Turning the voice of self-doubt into self-love

“Is there anything better than to be longing for something, when you know it is within reach?” Greta Garbo

      Last week I discussed how to create a vision that is clear enough to create a longing for change. That is definitely the first step, but just creating the vision isn’t always enough to stay with it long enough for the change to occur.  There is often a voice that rises up when we think about this wonderful life we would love living that says things like, ‘Who do you think you are?’ or ‘You’re too old’ or ‘You’re not good enough’ or ‘That will take forever’ or any of the hundreds of other variations on the voice of doubt.  We all have the voice of doubt, but we don’t all give it our power.  I believe that how much weight we put on the voice of doubt compared to the longing of our dream is proportional to the amount of self-worth we feel.  The more worthy we feel we are of our longings the easier it is to dismiss the voice of doubt.
      I envision the voice of doubt to be like the dark.  We can get angry with the dark or try to fight the dark or yell at the dark all we want and it will not go away.  All we need to do is turn on the light.  The light is love for ourselves.  When we are able to give ourselves the compassion, grace and understanding that we freely give to others we begin to see ourselves differently.  Our sense of worthiness for the longing we desire begins to increase.  While it sounds so simple to just give yourself more love, it is something that many of us struggle with.  I wish there was just one thing that we could all learn to do that would increase a sense of self-worth and decrease the self-doubt.  There isn’t, but the good news is that there are thousands of ways that it can be done. We can change our thoughts, our behaviors or our emotions.  We can go into nature to connect, get quiet with prayer or meditation or involve ourselves in a hobby.  We can paint, journal or play music to touch the authentic part of ourselves that is whole, perfect and well.  There are hundreds of self-help books written on this topic and each one is a way that someone has found helpful in order to cultivate self-love.  It doesn’t matter how it is done, but what does matter is that you take time to convince yourself that you can do it.  Don’t let the voice of doubt be the leader anymore, give it a good push and ask yourself what you could do to increase your sense of self-worth.  The authentic you knows what needs to be done and it will give you signals if you listen to them.  If what you try feels right do it more- if it doesn’t, try something else.  You know what you need in order to increase your self-love.  It comes from the same place as the vision does.  So listen to your authentic self- you are your own best teacher and the only one that will know what works for you.