How You Can Build Self-Confidence with Meditation
Do you suffer from a lack of self-confidence? Is so you should know that learning to meditate effectively can really help you to build your self-confidence levels up.
I recently started doing stand-up comedy as a hobby. Many people I know commented that I must have such strong levels of self-confidence to even consider such folly!
They are correct.
Despite my dubious comedic material, the reason I can go through with it (even though I still get very nervous before getting up on stage) is because I do actually have a lot of self-confidence and yes, a major reason I have this personality trait is due to meditation.
Allow me to explain.
How Meditation Helps You Become More Self-Confident
It is a sad fact of life that as we grow from childhood to adulthood, we invariably go through various degrees of emotional trauma. This is true even for those of us with relatively stable upbringings; think about how horrible kids at school were to you sometimes. This stuff all takes it toll on our developing minds and to protect ourselves from unwanted emotional pain, we build up defensive emotional walls.
These defenses can manifest as aggressive or assertive personality traits – or they can manifest as low self-esteem. By adopting an image of yourself as a person who is not very confident, your ego feels safer knowing that you won’t volunteer to put yourself in the limelight (i.e. in danger of being criticized or mocked).
Now while this may (or may not) have helped you to cope throughout school and your adult life so far, you may be aware that in fact your lack of self-confidence is limiting your ability to shine, to enjoy living the full expression of your talents and abilities. And yes, it may be stopping you from showing them all (dammit) just how good you could be … if only you could find the guts to stand up and be counted.
Using Meditation To Over-Ride the Ego and Find Your Self-Confidence
When you learn how to meditate effectively, interesting things happen.
For starters, if all goes well, you will begin to relax.
And I mean really relax.
At this stage you will feel at peace, and forget about your problems, even if it is just for a little while as you meditate.
Then as you go deeper and deeper, you will begin to bypass the fearful “ego” part of your personality and begin to get in touch with that part of your being that is at peace, happy and free.
You may not believe that there is a part of you that is so carefree and happy – but believe me it is true. It’s just that you may have never bypassed your fearful, wounded mind enough to experience this level of contented awareness that lies at the core of us all.
I could write forever about this process, but in the context of this post, it is enough to say that if you have never meditated successfully enough to have felt this state of being, then it would be well worth your while to explore this phenomenon (by reading and more importantly, meditating) until you get in touch with what I am trying to describe.
When you reach this blissful stage of meditation, you begin to see things from a different perspective. You will begin to understand life from a universal perspective, your own life with all it’s troubles will not seem as urgent and all-encompassing, but rather you will see how small you really are in the grand scheme of things and how this is not something to fear but rather is just fine.
You are a tiny little speck in a vast, vast universe – and that’s ok with you. It’s how it should be.
Go even deeper and you will understand how in fact you are not just a speck – a separate part of the universe – but (woo-woo as it does sound) you are in fact ALL of the universe. Everything is One Thing and you are that One Thing and in a certain way (not the egoistic Christian way) you are in fact eternal.
Then your meditative thoughts may turn to your problems of self-confidence. And suddenly you will not feel so concerned about what people think of you anymore.
And when you are no longer meditating but are back in the “real world” facing your self-confidence issues, you will find that regular meditation will help you with “mind skills”, mental abilities (almost like mild super-powers) to over-ride your ingrained patterns of low self-confidence and rise above your low-self esteem.
Because if you are all of the Universe, and if everybody else that you know is One with you, then what is there to fear?
Nothing.
Fear has no place in your life.
It is a mirage.
Let it go.
Stand up tall, with confidence – and live your life to fullest!
Photo by Kalandraka
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15 Responses to “How You Can Build Self-Confidence with Meditation”
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Cool!
When we can connect with the gentle, unoccupied, passive watchfulness that we already are, there is no fear…
nice! Fear holds us all down. When you finally break free of fear you fly!
Thats a great post. I’m really new to meditation but it keeps me motivated to experience these bliss moments so I can see my life in completely different perspective. I don’t want ever to become close-minded but expand all the time to understand more, who am I.
Thanks for this man. I always like to see people bridging the gap between spiritual practice and “practical living.”
[...] How You Can Build Self-Confidence with Meditation (rebelzen.com) [...]
Meditation can really help because it makes us feel we belong again where we are. It strips away the veil of separation and aloneness that makes us feel different and less confident.
Good stuff. Looking forward to reading more.
A nice description of the meditative experience and some of the benefits it can have. More and more I see that it is all about simply letting go and relaxing into existence.
Whenever you alter your state of mind you let go of the world you think you know and allow yourself to enter a different reality, where you are ready to take on other and better realities
well.. i m also suffering from low self confidence and low self-esteem to deal with any problem..
i do have fear to face among the mass of people and always find myself being dominated by me… but things you have described is very inspiring hope that it will also work for me… n e way thanks a lot…
I have this problem:
I know exactly what you´re talking about, I have felt the feeling of the inner self. But I just can´t act as I wish, I wish I was friendlier and so on, but my old habits just make me forget about acting in situations the way I think would be better. I don´t feel the one-ness with people daily, and still partially believe in the illusions our illuminati society shows me. It´s very hard for me not to be: angry, partially – ego, afraid, not to care about what bad the other people say and so on. If you know of anything that might help me, please send an e-mail:)
This post rocks. Meditation is the most direct and efficient way to build self-confidence. My experiences have somewhat paralleled that of the author’s, although I have been meditating for a shorter time so I have not experienced the higher levels of consciousness that he describes in this article. However, I can say from my experience that meditating is the best way to spend your time if you’re concerned with being more confident and enjoying a higher quality of life.
Thanks for the great article!
Recently I got to this site by Bing and have to take a few moments of time to give thanks to you pertaining to the tips relating to boosting confidence.
Hi there,
I really liked this post, and have been slowly getting into the idea of meditation (I preach more than I practice, unfortunately). However, my husband and sister are deeply into it and I have seen how it has transformed their lives.
Everyday, I face many situations where I ask myself whether or not it is ego that is taking precedence over my emotions and eventual decisions/behavior. However, I long to peel through the layers of ego-self, and find my true self, that which is one with the universe and pure love. My husband has had this mind-blowing experience during meditation, termed a Spiritually Transformative Experience (STE), by researcher, family doctor and psychotherapist, Yvonne Kason.
I strongly recommend Dr. Kason’s book, Farther Shores, which explores STEs that people have experienced surrounding various circumstances which was spurred by her near-death experience. In the book, she gently brings together kundalini meditation, spiritual awakening, psychic experiences and religion, and views all these approaches as describing one universal experience.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Firstly, thank you to everybody above for your comments – I cannot believe I let 14 comments go by before responding. Very rude and not like me at all.
@Tami thanks for your book recommendation and comments. I just thought I’d add that STE’s (nice, I like that) happen more than once in my experience and also while I have certainly experienced them while meditating I have also experienced one while terrified on a plane that was flying through a very big storm and one when holding my newborn baby girl for the first time.
The latter experience led me to recommit to my music in a big way, which you can hear me ramble on about via my new video blog, Seamus.TV – The Musician’s Guide to Giving It A Red Hot Go
Seamus Anthony´s last blog ..Seamus – Musician