there is a lot of drama going on around me, that I am all caught up in it. And this may well brings my buried situation to a head, so I have to take a look at it.

Why would I let go? How am I peaceful? What makes me notice?

When I let go of the drama, when I choose to breathe softly into the situation, I can often see what is going on under the frothy excitement. Frequently, it will have to do with my personal doubt, that first piece of mislearning I took on when I was very little. In fact, the more I deal with my stuff, the more I will need to look at this piece, to integrate the experiences that support that mislearning.

It’s like the onion analogy, where we peel away a bit, and peel away some more, and some more. It may be a process, but it is often the best way to clean up our stuff. When I choose to look at my unconscious stuff, and for me, getting help makes this much easier, I am way more efficient. I am choosing to be alive, to live as fully as I can, and enjoy my life effortlessly.

How have I changed from hiding from my own mislearnings to choosing to live fully?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07102014

It’s Just Not True

It’s Just Not True

We all go through rough patches. If we are lucky, they are short. Sometimes that patch can last for years. Some people call it the human condition. I think It’s more like a starting point to becoming our own, glorious selves.

Why do I choose to change? What makes me evolve? How do I know what to do?

We all have stuff. If we are lucky, we can muster our resources, and deal with it. Sometimes we think we don’t have resources, and are just kind of doomed. I think our stuff points us in our own particular direction.

What makes me wise? How do I know I have smarts? How do I know what to do?

We all have a past. If we are lucky, it is just our past, and not informing our present, distorting our perceptions, twisting our relationships. Some of us think that ignoring and forgetting makes that damage go away. That works as well with the clunk under the hood. Next thing you know, you have some sort of huge breakdown on the side of the highway. Ugh.

Why do I choose to integrate my past?

You know what I think about luck. You know I believe we create an environment in which luck, if you will, can flourish. That’s part of what becoming a grownup, an enlightened being, is all about.

We each have a topic particular to us. This is our very first mislearning. This mislearning colors every breath we take. Each thought is tinged by it. And so, all our emotions, feelings, and behavior likewise are touched. We call it “personal doubt.”

For some of us, it’s feeling wrong, or feeling like we always hurt people. Some of us feel like we aren’t good enough no matter what, or that we are damaged goods, beyond redemption. Maybe it is that things never go our way, or that we are undeserving, or have a mysterious fatal flaw. There are lots of variations.

And it’s lies, all lies.

We work our butts off, either to prove that our personal doubt is true, and we can’t do anything right, or we do hurt people, or we are garbage, or that it’s false, and we bust our humps over-achieving, but through it all we hang onto it’s premise as our own defining characteristic. And, curiously, as we clean up our stuff, this particular one will show up more and more vividly.

Challenging, yes, but on the other hand, if you are having your personal doubt come up a lot a lot, it lets you know how well you are doing at becoming a grown up. Good for you! Ow! Stop hitting me! I know it’s uncomfortable, but it’s a good thing.

When we remember that our personal doubt is a mislearning, we can move past it. Because it touches everything, we have to address it at a lot of different points. It’s still a mislearning, and under that mislearning, I am my perfect self, divine and infinite.

How have I changed from leading my life from my personal doubt to believing I am a divine and perfect being?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02022014

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From Pointless to Pointful

From Pointless to Pointful

How do I live a meaningful life? Why do I make a difference? What makes me see my divinity?

Aren’t these nice questions?

Are you getting nice answers? Or at least a nice feeling? Keep asking, and maybe mess with the wording a bit.

Back when, I made a difference by setting a bad example. At least, that’s how I felt. But then, so much of how we experience the world is based on how we feel.

If I want to feel like I’m living a meaningful life, and I don’t, then I need to look at me for my solutions. I need to look at what I’m doing. Do I have activities that feel meaningful to me? Do I take care of my family in ways that make a difference to them? Maybe I do some volunteer work in one of my communities. Perhaps there is an elderly neighbor I check in on.

I need to look at my thoughts. Am I putting me down all the time? Telling myself that I don’t matter, what I do doesn’t matter, that I am dirt, or scum, or garbage? I may have some other version of I’m not good enough. Or that I’m wrong, or bad for simply existing. We all have something like that, our Personal Doubt.

Maybe in my thoughts, I say that my work is bad, that I don’t do enough for anyone, that my efforts don’t count. We may have a way of putting down our efforts, or diminishing or degrading what we accomplish. We may try extra hard, or we may give up. Either way, those decisions are based on old old old mislearnings on which we base our understanding of the world.

Sometimes, we end up pumping up our efforts false, to try to cover up how bad we feel.

Not very meaningful. In fact, it is really sad that so many of us live like this.

How do I feel when I feel my divinity? What makes me feel sacred? How do I experience my natural life?

When I start choosing to live my natural live, I start unchoosing my mislearnings. I am willing to look at me, to consider that my beliefs may need an overhaul. When I start choosing to live my natural life, I am willing to entertain the possibility that maybe my ideas about who I am, how I am, and maybe even why I am, are off. Maybe even really off. And I become willing to release those old beliefs and start incorporating new ones, ones that support my natural life, support simple changes, support good tiny choices every day.

When I start feeling my natural life, I will find moments of bliss on a regular basis, I will feel joy frequently. I will find even my mundane tasks satisfying. I will feel that my day’s activities mattered, that I made a contribution. I will feel like I was naturally kind and compassionate. I will feel my wisdom, and see my brilliance. I will expect miracles, and I will recognize them, and feel appreciation for them. I will fall asleep contented with my day, and awake looking forward to another day of peaceful core, relaxed in mind and body, with passions to pursue, people to love and engage with, and a sense of the pervasive sacredness of life.

How have I changed from feeling like it’s all pointless to fully experiencing my natural life?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 01312014