Self-confidence comes from self-respect, not achievement
Trust is interesting.
For most people, trust is a thing that - broken badly once - can rarely be repaired.
Would you trust a friend who showed up at your house, looked you up and down, and said, “not good enough”?
Picture their face. You can see it in their eyes, judgement poorly masking an underlying fear that you don’t belong - and that maybe, if they respond with compassion, they won’t belong either.
(“Is it catching, the way you struggle to keep your house clean, your hair clean, your mouth respectable? Maybe you should quarantine yourself, just in case.”)
No, right?
You wouldn’t believe that person loves you, looks out for you, would stand up for you in a room you weren’t in. It would be hard to trust that person.
Then again, forgiveness feels better than betrayal, and brains will do anything to avoid shame - even whisper to themselves, “Shhhhh…relax. It never happened.”
Friends are hard to find, you know, and everybody’s over-capacity and underwater these days (aren’t they?).
Recently, life has gotten way too weird, way too fast.
The pandemic, climate change, schools closed, virtual work, the erosion of democratic norms - suddenly AI is everywhere? We were eating off the land two generations ago. I didn’t have a computer until the 8th grade. This feels like a season finale - too many main characters dying, too many intersecting storylines, and my god - the CLIFFHANGERS!
Our biology is not prepared to match the exponential pace at which our technology and culture are evolving, much less to handle additional change that isn’t designed to benefit us. As Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises, “How did you go bankrupt? Gradually, then suddenly.”
We are over-saturated, overstimulated, and coming ever closer to the cliff’s edge.
My kid used to have this “soothing nighttime projector and sound machine” that he loved, and I loathed. Whenever it ran low on batteries, instead of just turning off like any reasonable device, this thing would short-circuit and start randomly splicing “soothing sounds” at top volume at 3am. Which lit my nervous system on fire and woke up the baby that had just (*sob*) fallen asleep.
Everyone is feeling a little bit like that '“soothing sound machine” right now. Our job might be to make soothing sounds and help the baby sleep, but y’all those batteries are DEPLETED, and our brain-body machines are entirely prepared to start splicing random threat responses on repeat until somebody does something about it.
So - all things considered - you can understand how your friend got to a state of mind where “treating you poorly” somehow passed inspection.
Everybody’s tired, you get it.
You’re willing to re-extend *some* trust. Maybe in exchange for a conversation, an acknowledgment or apology. Maybe for nothing at all. Maybe the disrespectful, degrading treatment was a one-off. Fingers crossed!
But would you continue to trust that friend if they hurt you every time they saw you?
From a new angle? When you wake up, speak up, shut down, try to fall asleep?
You can see where this is going…
We are all that frantic sound machine, sending a keen S.O.S. and hoping someone receives it before we shut down.
We are all the friend, disrespecting ourselves at every turn.
We are also ourselves, burned and betrayed by ‘the friend’ too many times to count.
Yet here we are, all of us - out #grinding, #hustling, trying to #thinkpositive, stay on those #affirmations, practice #bodypositivity. Desperately performing confidence on a lonely stage for an infinite audience that isn’t payment attention.
#GoodVibesOnly though, right?
Here we are, trying to go faster when we need rest, trying to skill up when we need to sit down. Doing at least some of the right things, but never quite catching “happy” before it slithers out of our grasp.
Here we are, struggling to trust ourselves.
And why should we? Why should we trust the bullying ‘friend’ who degrades us and gaslights us into believing that producing more and getting less (or eating less and getting more) is the only path to proper, capital-C Confidence. The kind that you can put in a safe deposit box and forget about. Protected. Unassailable.
Here the thing: sustainable confidence doesn’t come from achievement.
(There’s a reason it’s called an achievement high.)
It comes from self-respect, which comes from self-trust, which comes from self-care.
Enough care to learn about the design and maintenance of the vehicle you’re expecting to drive you to your goals. (Cars need gas, but it’s easy to forget.) To practice of Care of Self. All of it. The body parts. The brain part (which is a body part. WHY we insist on putting sone in a green bucket and one in a red bucket is a mystery and a tragedy for the ages.)
I don’t mean just bubble baths (although I am writing this from the bath), or herbal tea. That’s self-soothing - which is equally necessary for emotional stability and cognitive functionality, but is not the same as self-CARE.
Care of Self is:
taking the time to figure out your health insurance,
putting your own oxygen mask first,
asking friends to body double when your Executive Function-ometer runs low,
buying toilet paper before you run out this time ,
crying into your dogs fur,
going to therapy,
hugging your kid
grocery shopping,
giving up procrastination for Lent,
re-reading your favorite novel,
uncomfortably processing shame with your best friend,
risking rejection for the chance at connection,
permitting joy,
scheduling play.
Care of Self is showing up for the work it takes to be a decent, functional human being.
It’s the courage to feel your feelings and receive the signals your brain and body send you. To honor and address the social or mechanical concerns being expressed. It’s a commitment to growth and to proactively earning your own respect.
Self-Respect is:
improving your communication skills,
holding firm on your pronouns,
trying not to pass on that generational trauma,
standing up for your people,
demanding dignity and a seat at the table,
showing up for your kid’s recital and your sister’s crisis,
making time for love and grief,
repairing what has ruptured,
advocating for your career,
holding people accountable,
holding yourself accountable,
having the tenderness to do so compassionately,
fighting to learn and to unlearn,
fighting to stay soft.
Self-respect comes from consistently making decisions that align with your values, affirm your identity, and reduce harm.
It’s standing up to your ‘friend ‘ - that disrespectful inner voice that incessantly tells you how you’re both “not enough” and “too much”, AND it’s showing up for ‘your friend’ - the part of you that is overstretched, afraid, defensive, and doing (self-) harm.
It’s committing to the work of taking accountability, addressing your fears, healing your wounds, repairing your relationship (with Self and others), and actively rebuilding trust.
It’s hard to stay soft. It’s hard to get up again. But we can do hard things.
Self-Trust is the result of Self-Care and Self-Respect. It’s:
Growing, practicing, and learning to rely on your emotional intelligence toolkit;
Leveraging Practical Compassion* to drive clarity and accountability;
Betting on yourself to make room for authentic connection;
Shifting from worrying to planning (because you can do hard things), and from guilt to growth;
Actively cultivating a less-depleting life that positions your brain for prefrontal cortex (and executive function) access - for solutions thinking, meaningful connection, aligned decision-making, and intentional action.
Choosing to spend your limited bandwidth on deepening your connections, reinforcing your identity, and earning self-respect.
Sustainable self-confidence is nothing more (or less) than self-trust: having the everyday courage to unlearn shame, choose growth, risk authentic connection, and take action that fosters good.
This practice, on repeat, is what shifts your inner dialogue from negative to possible, and puts you firmly on the path to Favorite Self.
It’s not always easy, but it definitely beats the every day onslaught of shame - the grinding, pervasive fear of never being good enough.
You can do hard things.
You can reclaim the bandwidth lost to shame, increase your cognitive functionality, learn how to choose (and show up for) safe relationships.
You can do hard things.
You can make room for a stable, grounded identity founded on self-care, self-trust, and self-respect.
Best of all? Hard things aren’t nearly as hard when you stop fighting your own mind.
This is where NeuroKind comes in.
The fundamental principle behind neurocoaching is: “your brain works better when you feel better”.
So yes, you can do hard things. But you don’t have to.
You can choose to build sustainable confidence the brain-friendly way.
You can choose to cultivate a life that feels good.
You can choose to practice self-care, self-trust, and self-respect.
