CENTER POINT
THE CENTER FOR SELF-CHANGE NEWSLETTER

Vol. I, No. 3 - March, 2007

SELF-CONFIDENCE IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS

J. Kingston Cowart

We dwell in chaos.

We may not always recognize it, but it's always there.

Every day we are surrounded by conditions of unpredictability and uncertainty.

We live in the realm of the unknowable unknown and, recoiling from that fact, try our best to pay it no mind.

Then our dog bites the neighbor's kid - or our own child is bullied at school - and we end up in a chain of consequences we wouldn't have imagined the day before.

The reality of life's existential chaos hits even harder when suddenly - out of nowhere - a car slams into ours, a family member is diagnosed with a serious disease, we receive a call from the emergency room, or officers arrive at the door in the middle of the night with tragic news of a loved one's death.

When we look ahead from these things, hoping for a better tomorrow, we may find it hard to feel secure about the future. We tend to feel somewhat anxious instead - even if we are largely unconscious of it.

The world is filled with international turmoil.

We aren't as sure of our jobs as we used to be.

Many of us are not even confident that our marriages will hold together until the end of the year.

Yet confidence is the very thing we must have if we are to carry on in turbulent times.

Where is it to come from? Not the world around us. It inspires far more concern and insecurity than confidence.

The confidence we require comes from within.

It is self-confidence and it is always available to us.

Let's look at the word "confidence" itself. It comes from the Latin con (with or by means of) + fide (faithfulness).

Self-confidence is thus a matter of faithfulness to oneself.

It means acting in accordance with and by means of your own true nature.

If you want to be confident in facing what confronts you - or may unexpectedly confront you at any time - then face it on your own terms.

Face life in terms of who you really are.

That's not just facing life. It's is also facing up to life.

The best way to get started with that is to spend some private time with yourself on a regular basis.

People often tell me it's hard to make time for that.

They're wrong. It's not hard - it's impossible.

We don't make time. God makes time and we live in it.

What we have to do instead is to take time from something else and give it to ourselves.

You know, it is very common for people to try to do this with coffee breaks and cigarette breaks. What they're really after is not so much the coffee or the cigarette but the break - the brief bit of time to themselves.

The trouble is that they usually use that time to worry about something, or to plan to do something, or to daydream mindlessly about something else.

A better way is to practice getting very quiet with yourself instead.

Go peacefully within for ten minutes or so once a day - even longer if you like.

Get a sense of who you really are when you're not being anything but yourself.

Become very familiar with what that's like.

After a while that's who you'll feel like all the time.

And that person, the inner self at the center of your being, already knows how to meet all the challenges of existence - without worry or anxiety.

Follow its lead along the path of self-change and you'll never go wrong.

Self-confidence in the midst of chaos comes from keeping faith with that inner self.

How you choose to do that is up to you.

Self-hypnosis is an excellent option. It can be used for meditation and has the added advantage of allowing you to use suggestions to make needed changes from time to time. It has been shown to be especially helpful in dealing with confusion and situational depression.

Zen and Vipassana forms of meditation are very rewarding as well. So is yoga.

The main thing is to do something that allows you to become friends with yourself, to get to know and trust yourself in the truest and deepest sense.

That way you'll always have solid ground on which to stand no matter what may come your way.