Confidence through experience is crucial.
Self-reliance, resilience and self-awareness are all rooted in experiences. To be reliant on our own efforts and abilities requires that we gain confidence through our experiences. This confidence influences our resiliency, known as our ability to recover or adjust to misfortune or change. This confidence also influences our own awareness of our behaviour and emotional characteristics.
Self-reliance supports growth.
In the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Harari, 2015), the author makes the argument that society has shifted from a reliance on family and community to state and market. Perhaps this is where some of our distress as a society rests. If our government and corporations set out to convince us that they can provide for our needs, we are not conditioned to provide for our own needs. Traditionally, the family and community taught children from a very young age how to be self-sufficient, providing safety to grow and boundaries to protect. When children lack the feelings of safety and security, they are not as comfortable to venture out to try new experiences. If the environment provides perceived insurmountable barriers, there is no opportunity for the experiences required to build confidence.
Very quickly, the gap widens between those who are eager to try new experiences, those who meet defeat at each attempt and those who lack the confidence to even start. We cannot be reliant on our own efforts if we do not have the opportunity for experiences that will allow us to build confidence.
Confidence can limit self-awareness.
As we gain confidence through our experiences, we also gain a feeling of certainty in our abilities. As we learn skills that achieve similar outcomes each time, we trust that what we are doing is correct. The patterns become habitual and embedded in our beliefs. The challenge arises when there is a need to change. If someone tells us repeatedly that we are the best and if we are rewarded for being the best, we feel that we are the best. When something changes in our environment that requires a different skill set or if someone better comes along, we are still operating on the belief that we are the best. That our ideas are the best. Something no longer feels right and we react.
Noticing our reactions and reactions of others.
So where does the challenge rest? We cannot be resilient or adaptable to change if we are stuck in habitual, reactive patterns. Repeated experiences of both defeat and success leads to repetitive behaviour. If our efforts are constantly rejected, we form belief patterns that we are not able to thrive. If our efforts are consistently met with success, we believe in our ability and that our efforts will be rewarded. Whether positive or negative, our experiences bind a lot of energy through beliefs.
Our cue to adjust our habitual patterns is based on the reaction it provokes, either within ourselves or in those around us. Reactions are information to inform us when new experiences do not match our beliefs. There is a need to stop and listen. There is opportunity for expansion and growth. We will always believe that we are right and that we are not the one who needs to change. However, these situations are always an alert that what we believe does not match our environment. We have an opportunity to expand our perspective.
Supporting growth and expansion.
The Logosynthesis® method offers and effective technique to support neutralizing our reactions to create space for growth. By identifying, isolating and neutralizing the triggers to our reactions, we can be open to new experiences rather than habitual patterns. Whether our past experiences caused us to become stuck in patterns of defeat or success, there is benefit in neutralizing our reactions to allow us to be present to better understand others and the world around us. Our opportunity is to build our personal resources so that we can be more self-reliant, resilient and self-aware.
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