Written by: Veronica Sanchez De Darivas, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Our lives seem to be a bit more complicated and difficult to navigate nowadays. The irony is that we have everything to be at ease and “in charge” of our experiences in this world. For instance, technology is supposed to be here to make our day-to-day lives easier, however, many of us don’t feel this way.
One of the things that is affecting our self-awareness is the feeling of not being confident enough to carry out our dreams and heart desires. We spend hours hooked on social media, looking at videos and images of “successful” people, hoping to find inspiration to start doing what we really want to do. We actually don’t realise that any inspiration is internal, meaning that, even if we seem to find it elsewhere, a desire of improvement is born within us.
Confidence is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the quality of being certain of your abilities or of having trust in people, plans or the future”. Then, self-esteem immediately comes to mind as it means to have confidence and contentment with oneself. We can see that confidence is directly related to self-esteem and in this sense, when we arrive to this world, all of us have these abilities and qualities embodied, but we start losing them more or less depending on our life experiences.
Several universities and scientists have studied the effects of confidence and self-esteem in us and all have found the same common, we could say, “feature”: words. The words we say to ourselves and to others are fundamentally important. Positive words have a good effect on our self-belief and negative words make our confidence and self-esteem go down the stairs of inadequacy and self-pity.
There is a catch though, words don’t act alone, they must do it in conjunction with our feelings. Although repetition of empowering words is vital, their effect gets enhanced by the way we feel about them. And how do we break the cycle of low confidence and self-esteem? Here are five steps to start with.
Find a quiet place and think of three of your most positive qualities and write them down. For example, if you are caring, write it down.
Now think of an instance, situation or event when each of those three qualities where present or you used them. Write that situation next to the pertinent quality.
Remember how you felt during those situations and write down your feelings next to the situation.
Pause for a moment, place a hand on your heart area and ask yourself: how and where can I apply my most positive qualities for my own benefit and the benefit of others? Write down what comes to your mind and feelings.
Start taking the steps to let your qualities shine, in other words, act upon them. Do it one step at a time, don’t overwhelm yourself.
Keep a journal or diary to document your journey to confidence and self-esteem. Research shows that writing about our experiences improves our general wellbeing and our mental health significantly.
Bonus: Here is a mantra for you to repeat daily: “I know who I am, I am beautiful, I am caring, I am strong, I can do this!”. Please, don’t forget to feel every word when repeating this mantra.
It is of great importance to observe the warm feelings of your heart and hold on to them, remember that you are in charge of yourself, believe in you, confidence comes from within and you have beautiful personal qualities to share with the world.
Veronica Sanchez De Darivas, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Veronica Sanchez De Darivas is an expert in inner-self intelligence techniques. She shares tools on how to manage stress and negative emotions and on how to use high vibration words. Veronica is a Spanish grammar and literature teacher. During the last ten years, she has dedicated herself to spirituality and is a Certified Instructor for the Cyclopea Method of Internal Activation of the Pineal Gland (Third Eye), a method created in South America 30 years ago by the spiritual leader Fresia Castro. Veronica is currently the only instructor in the world teaching this life-changing method in English. Veronica is also a number one bestselling author. She has been writing for many years for online magazines and blogs in Spanish and English. Veronica is both a Chilean and an Australian citizen now living in the UK. Her mission is the expansion of consciousness.