Last update: June 25, 2022
Those who love us neither diminish nor limit us. Those who truly appreciate us will make us believe in ourselves, will give wings to our dreams and will color the gray days with renewed enthusiasm. Encouraging someone you love is another show of affection.
One of the most important elements in achieving desired psychological fulfillment is believing in yourself. However, no one can make a beautiful flower sprout if the seed has not yet taken root. If, for example, in childhood we were instilled with the idea that we are clumsy or unskilled, growth will not be harmonious: limiting beliefs will sprout.
"A true friend is the one who believes in you even if you have stopped believing in yourself"
In much of the vast literature on self-help to foster self-confidence, one fact is often overlooked. We are encouraged to believe in ourselves despite the difficulties, despite the antagonistic voices.
However, to make that leap, it is first necessary to undertake a meticulous inner journey for which we are not always prepared.
To believe in ourselves, we must first deactivate many minefields created not only in childhood. It is possible to experience frustrating couple dynamics which may have profoundly influenced our self-concept, our self-esteem.
The difficulty of believing in oneself when certain "power figures" do not
We will begin by describing what we mean by "power figures". The educator Ken Robinson has made known a very particular case, that of Gillian. This eight-year-old girl was the clear example of school failure.
Parents and teachers did not have high hopes. She was too slow, irresponsible, distracted, completely disconnected from the world. Complete failure was guaranteed.
Everything changed when a psychologist decided to do some tests that made it possible to discover that the little girl was very receptive to music. He left her alone in class and realized that she needed to "dance to think". She hid a dancer within herself, so much so that Gillian Lynne has since become one of the most important dancers in history.
Power figures are those who, at a given moment, have in their hands the possibility of laying the foundations of our self-esteem and personal security.
Parents need to encourage their children to achieve their goals reminding them that they deserve to make their dreams come true and that they deserve it on a par with others.
However, this will not do much if when those children enter the school world, another authority figure such as a teacher and even the education system itself, instead of encouraging and guiding them, makes them believe that they are not "suitable"; if a bad grade is enough to label them.
Encourage those you love
There are many people who have lived for some time negatively "programmed" through that emotional conditioning exerted by parents, colleagues and partners.
Le limiting beliefs settle in the brain like a Trojan reformulating ideas, erasing desires, hopes, dreams and instilling fears and insecurities.
Many psychologists speak of the need to trace the source. Remove one by one, all the layers, the scars and the unhealed wounds to find that figure who dared to have more power than us in a given moment, making us believe that we are failures.
Because sometimes the hackneyed formula "Remind yourself how much you are worth and how much you love yourself to change your perception" doesn't always work.
That inner journey to healing will always be appropriate, but we must take authority away from that teacher who told us we would never get anywhere. To that parent who repeated to us almost every moment how clumsy we were or to that partner always ready to point out our defects to enhance his qualities.
In addition to this delicate process in which we break down our limiting beliefs one by one, it is essential to surround ourselves with people of value. Encourage those you love when it is a real cure-all. It means dissolving doubts, nurturing hopes and revitalizing deadwood.
If you have one or more special people who support you, feel free to thank them from time to time. "Thank you for believing in me."
Images courtesy of Pascal Campion
