We can’t outperform our own self-image. Building confidence and self-esteem are essential in a life of conscious creativity. Confidence is a major key to artistry – to weathering storms of all kinds (and yes, creating art or launching any new venture can be like a storm sometimes). Such moments when life doesn’t go as smoothly as planned may look like these: you wrote the manuscript, but haven’t yet seen the book in print; you mounted the art show, but haven’t yet sold a painting; you started the business, but haven’t yet welcomed many (or any) customers through your door.
Building and sustaining a high degree of confidence is crucial, not merely at the beginning of a new endeavour (which is, ironically, often the easiest phase); but it’s absolutely essential once the Dream is unfolding and more obstacles arise. That’s when receiving coaching, being one with a solid support structure, is so crucial to success. (And if you’re at that vital point of seeking help, let me know.)
Many people feel discomfort – even deep-down shame – in confidently declaring and offering their gifts to others. An old ingrained pattern of thoughts and beliefs says it’s immodest to do so – that being self-assured is somehow “showing off” and smacks of lacking humility.
Humility is, of course, essential too. I’d like to share with you what it means to me these days…
Recently, my husband and I have spent a great amount of time with our 19-year-old cat Alice, whose body is in the end stages of kidney disease. To look at her – skin and bones, partially shaved and partially matted fur (once a beautiful long coat) smelling of the food we continually wash from her face and paws – most people would wonder why we haven’t had this animal put down.
Indeed, knowing what her body’s going through, there have been moments when I’ve wished she’d show us she was ready to make the journey back into the invisible. But she hasn’t.
Each day she wakes up and looks for us. She devours a flamboyant array of Fancy Feast flavours now permitted as she’s reached the point where the vet says, “Feed her anything.” Renal diet? Forget it. She loves crawling into our laps and having her head stroked. She loves lying in the sun on the back deck, swiping at flies that still get her going. When I take her to the vet, she rallies with the heart of a mini-lion – squirming and nipping at his fingers – requiring two people to hold her down when she receives her fluids, now an every-48-hours routine.
At times I’ve thought, this is it, this is the day, tears streaming down my face, and been completely overturned by this animal who crawls into my lap, perfectly at ease and purring.
“She’s a fighter,” says the vet, chuckling and shaking his head.
I realized this week that our old companion, who’s taught me much, is imparting one of her last lessons. Each day she shows me what I am humble to, and in.
Life.
Her body will inevitably run its course, and if and when she reaches a point of suffering, we’ll help her to find peace. In the meantime, during her final days, I can be in awe of Life’s Presence and Power, particularized in a four-pound cat still boldly declaring herself to the world.
That Power and Presence exists in each of us.
Think for a moment of the Life in you – at once a part of you and also greater – that Force which declares itself in your longing to grow. Listen to the voice within, telling you you’re here to live your Dream, not in selfishness or self-aggrandizement, but because once realized, your Dream is a real contribution; and so is the person you are, and can become, each day in the process.
Confidence and humility are two sides of the same coin.
Be humble to the Greatness in you which you didn’t create. You’re simply living proof of it, whatever “It” is. Call it what you like. And your Dream – that conscious impulse to create in ways aligned with your own Purpose: Be humble to that.
Serve Life boldly and in humility. Live Life confidently and in joy.
Each day declare, in your own way, You are Here.