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Increasing self confidence
skullchin
Veteran
Is there a Buddhist way to do this?
0
Comments
When conditional confidence fails it is an opportunity to remember or link into your unconditional. Which is opening to the situation. Without shying away from it. Its always there but what goes wrong is that we forget we have it. That is known as avidya or avoidance. Thats what is meant in buddhism by 'ignorance' in part. As it is an attachment to a wrong way of looking at things fundamentally.
Beset on one side with day-to-day worries, egocentric personal concerns, dilemmas and heartbreaking situations demanding hard decisions....
On the other side I have my equanimous self relaxing, letting go, seeing everything as illusory and impermanent, smiling inwardly and shaking my oh-so-wise head at the utter foolishness of my clinging and grasping....
It's like watching an arm-wrestling contest I tell you.....:D
I have worked out that the main cause of my personal suffering is this low confidence and social anxiety. Before I had social anxiety I suffered from the disorder where you think you are always ill or dying. It seems pathetic and silly but I did genuinely think I had cancers and god knows what else. It caused me a great deal of pain and stress and near suicide at one point.
I suffered from that for maybe 6 years until it randomly left, I was free from it. Then soon enough it manifested itself into social anxiety and still today I have it to some degree. If I can free myself from this I will be a great deal happier I am sure of it. It is why I am so intent on grasping a solid understanding on non self and dependent origination.
Well thank you fivebells... I guess a problem shared....
I don't actually think (although I thank you for your kind and considerate good wish) that it's a question ever of 'getting over it'. I think sometimes it's a question of seeing things as they are, because things are as they are, and that's just the way they are. It's a hard truth to realise, but frankly, it's a truth we MUST realise - because there's no getting round it.
Don't grasp too hard. Relax a little. What I might suggest is not to see how far you have yet to travel, but to look behind you and see just how wonderfully far you have progressed. The key is acceptance, I think. Accepting yourself as you are, here, now, today. "This is who I am, and that's ok. I wasn't like this yesterday, and I won't be like this tomorrow, so today is today, and I am okay!"
Don't berate or criticise yourself. Goodness knows Life has enough 'sticks 'n' stones' to fling at us, without us beating ourselves over the head, too!!
And a good one, at that.
My home is quiet, because my partner is currently away. It's the ideal opportunity to quietly reflect and ponder things with no distraction.
Nice also, to talk to empathetic and like-minded individuals who can see factors at all levels, not just an emotively-fuelled one.....
Many thanks.
Great apologies for any perceived thread-jacking. I hope it isn't so, but it feels good to expand and discuss......
I understand what you mean federica, and maybe I used the wrong words there lol. I often use the wrong words, I really should read back everything I write before I post it. I meant I hope this situation comes to pass soon. There is very little we can do to change the way life is and to fight it just makes it worse I guess, but yes sorry wrong wording
It is annoying though having social anxiety because you just wish for a day where you could be happy with yourself and be surrounded by people and totally at peace with everything, rather than worrying yourself to death. I never had this social anxiety until about 2-3 years ago, like I said it was manifested in a different problem.
Thank you for your words though, they are always helpful and I am sure the original poster has some things to go by also
Permit me also to share the following with you. Turn up your speakers. It takes about ten minutes and is blissful. I have posted this before but repetition is a worthy habit.....
I downloaded an mp3 guided meditation on this from wildmind.
I think it's only a buck or two if you are interested it trying it out.
The gist of it is to sit and quiet the mind a bit and then repeat (out loud or silently in your head) the phrases "May I be happy. May I be well. May I be free from suffering". This is done for whatever amount of time you wish (a few minutes is probably good to start with) and then it changes to bringing to mind someone you have positive feelings for and repeating the phrases to them. Then someone you are neutral about, then someone you don't like or someone you have recently had 'unskillful' feelings/thoughts about and then finally the entire world of beings collectively.
The important part is to connect with the words themselves as you speak them to yourself and others. It is a pretty neat experience because you don't need to feel any love or warmth toward yourself or the others you speak these words to when you begin. Simply by bringing the person to mind and focusing on the meaning of the words metta develops naturally.
There is a very high probability that you will 'feel the power' even the first time you do it provided you concentrate on the meaning of the phrases you recite rather than just speak them mindlessly.
The simplest version is simply to open your heart to things. Start with people you like, then people you're indifferent to, then people you dislike. Then do it for objects. Then do it for experiences. When you can open your heart to the experience of anxiety, and rest, things change.
The Buddha's definition of confidence is a different kind of faith. First, it is faith in the fact that we are bigger than our successes or failures; that they do not define us and that success and failure are simply transient fluctuations of an existence in which everything is dependent on everything else. We will fail sometimes, we will succeed sometimes. That is the way the world is. This is the wisdom behind teachings like not-self and dependent origination. There is a lovely exposition by Thich Nhat Hanh on interdependence:
Source: Peace is Every Step
Our vision becomes very narrow when we need things to be a certain way and cannot accept things the way they actu*ally are. Denial functions almost as a kind of narcotic, so that vital parts of our lives end up missing.
When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life. Metta—the sense of love that is not bound to desire, that does not have to pretend that things are other than the way they are—overcomes the illusion of separateness, of not being part of a whole. Thereby metta overcomes all of the states that accompany this fundamental error of separateness—fear, alienation, loneliness, and despair—all of the feelings of frag*mentation. In place of these, the genuine realization of con*nectedness brings unification, confidence, and safety.
Source: Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
I sure hope that's going to help get me through physiology then! Yikes. I feel like the mountain has come down on me after two days of class...
Mtns
Beautifully said.
I chose the phrase "I'm okay" because it serves as a reminder that there is nothing wrong with me and I have nothing to defend. I'm also starting to notice the situations I am using it most. But more on that later.
The work of Kristen Neff has been helpful to me in this regard. She is a (Buddhist?) researcher on Self-Compassion. Basically her research indicates that self-confidence/self-esteem aren't useful constructs. Research shows that high self-esteem is beneficial to have but there are many drawbacks to the approach of increasing self-esteem.
A much more useful practice is that of self-compassion. She offers a self-compassion meditation on her website that is very similar to loving-kindness meditation.
http://www.self-compassion.org/