Don’t Let This False Story Destroy Your Confidence!

Even if you and I haven't met in person yet, I know that you have at least one false story that you're telling yourself that is greatly reducing your confidence from where it could be. And I know this because this is true for every single one of us. You, me, and everybody else. Even people who don't think they have a challenge with confidence have this as well. And here's how it works. Something happens in your life and you make a story about it that says, you know what this proves, this shows, this means that I'm not good enough in some way. And then therefore, I'm gonna hold back, therefore, I'm not gonna share, therefore, I'm not gonna put myself out there, therefore, I'm not gonna say, I love you, therefore, I'm not gonna try for that thing in my career, right? All the therefores. And then we start to restrict our lives. Let me give you a specific example of how I saw this, where it could have formulated and it didn't in one of my kids. So my son Zaim is five and a half years old right now, and we went to a hike in Forest park near our house just yesterday, and a couple of friends came and their kids, and there's maybe four or five kids there, including ours. And one of his friends, we'll just call her Teresa, is an eight year old. So he's five and a half and she's eight. She's a little bit older, she's a little bit cooler. She kind of like when she comes to play because her parents are friends with ours, she comes to play, she's kind of like, okay, I'll play with you, little five and a half year old. But she ends up being really sweet with him. A little bit hot and cold, but overall really loving with him. Right? For an 8 year old with a 5 year old. Now this day though, she's got. She's with a friend from school who's also her age. 28 year olds. And that friend is not only the same age as her, but that friend, like, does not want to be around Zaim, does not want to be around anyone. Actually. She's got shyness that's manifesting as get away from me energy, Right? Kind of a protective armory of her heart. And so Zaim sees his friend Teresa. We'll just call this other girl Amanda. Anyway, so he goes over to be with Teresa, and this is like, hi to Amanda. And Amanda's like, just gives him like the stink eye. And I'm like, oh, boy. So I walk over and I'M like, hi, Amanda, you know, so and so introduced me to you. And she's like, hi. And then I try to do a little bit like warming her up. I get down on her level and I try to facilitate some stuff and nothing's taken, right? She just like, she wants to grab Teresa and run away and like go out into the woods. So anyway, Zaim is like trying to connect. He's like a five and a half years, just like running up to him like, and he's so, it's so cute. He's, he's big for his age, so he's as tall as them. So he looks like he's gonna be this more mature kid. But he's five, so he's just like. And then they're talking about eight year old, like kind of mature eight year old stuff too. I don't know from school or whatever they're getting it. But I'm overhearing this conversation. One of them's like, yeah, you know, well, movies that have, you know, blah, blah, blah, sex and violence, blah, blah, blah. Maybe they're talking about ratings or movies they can watch or whatever. And Zyeem has like no concept of any of this stuff. So he's just like, that's stinging nettle he points to like a plant. And then the little girl Amanda, who doesn't like him, looks back and goes, yeah, we're in third grade, so we already know that. Did you really? Because you were in third grade? I don't know. Anyway, then he said something else and she's like, yeah, well, we're in third grade, so we already know that. I was like, what? Anyway, it was like painful to watch. And then he starts to pick up on it after not too long and he starts to get upset. He starts hurting. So he'll come back to like me and my wife and just be like, what's going on? You know. And so this is where there is a profound moment in his life. Now many of us had experiences just like this. And this could be at age 5, this could be at age 8, this could be at age 11, this could be in high school, this could be in college, this could be any age. But usually when we're younger and we have this moment where we're basically, we get rejected. We get a push away energy from someone else or from even a group of people. And then we leave that situation hurting just like my son Zion was hurting. And then in the absence of any understanding, we come to a false story or conclusion. Now if he'd been on his own, what he could have been is like, maybe they don't like me. Maybe even my friend Teresa doesn't like me because she's more, you know, Teresa was kind of going with Amanda because she's like, well, she tried a little bit with Zaim and then she's like, well, I gotta be with this other friend. So she kind of moved away from him. So he might think, maybe I'm not good enough for her, maybe they don't like me. And in whatever way his five year old mind would make sense of that, it would come a feeling of shame or badness or not enoughness. And the more old, you know, if we're at 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 years old, we can get really sophisticated. It's because I look like this. It's because I'm not enough of that. It's because I'm too this and I'm too fat here and too thin there. My eyes don't look right or my hair's not right or whatever. I'm not cool enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not funny enough, I'm not interesting. People can develop lifelong stories that they're not interesting because they tried to share themselves with a group of friends. And those friends didn't seem were rejecting of them. And they say, well, that's because I'm not interesting. It's a false story. Maybe those group of friends were very like possessive with each other. Just like this girl Theresa was with or Amanda was with Teresa, right? She was possessive of her. She's like, I don't want, I don't want to share. I'm scared of all these people. I'm going to take her where it's safe and go out into the woods and just be by ourselves. And it has nothing to do with Zaim. She would have done that with anybody. And even if it was specifically, she just didn't like him. Well, that's her, right? So he takes this and now I don't think he was like really going hard inward with it. He was pretty young, but even still, we were there, he'd come back and we could narrate what was happening for him. And I said, yeah, it seems like she's giving you what I would call push away energy. And he's like, push away energy? I'm like, yeah, she's not physically pushing you, but her energy and her voice and her face is like basically saying, go away. And he's like, yeah, why is she doing that, right? And I said, son, because she's A bitch? No, no, I didn't, I didn't say that. I thought it. No, but she's not right? She's an eight year old kid. Here's what really happening. And I said, well, I don't know exactly why, but I have a guess. Seems like she's wanting to take Teresa and be alone with her. I think she feels anxious around a group of people she doesn't know. She feels like secure and safe when she's with Teresa. I think that she has some armoring around her heart, maybe from something that's happening at home or when she was younger that makes her not trust people or not trust us and is feeling guarded. And so her way of like making sure she doesn't get hurt is to kind of be, is to run away. He's like, oh, okay, right. So when we talked about it numerous times on the hike, on the drive home that night before bed, he was just so curious because it happened again and again and again and again. So what story did you create at some age when you were younger that if someone had been there to narrate for you what was really happening, the whole thing would have evaporated or maybe even right now. You can think back to that story. You can think back to one of those painful moments when you were in middle school, when you were in high school, or you were younger, in grade school, and you felt pushed out, you felt rejected. Can you think about that moment and narrate like almost as if you were there now as your adult self, talking to that 8 year old, that 10 year old, and just telling them what happened, helping them see that it's not about them. This is a powerful exercise that I guide clients through that really can shift not just how they feel about that moment, but how they show up in life. Because now they're no longer telling themselves they're not interesting or they're not good enough in that way. Because that was false, right? So when you see through this story, so much can open up. So go through a little practice on yourself. You can do it with a journal, you can do it through meditation. And of course you want to go further with us and learn how to do all this kind of stuff and exercises. I highly recommend confidence coaching with me and my mastermind or someone on my team. You can find out more about that below this video. You can also go to the SocialConfidenceCenter.com website and click on the coaching tab and learn more about coaching. It's a powerful, life changing process. So thanks for being with me today. Share below in the comments what's standing out for you? What you're learning from this? What what false story you identified? And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.