Confident And Connected

What is confidence? Where do we find it? How do we create it? In this talk, we will dive into what it takes to feel comfortable getting uncomfortable outside of our comfort zone. We will learn some ways to connect with our past, present, and future while manifesting self love and self esteem. Mountains weren't meant to be climbed in a day; all you have to do is START!

Transcript

You You Before we begin take a moment to find a comfortable seat Settle into this space Ground gently coming rooted to whatever supports your body below And have a journal close by to jot down anything that resonates We're here today to talk a little bit about confidence what is confidence and where do we find it And where do we find it?

Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct Or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective Confidence comes from a Latin word,

Fudere,

Which means to trust Therefore having self-confidence is having trust in oneself Imagine this you and your best friend have planned to spend the entire day at your favorite amusement park And you're going to spend the whole day riding all the roller coasters So you arrive the gates open immediately your friend starts running towards the biggest tallest coaster there is Meanwhile while you run in the opposite direction towards the smallest safer coaster that there is You're going to spend the whole day riding all the roller coasters And you're going to spend the whole day running in the opposite direction towards the smallest safer coaster that there is Your friend stops looks around and says hey where are you going?

You point in the opposite direction and say well I thought we'd start over here where I'm a little more comfortable It seems a little bit safer Your friend says no no follow me let's go start with the tallest one first It's going to be so much fun don't worry don't be scared You pause for a moment you toss it around in your head You say no I think I'm okay starting over here let's start here first But you don't want to disappoint your best friend And so eventually you end up following your best friend over to the biggest tallest scariest roller coaster Your time comes to board Immediately your best friend runs for the very front seat while meanwhile you head towards the back Because on roller coasters the back is much safer right Once again your friend asks hey where are you going?

Well I thought we'd start back here where it's a little safer I'm a little more comfortable Your friend says no join me up front it's going to be so much fun you'll see And so again you pause for a couple of moments give it some thought You decide you really don't want to disappoint your best friend This is supposed to be one of the most fun best days ever So you head up front and join your best friend And so the ride attendants buckle you both in You've got the death grip on the handlebars and your eyes are squeezed tight shut You feel the car begin to make its way up that first hill That first giant hill And all of your thoughts are oh my goodness what am I doing?

What have I done?

I'm going to die And so you go through the whole ride And the further that you go into the ride You begin to come a little bit more confident You begin to open your eyes a little bit wider You breathe in the air eyes wide open and you're screaming and shouting enjoy And so that ride car comes back into the station And your friend turns and looks at you and asks So what did you think?

And you're all smiles and you say that was amazing Let's do it again right away Life can sometimes be like riding a roller coaster right?

Take a moment to think back to a similar situation where you began a little hesitant But as you move forward your confidence continued to grow as well When do we need confidence?

And how do we create it?

Make it till you make it through body language Open versus closed arms and legs Good posture stand tall shoulders back and down And smile Make it till you make it through mindfulness Remembering your roller coaster Affirming I can do this And self love By connecting to your past remembering where you started Remembering your why or why you started By connecting to your present Your present self as a result of all of your experiences By connecting to your future Visualize the change or growth that you would like to see And by wiggling your own tail Don't wait for applause from others Remember that it's okay to celebrate you Self love Before we can get there confidence We must start here with self love Mindfulness equals positive thoughts and words Living in the present Live with intention what you need rather than what you want Protect yourself by setting safe healthy boundaries Always forgive yourself we are human after all All of this leads to good self care Self esteem Self love leads to self esteem Self esteem can also come from our circle of encouragement Circles are a symbol in traditional practice And yoga and even though we share this virtual space today We are still able to adapt that tradition in order to support And empower each other Take a moment to consider your circle away from that And now we're going to take a moment to think about Who are they?

Where are they?

Is your circle always made up of the same people?

And how might your circle change in the future?

Self confidence Self love and self esteem lead to self confidence How do we get there?

Don't judge if you don't know the facts Consider this you just taught what felt like to you the most amazing yoga class Or you just gave the most amazing speech or what have you You were the main focus in a room full of people And so as your audience begins to leave the room As you begin to clean up your space You notice two students talking quite vigorously In the back of the room and they keep looking your way And pointing and kind of giggling and things like that And immediately you go to worst case scenario They hated my class,

They hated my speech,

They didn't see any value in it They don't see any value in me,

What did I do wrong?

And you continue to roll these thoughts around in your head over and over and over again And then the worst,

What feels like the worst happens They begin to walk towards you and again you go inside your head And oh my gosh,

Hopefully they'll just turn and they'll walk away And they keep getting closer and you keep going in your head What am I going to say?

I don't know,

I just don't know what to say I don't have the confidence to face them So they come up to you,

They introduce themselves And they say we just wanted to connect with you before we left And let you know how much we loved your class or your playlist or your speech Something about it really resonated with us And we just really wanted to be able to share that with you We can't wait to join you again soon And so we talked about fake it till you make it earlier Just remembering to not judge ourselves if we don't know all of those facts first,

Perception We can lead to self-confidence by practicing ahimsa,

Acceptance By owning our flaws and turning them into our strengths If your journal is close by,

Jot these down or just feel free to repeat to yourself silently or out loud Having flaws doesn't mean that you are not good enough Be passionate and compassionate,

Ready for whatever that mountain is that you might be considering to tackle And don't be afraid to say no because And again feel free to jot these down or repeat to yourself silently or out loud You are not for everyone and everyone is not for you and that is okay Most importantly,

Make a plan and take action Remember that roller coaster ride that you didn't really want to take that action to try the biggest one first But once you kept moving forward and you took that action,

You came away feeling so much more confident and so accomplished A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step You may not have the confidence that you can climb an entire mountain or ride the biggest roller coaster today You don't have to,

All you need to do is start Magic is believing in yourself,

If you can make that happen,

You can make anything happen Thank you so much for sharing this space of wellness and wisdom with me today I hope it leaves you feeling at least a bit more confident and connected than when we began this journey