Is the voice of your inner critic blocking you from moving forward with your life?
Does low self-confidence prevent you from taking action in the direction you truly want to go?
Do you feel there is much more to life than what you are experiencing right now?
My journey to improving my self-confidence.
If you said yes to any of the above questions, I know what you feel. I have been there myself. I know the struggle. I know the feeling that there is more to life than this.
I also know it takes some effort to discover the real cause of low self-confidence and change the inner programming.
I have been on a long journey of reprogramming myself and I know what it takes to do that. I also know how it feels when you see differences in yourself. I know the thrill when you noticed that you made sustainable changes in your subconscious mind and these changes are reflected in your confidence.
Helping others build their confidence is so close to my heart because it was something that I struggled with and overcame it. Now I love helping people increase their self-confidence and reconnect to their inner power. Nothing gives me more joy than seeing others start to shine their light.
On my journey towards more confidence, I learned to use different therapeutic tools. I used these tools on myself but I also dreamed of a moment when I will be able to share them with others. One of my favourite and most effective tools to reconnect you with your inner power and confidence is hypnotherapy.
In this article, I would like to tell you more about what hypnotherapy is and how it might help you rebuild or strengthen your confidence. But first, let’s take a closer look at the problem of low self-confidence and its causes.
You were born with confidence.
When we are born, we are full of self-acceptance and confidence. We don’t see ourselves as smart or dumb, handsome or ugly, thin or fat. We don’t judge ourselves and we don’t judge others.
We also don’t have a notion about what is possible and what is impossible for us. We are pure and we are amazed at ourselves and the life we are just beginning.
Unfortunately, this time of accepting ourselves for who we are doesn’t last long. By the time we reach the age of five, our inner programming is done. We’ve already absorbed the fears, judgments, and limiting beliefs from our parents and other people who are close to us.
By the time we go to school, our head is full of beliefs about ourselves and our life. Some of them are so deeply ingrained in our subconscious mind that we don’t even know they are there. Sometimes I work with clients who are surprised or even shocked to discover what beliefs they have about themselves.
It is difficult to notice them when you work on yourself alone, but with the help of a coach or a hypnotherapist, you have an opportunity to look at yourself from a third-person perspective.
With the help of hypnosis, you are able to look beyond the noisy, conscious mind. That’s where your beliefs lie, deep under the surface of your consciousness.
Where does low self-confidence come from?
Your subconscious mind can be your greatest supporter but it can also be your worst enemy. The thoughts you think about yourself are automatic. You run on autopilot most of the time.
Low self-confidence is the result of such automatic, negative thoughts that you created about yourself. They are usually not based on facts. They are simply some judgments that were planted into your mind when you were a child. At least some of those negative seeds grew into thoughts and then into beliefs.
Low self-confidence usually starts due to one of the below factors:
- Unhappy childhood where the parents (or other significant guardians) were extremely critical
- A series of painful life experiences like trauma, abuse, humiliation, or bullying
- Media influence – most media messages are aimed at making you feel that you lack something.
I’ve decided to put the media influence on the above list as I think the media have more influence on how we feel than we sometimes realise. We tend to forget that what we see on TV or in movies, or even on someone’s Facebook or Instagram, are highlights, not necessarily everyday realities.
However, if someone comes from a family where they were nourished with love and respect for the unique individual that they are, they will be less prone to care about what (social) media has to say.
The negative self-image that stems from hurtful childhood experiences can be much more deeply ingrained in your identity. What our parents or other guardians tell us about us and the world is our point of reference for how we see ourselves and the world we live in.
This early childhood programming is not only subconscious but it is deeply rooted in our psyche. Although the negative programming that you might have been fed in your childhood doesn’t define you and your potential, it does have a huge influence on how you see yourself and your life even in your adulthood.
The self-criticising thoughts that you created in your mind might be far away from the truth. Unfortunately, every thought we think has a potential consequence in real life. When we repeat certain thoughts regularly, after some time they will find their reflection in our reality.
Here is an example of how your beliefs turn into reality.
Let’s say you used to stutter as a child. At some point in your childhood, you heard a critical comment about yourself and your inability to speak in front of a group. This comment might have got stuck in your mind as a certainty that you are definitely not good at public speaking.
You might have overcome the issue of stuttering later in life but that stubborn thought that you are not good at public speaking might have stayed with you and turned into a belief.
Even though you might have generally stopped stuttering, whenever you are in front of a group of people, you might suddenly feel that tightness in your throat that makes it impossible to say anything.
The belief that you are not good at public speaking conjures up various symptoms that make it really hard to be good at it. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. When such a vicious cycle is in motion, it makes it really difficult to rebuild your self-confidence.
What is RAS and what it does?
There is a part of your brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS) that knows very well what your beliefs are. It sieves through millions of messages that you are bombarded with and lets in only those bits and pieces of information that it perceives as relevant to you.
So, if for example, you believe that you are not good at public speaking, it will look for opportunities to prove that you are right. Sayings like, “what you think about, you bring about” or “what you focus on, grows” are more than Instagram cliches.
RAS knows what thoughts you think and what your priorities and focus are, and it will treat them as the filter through which you see yourself and the world. It will simply look for opportunities to validate your thoughts and beliefs.
That’s why it is so important to learn to choose your thoughts carefully. In the case of your mind and reality, you live it, you really reap what you sow.
Luckily, there is hope. You’ve created this programming in your mind and it is you who can change it.
Imagine you were able to change those limiting thoughts and create a more positive self-image. Imagine you are able to gain control over your mind and turn it into your best friend. This is all possible with hypnotherapy.
What is hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy is the practice of using the power of suggestion to bring about positive change in clients who are under hypnosis. During a hypnotherapy session, a client enters a state of focused attention and increased suggestibility called hypnosis.
When a client is in such a heightened state of awareness, a hypnotherapist is able to put positive suggestions and guided imagery in a client’s mind to help them deal with a variety of issues, like past traumas, fears, and mental blocks.
Hypnotherapy is also one of the most effective tools that will help you plant new, positive thoughts and beliefs about yourself in your subconscious mind.
What’s the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy?
You might be wondering right now what the difference between hypnotherapy and hypnosis is. The difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy is that hypnosis is defined as a state of mind, while hypnotherapy is the name of the therapeutic modality in which hypnosis is used.
Whenever you want to make any changes in your mind, it is crucial to make the thinking, noisy mind quiet in order to access the subconscious mind. Every memory, all the bits, and pieces of your inner programming are stored in your subconscious.
So whether you want to change your beliefs about money, stop feeling like a victim, or you want to rebuild your confidence, you need to get in touch with your subconscious mind.
When you are feeling relaxed and calm (that’s how you feel when you are in the state of hypnosis), your thinking mind slows down and you are able to connect to your subconscious and plant the seeds of change you want to see in yourself and your life.
Contrary to how hypnosis is portrayed in some movies, hypnosis is a state of heightened awareness and focus in which you are in control of what’s happening during the session. In other words, no one can plant things in your mind without your consent. It is a very safe therapeutic tool to work with.
Why is hypnotherapy helpful when you want to develop more self-confidence?
Hypnotherapy’s power and effectiveness come from the ability to harness your imagination in the most effective and useful way.
When you are in a relaxed state, you are more susceptible to create positive thoughts and beliefs about yourself (author, publication, year). The seeds that you (together with a trained hypnotherapist) plant in your mind, while you are in the state of hypnosis, go straight to your subconscious mind, bypassing your noisy (and full of doubts) conscious mind.
A study published by Assen Alladin und Alisha Alibhai in “International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis” has shown that hypnotherapy might be even more effective than cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in treating anxiety and depression.
Albert Einstein said,
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
Since imagination is the beginning of all creation, once you harness it you harness the power to create the life you really want.
All you need to do is quiet your conscious mind and peel the layers of conditioning that make you think that you lack something. Hypnotherapy helps you do that.
Imagine that you are no longer the prisoner of your thoughts. Imagine that you are able to observe your thoughts and emotions and see them for what they really are – just thoughts and emotions. They are not the truth about yourself. They don’t define you and your potential.
Once you understand this, you take the first step on the path of regaining your power and rebuilding your confidence.
Milton Erickson, probably the greatest hypnotherapist of all time, said:
“Your unconscious mind is much smarter than you.”
Hypnotherapy gives you a chance to not only reconnect with your unconscious mind but also to make it your best friend. Once you learn how to tune into your inner wisdom, you will develop more love and respect for yourself. Self-love and self-respect are great foundations for confidence. You can read more about developing self-love here.
Your RAS will notice what your new foundation is and it will invite more and more opportunities into your life that will validate your new belief system. Once you make your subconscious your greatest ally, your confidence will grow in no time at all.
The subject of rebuilding confidence is especially close to my heart. I spent years wishing that I would just disappear. I didn’t do the things I wanted to do because I didn’t believe in myself and my abilities. I felt lost, unhappy and scared. I know how it feels to lack self-confidence and I know how to change it.
If you are letting life pass you by because you think you are not good enough or you are unworthy or unlovable, please send me a message and we will have a chat about how I might be able to help you.
If you want to embark on your journey towards more self-confidence today, download my FREE online course, Self-Doubt to Self-Confidence.
It contains guided meditations and a lot of worksheets to help you self-reflect and dive deep into your subconscious to discover what might be blocking you from creating the life that you want.
It will also help you start reprogramming your subconscious mind and manifesting the life that you want.
I will be happy to be your guide on this journey within. Keep me posted how it goes!