The Joy of Creating, Caring and Adventure and how it saved me from my narrative of low self-confidence

When I felt insecure and shy, I was wondering: what is helping me to free myself from the anxiety, what helps me to strive, what helps me to grow and be more confident? I would read books, trying to become more confident, trying different perspectives, trying to let go of the fear. But what happened? I felt more insecure, more freightened, and more anxious. How can that be?

I realized that confidence is not improved by trying to be more confident, but by simply being. When I felt stuck and did not know what to do, when I felt that I lack confidence, I started telling me that story — back and forth. “You aren’t confident! Something is wrong with you! That won’t work out! You have to do something against it!”. So first, I was bashing myself for not being confident and being wrong. Thn I would tell myself that I need to change who I am. And then I tried various strategies to become more confident. I would read books on sociology and philosophy, books on psychology and therapy. I would dive deep in any concept and idea I could find to improve my confidence. I would read blog posts, I would practice affirmations, I would run around my apartment and talk and practice conversations before going out and presenting them to the world.

Puh, that was exhausting

It was totally exhausting. I just did not realize. For me, I made progress. I saw that I was able to have a conversation and not shy away and run away, I realized that I am surprisingly good in storytelling despite my inner believe that I am shy in speaking with and in front of people, I was able to raise up the career ladder. It all seemed to be great. I made progress. But somehow I did not. I became more fearful, more anxious. When I was first only afraid of flying, I was soon afraid of everything else as well — trains going too fast, heights of buildings become too high and I felt stuck, elevators posed threats, going home alone freaked me out, and my spider phobia became worse after it had gotten better over the years.

My social anxiety increased. I feared that I was shy, that I would not perform well, I started hiding what I was doing, could not deal with people “wanting something from me”, I felt as if my apartment became a prison I could not flee from, I would hide away for days as I could not deal with people, I thought that I would simply be a heavy package for them to carry, that I was not exhausting for them, difficult, that I did not want to give them the negative experience of me being there with them. I would not share my knowledge and expertise. I would say, this is nothing special, this is what everyone can do, even though, I got external praise for who I am.

But I did not believe it. And so I started the next wave of solving this “what is wrong with me”. “Let me be more confident!”, would I tell myself, “I just have to get this, do this, it ruins my life otherwise”. Well it kind of did ruin my life. But the more I tried to solve it with the same methods I did before, the unhappier I became. It did not work. I could not find a way out of this dilemma. The more I tried to be confident, the least I was confident.

Until I realized that I missed to see what was laying in front of me the whole time

There were times where I felt confident, where I was in my element. Where I did not even think about all of that confidence stuff. I was just there. And I started creating, I started producing and I started experimenting. I was releasing myself from thinking and tabed into my innate desire to create a piece of work I am proud of. I created a poetry book with poems by myself. I had this inner urge, after having written poems for five years, to bring them into a book. I thought “when I am not producing that book, there will be nothing left of me afterwards. I will be forgotten.”. Later I thought, maybe that thought was that strong, as I had not shown my real me in various occasions, and many indeed did not know anything about my poetry writing. It was one of those hidden creations that stayed in the unknown for a long time.

When I created the poetry book, I was in my element. I was alive. I was highly productive. I was there, fully in the present, I was smiling, I was content, I was excited. And I was proud when I printed the books. It meant a lot.

Then I created children books with fabulous funny animals that I sketched on an Ipad and that I would then move to Adobe. I got excited. Two more books. Two more creative productions. And again, I felt proud. I felt happy. I was fully in my element when I produced them. I forgot time and place and anything else.

I started to bring those creative spirits into my life and I realized that this was the missing piece, the element that was directly in front of my eyes, but I failed to see it.

Following your creativity, flow, passion, energy, spark and curiosity

There it was. I felt confident and excited when I was producing and creating a product or piece of work that I was proud of. That excited me. That I felt the inner urge to do so. Where I feel the energy, the excitement, when I feel alive. In these moments, I need nothing else. I forget about everything else. I forget about what people might think of me and my work, I forget about being anxious, I forget that I am shy, I forget that people may laugh at me, I forget that I am insecure. I forget it all. As I am in my element. As I am simply there. I don’t have the time to focus on all those things that make me inconfident and that could make me confident. It is an element that disappears from my life and I do not even care if I am confident or not. It is as if these are two words that are not part of my vocubarly. And I also don’t feel the urge to talk about it, or use other words to describe what I do. I am simply there. In my element.

This is the difference. What I was looking for. What makes me confident. It is not by running to find it. By getting advice and ideas from others on how to be confident. It is the innate being and following one’s own passions and excitement. It is to be simply you.

The root counts, not the branches

When re-read the words I would tell myself constantly and the strategies my mind tried to solve them, I failed to see that I tried to solve a problem.

You aren’t confident! Something is wrong with you! That won’t work out! You have to do something against it!

My brain made up that story that I am not confident and something is wrong with me. And because of that, I have to solve that “problem”.

But the problem never was the problem my brain made up, but the problem was that I saw it as a problem. It never was and never will be a problem. For whatever reason my brain started to believe that I was a problem and then tried to fix that I as a problem. Instead of seeing that the worth of a person is never a problem. It is an innately wrong statement. And trying to solve that as a problem left me to constantly see myself as a problem. I ingrained within myself the very essence of what I tried to avoid that strongly. I created a self-fulfilling loop of self-sabotaging by diminishing myself, by making myself small, by making myself invisible, by denying myself. It indeed was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Letting Go and Embracing Who You Are

Allowing myself to let go of this mindset took a bit of time and I am in the middle of letting it go. Of embracing who I am. Of not shying away and not running away. When you do that, you realize all these behaviours and actions and belief systems you built along with this belief of “you as a problem” and that infiltrated your very being and standing in the world.

I realized that I would say yes when I meant no, that I would diminish myself in front of others, that I would tell stories that make me look weak, that I would run away when I liked someone, that I would play down my feelings when I got excited, that I would hide my true strengths, that I would ask others for permission, that I would listen more to others than myself, that I would not trust my actions and self-doubt myself, that I would fail to listen as I was more focused on whether they like me and approve of me than whether I like them, that I would freeze and move into analysis paralysis, that I would walk with hanging shoulders instead of strong and spacious, that I would stay in places I felt uninspired, and so on. I became aware of the unhealthy beahviors and actions I did that promoted the inner belief of me being “a problem” instead of me being me. Those activities became self-fulfilling prophecies too. They would lead to exactly that life that I was trying to avoid.

I realized that these strategies were built upon the “you are a problem” root. I could have tried to “solve” and change those strategies, but it would have never been possible to change in the long term. Simply because these are layers build upon a foundation that is shaky and that says itself as a problem needing to be fixed.

I realized that only when my root is stable and innately what it is, me, then I can build different strategies on top. But these are no strategies of changing myself or growing myself or whatever strategies to build upon a problem to solve. There is no problem anymore. And for that reason I become free to explore the world. To tab into my innate creativity. To bring what is within to life.

You realize you are free to choose, you follow your passions, your strategies become irrelevant

It takes a bit of time to let go of these strategies, for sure. They do not disappear within a day or two. They have been trained for years, they pop up from time to time, for sure. And they need some deliberate actions to bring in new ones that serve us better.

But I realized that some of these strategies are disappearing quite quickly. I do not have time anymore to think of them or act that way or behave that way. I am immersed in what I care about. I am in my flow. I am excited and curious and open to take the world in. I look forward to new adventures. To trial and experimenting. To open up and feeling joy and feeling alive.

It feels like intensification and focus and openness and expansion at the same time. It feels like I could hug the world and take that energy to create in that world. It feels liberating to let go of that narrative. To let go of that belief.

And to move into our place of power. The only place we can steer. The only place we can call home. Ourselves. And from that innate power and being can we act in that world. We can expand ourselves, we can take up space, we can share who we are, we can tell whom we like, we can share our passions, and excitements, our love and our beauty. We can take it all in. We can be kind and curious. We can be adventorous and caring. We can be strong and vulnerable. We can decide what we value, what we care about, what we create, what we do. We can simply be. Being in that world, embracing our uniqueness and sharing our beauty.

Did you like what you read? Then I would be very happy if you share this article with someone who can also benefit from letting go and embracing their unique beautiful self.