Self-observation on why I don’t have self-confidence

• I always fall back.
• I always question myself. I become anxious. 
• I am just afraid I will screw it up.
• This has to do a lot with how I relate to people. Even if my lack of self-confidence shows up everywhere. 
• Right now I am angry. My anger has to do with someone abusing my limits. 
• Sometimes I just feel like giving up. Then it is not anger. But sadness.
• I don’t dare to confront.

• I try to convince myself that I am worthy. 
• And I am trying to convince others that I am worthy. In all kinds of ways. Sometimes I am trying by being overly kind and ‘forgiving’. Sometimes I am trying with aggression.
• Many times I just lose my consciousness when the situation gets too tense. I mean when I am trying to convince the world around me. I either overachieve or underachieve.
• I just don’t know what causes my lack of self-confidence. 
• This works! I need to find what causes it. 
• What is the real root cause?
• Am I not good enough? That is hardly the answer.
• …
• It is not because I don’t trust myself. Indeed, I don’t trust myself but it is not the cause.
• This is the real root cause: I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid to lose my sense of safety.
• This sounds strange but it is true.
• In other words, I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid!!!
• I am afraid of what others will say. 
• When I really think about it deeply, this is what I see in myself: When I look at myself in times of lack of self-confidence, I see that I start to question myself because I start to think about what others will think. And this is why it is the real cause.

Self-observation on what I am missing

• I’ve come to the conclusion that the root of my hardships is that I am constantly missing something from my life. 
• This feeling of lack shows up everywhere and I see how much this is shaping my whole outlook on life.
• I have been looking everywhere and try to find what I am missing. Or what I have lost.
• I deeply looked into my past. My childhood, my traumas, and how I developed shame, resentment, and anger. And all the rest of it. 
• I also see how much love and joy I have had. And all the successes.
• And I have this constant feeling in the back of my mind that something is missing.
• Before I understood the effect of past events on my life. That understanding helped then. It is helpful today also but I understand very well that there is more to it.
• There is a sequence of steps in development. There is understanding that helps to develop the next one. Usually a deeper one.
• This feeling of lack is deeper. It is not just that things didn’t happen in the past the way I had hoped. Today those events serve as mere eye-openers for me. They are here to help.

• I suddenly come to the realization that what I am missing is commitment.
• Why do I have this realization? What does it mean? This understanding that what I miss is commitment feels happy. And fearful.
• Commitment to what we usually call God.
• Things aren’t in place without this.
• This is what I am missing.

Self-observation on why God doesn’t help me

• I need God to help me; I feel miserable.
• Why doesn’t God help me? It doesn’t make sense. I am in need.
• Ah ok. I look at God as someone whose job is to help me. Then my relationship with God, and the way I look at God may be all wrong. 
• I made God into an entity whose sole job is to help me out. A savior. 
• I also think of God as someone outside of me. Someone, something separate from me.
• I understand these and still I feel miserable and I am close to giving up.
• I feel that I have to make the first step. Not God. But I cannot say why. And it doesn’t make sense to me that I have to take the first step. As I am in need.
• Oh, I think I know: God is in me. I am essentially a part of God. If I make the first step, God will respond. Hmm; This is good but it doesn’t help. 
• Maybe this helps. My ego is playing this trick that it makes me feel that I don’t have enough.
• Why does my ego do it? Ah, ok; This is the ego’s trick to make the right for its existence. If there wasn’t a problem, my ego would not have a reason to exist. 
• I mean my ego is making me unsatisfied and this way I identify with my ego. And what my ego wins ultimately is existence.
• My ego has to keep me unsatisfied and miserable. Otherwise, it would become obvious that it doesn’t really exist after all. 
• Meditation helps when I can just observe my thoughts ‘from the outside’ and keep in mind that they are just thoughts. Not me.

• I understand why I find that God doesn’t help. But I still feel miserable. Something still needs to change in my understanding. 
• I still find that things are unfair. And I am in need. And I don’t really have motivation. 
• I still have this mental construct that I am missing something and someone or something needs to give it to me. This is how I look at God…with this need…
• No wonder I do not find God, cannot believe in her. God isn’t this. 
• Who has to do the first step? God or me?
• This question only makes sense with my ego’s logic. 
• Of course I have to do the first step! There isn’t actually such a thing as ‘first one’ or ‘second one’ to move. This is an error caused by my perception.  
• I take the first step as soon as I understand that there is no need for anyone or anything to save me. I am not in need actually. 

Self-Observation on why I am afraid to win

• I dream about becoming successful but when I am getting closer to it – much to my surprise – I realize I am taking my time to get there. I realize that I am afraid.
• First I think I am afraid of losing, but actually no. I am afraid of what would happen if I finally got what I wanted.
• I am afraid to face it.
• Winning is not natural to me.
• I feel a strong level of suppression in me. This is in connection with my behavior that I don’t want to win. Only in my dreams.
• Maybe this is depression. But not only. 

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• I got used to not being successful. But this is not fully true either.
• It sometimes also feels like I am doing some kind of game. It feels as if I am not taking it seriously. Some kind of sabotage. I am not sure if this is something good or not. 
• Anyways, it is very true that my mind is just not geared for this kind of life where I have satisfaction and winning. Rather it is geared for hardships. I am constantly on the lookout for what is wrong. I want to change this.
• This is also very true: Right the moment I get close to thinking about myself as a successful person I get disoriented and confused.
• Right now I think that I don’t dare to be successful because I don’t feel safe there. This is not a true conclusion. I will change this consciously. 
• Well, When needed, I will let myself remember that I am safe if I am successful. I am not in danger. 

Self-observation on my constant tiredness

• I am not able to come out of my tiredness. It has now become a new norm.
• Why can’t I let go and relax?
• I am constantly tired because I am constantly stressed.
• I try to let myself go and it just doesn’t work. I just sit in my tension. 
• I am running away from something.
• No, I am not running away. I cannot look at it. 
• I am not sure what it is that I have to look at. 
• That thing that I should look at feels mild and fragile.
• I just don’t know what it is.

• What causes my tension?
• My physical tension is caused by mental tension.
• I don’t know what causes my mental tension.
• I am afraid of something.
• Nowadays this tension got bigger.
• My fear isn’t conscious. It is somewhere deeper.
• This is a trauma. This is why it is not conscious and this is why I have a hard time getting closer to it.

• I am fed up and tired of being in this anxiety.
• For a glimpse, now I see that this fear is helping me. In a way, I am helping myself.
• Strangely, this is not just fear but some need. There is a level of anger here also.
• This anxiety and anger I am working with is not like it used to be earlier. I have this recognition that I am going through a shift. This recognition is a huge thing. I think this shift is not only happening to me. I can see signs of it all around me. This shift is causing the tiredness.
• What I see now is that anxiety comes from some need to feel safe. I want to belong. 
• I want to be myself. In that space, I am not anxious. I enjoy myself.

Self-Observation on my anxiety

• I am in a constant state of mild panic.
• I am tired.
• I cannot exactly phrase what is bothering me; The best I can say is that I am in a state of fear.
• When I can concentrate a little then I realize I am afraid of losing my safety.
• I cannot tell exactly what I feel.
• I am confused. This is really threatening; these racing thoughts. 
• The worst is this confusion. It is making me want to speed up and do more more more, get more more more. Like as if it is feeding itself.
• It feels as if it will never end.
• I have a much harder time to do self-observation on my anxiety than on other things in my life because it is a whirlpool. I am so easily pulled back into it.

Chain of thoughts coming when I can go deeper

• My anxiety is turning my life upside down.
• I cannot do what I once set out for myself. 
• Wait. Is this necessarily a bad thing?
• I want to get out of my anxiety but at the same time, I also want to stay in it and solve it. So that it never comes back.
• Right now, I just want to give up. I am fed up and exhausted.
• Another strange observation: My anxiety acts like some sort of motivation for me.
• If I stop caring, my anxiety is pretty much gone. I don’t want to go on anymore because I find that what I have been doing before is not what I truly want.
• Strangely, I find that my anxiety is making me even more self-conscious. 

Self-observation on why I am not successful enough

• I imagine myself very differently inside than how my life is on the outside.
• I dream of becoming successful but it just doesn’t seem to happen. 
• I am continuously trying everything. Harder and harder. Sometimes I am trying to be smarter, more self-confident, and even tried to ‘believe the universe will help me’.
• It is a constant struggle. I just know instinctively that it should not be a never-ending battle and overwhelm. 
• There must be something that can change this situation. 
• When I think of my abilities, my self-confidence drops. 
• Still, it is not about my abilities. Many others have less in many areas and they are still more successful than me. 
• When I observe myself, I feel a great level of uneasiness. 
• This uneasiness comes from my desire to achieve.
• My mindset is that if I push it more, I will achieve what I want. 
• No, this is not the way. There must be a better way.
• I admit I don’t know what to do exactly.

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• Something is blocking me.
• I am not able to be myself.
• I am afraid to be myself. This is the block in me.
• I have low self-confidence and this is why reaching success is a struggle.
• No.
• Behind my low self-confidence is fear. Simple fear. Fear of losing my safety.
• The block is not my low self-confidence. That thought of myself that I have low self-confidence only happens as a result of my fear. The key is my fear.
• This is why I don’t ‘dare to jump’ and do what is needed for my success.
• And the way it works is that I block myself from being who I really am.
• I am not able to be that vibrant person who I want to be. 
• This fear is teaching me to see who I really am.
• This fear might even be more than that. I may be able to transform it into something that I miss now in myself.
• I will think about what I would like to transform my fear – my new friend – into.

Self-Observation on why I am always in a hurry

• This is clearly some kind of unconscious block in me as even when I see that I am in a hurry, I cannot stop it.
• I just keep on being in a hurry and it is making me even more nervous.
• Actually I even want to speed it up. Because I want to finish as soon as possible to ‘escape this hard situation’.
• I speed it up and so I get even more exhausted.
• I am afraid of the situation itself.

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• It appears to me that my need to hurry up comes up in situations where I have an ‘obligation’, some work that I feel I must do. I am not in a hurry where I have no ‘obligation to deliver’. 
• I have a self-confidence issue. My need to speed things up is due to the fear of the ‘situation’.
• No. It is not a pure self-confidence issue. 
• It is a question of trust.
• Let me approach it from another way and imagine myself with this mindset: If I had complete trust that this situation, this work to be done would work out just fine, I would have no urge to hurry it. It is not a self-confidence thing alone. It is trusting that things will work out fine; It is not just about me.  

Self-Observation on my avoidant nature

• I am trying to protect myself.
• It is natural to me that I am trying to protect myself. 
• My avoidant nature is self-protection.
• What I can say now that it is ‘this situation’ that I want to avoid. 
• I cannot say what I want to avoid. This is why I am saying ‘this situation’. This moment.
• If I avoid it that means I am safe from its bad effects.
• I cannot say what this something is that I want to avoid. It is not conscious but I know that it is not good for me.

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• There is something that is strange: Why do I stay in it if it is not good for me? If I just walked away there would be nothing to avoid.
• This something that I want to avoid is not here now but it is an image in my head. 
• Ah, ok: I want this situation. I am attached to it. 
• Then it is again a connection issue, a relationship issue. I need the connection, I am attached to it.
• I want connection but I got used to being in connection that is not fully good for me. 
• So what I do is stay in it but avoid it, avoid parts of it. I don’t have a better idea.
• I am in two worlds at the same time.
• What two worlds?
• I want to be myself and want to be in connection. But right now my belief is that if I am in connection then I cannot be myself. 
• The reality is that in many connections it is true. 
• So what will give me the motivation, the strength to be myself, no matter what?

Self-Observation on my financial struggles

• I look at money as something hard to get.
• Earning money is labor that is not about enjoyment. Work is constant hardship and there is no end to it.
• Why do I think that there is no end to it? Do I think I can never get it?
• People I know who have fewer issues with money do not look at money this way. I can see they have less fear about it.
• I feel fear. I feel I am dependent on money. 
• I find that I am dependent on people giving me money…They decide ‘to keep me alive’.
• Oh, I cannot imagine I deserve it.
• I cannot imagine I can have enough. 

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• Do I think my work is not particularly valuable? Somewhat yes. When something goes easy I actually feel some level of shame. ‘I did not push hard enough, I did not struggle hard enough.’ This is shame. But I cannot get out of it, even if I understand that it is shame that I feel.
• I identify work with something that I must do so that things will be ok. What is it that I want to get out of work? What does this mental image represent on an abstract level? 
• I want safety. Money will keep me safe.
• Dependence…
• Dependence is the key. 
• I find that I depend on people when it comes to my finances.
• Sometimes I go into situations and relationships where this is the accepted dynamic. I mean some kind of dependence and hardship. This dependence is more about people than money itself. 
• So this is the belief I built up about money: It is about safety, it is about ‘doing what the other wants’, and it is about proving my self-worth. 
• BULLSHIT! These have nothing to do with reality. I made them a reality to make sense of things and try to find solutions. 
• I end this twisted belief of mine.
• I will go into situations where work and money are about enjoyment and value. And not about dependence and people using each other.
• I look at money as something that can come to me. It is not blocked.
• Nobody is keeping it back from me. This is actually true. 
• This ‘easiness’ about money may feel awkward at first because I am not used to it. So I let myself get used to it.