Change Requires Confidence, Confidence Requires Courage

The Union Path Podcast

"Change Requires Confidence, Confidence Requires Courage"

Transcript:

It's change that we want in our life. If it's change that we want to create in our life, think if we've been at this for a while, I think if we've endeavored after this for a while, I think if we've tried to create change for a while, they can become pretty obvious that there are clearly some steps involved.

There's clearly... a process at play when it comes to creating change, especially when we look at our past history of successfully creating change, successfully conceiving of something, inhabiting it and experiencing it, really looking at the mechanics of it, really looking back at how did that actually work or even in the moment while it's happening to bring a little bit of awareness to it and ask ourselves, how is this actually happening?

What's actually going on here? How does all this seem to work? I think one of the things that can become clear, perhaps one of the things that fairly reliably does become clear, is this idea that change, creating change, requires confidence. That seems to be true. That seems to be true when we look back at our life and when we've really been able to create change, that that change came through, came via an increase or a shift in confidence.

That it sounds overly simple, but it doesn't make it any less true. That in order to really create change, we have to believe that not only change is possible, but believe that we ourselves can create the kind of change that we're trying to create. Creating change requires confidence. We have to actually believe.

In the change that we're trying to make before we can truly make it. Or at the very least before we can actually inhabit, live with that change for any amount of time. Because of course it's a wholly different thing to create change than it is to actually live in that change. It's a wholly different thing to bring something in, to actually manifest something than it is to actually live with it, than it is to actually keep it.

In my experience anyway, these are two different things. These are two different energies. These are two different states of consciousness. They're bringing in and the holding, the inhabiting, the living with what is brought in, in my experience, anyway, this is the difference. Between the short brief fleeting things that come in only to soon fly away again as compared to the things that actually come in and stick, that come in and stay, that come in and become a resident, that become part of my life.

But it's even more than that. It's even more than this idea that change requires confidence. Because where does confidence come from? Where does this belief come from? We give confidence all sorts of words. Belief, knowing, faith, consciousness even. Confidence really is kind of a boiled down word of what do we believe?

What do we really believe? What do we know to be true? What do we know deep down in our bones? And as our knowing gets deeper, our confidence gets greater. Our confidence grows with the depth of our knowing. With the depth of our faith. With the depth of our belief. But how does one actually do this? How does one actually make their belief, their faith, deeper?

Well I'd make the argument, it's been my experience, that that requires courage. That requires being brave. That requires the gumption, the wherewithal, the pluck. The Moxie even, to believe, to choose to believe, and to find the courage to actually do so. But a lot of times this is a process, this is an unfolding process, that as our courage grows, our confidence grows along with it.

And that as our confidence grows. The change we're able to experience, the change we're able to create, grows right along with it as well. And we see this not only in ourselves, we see it around us, we see it in our culture. Because after all, what's our favorite part of the movie, usually? It's the part of the movie where the hero finally finds the courage, finally starts to build confidence, finally starts to be able to create change through the belief that not only is change possible, but they themselves can create the change that they're trying to create.

They fully commit, they fully lock in, they finally let the past go, they finally drop their doubt, or at the very least let these things go enough to finally move forward. To finally be something new, to finally change, to be bigger, to be greater, to be stronger, to be more powerful, they step into their fullness.

And they do it through their confidence and their courage. And it's pretty obvious why we're so drawn to these ideas. We're so drawn to these scenes. Why these tend to be the climax of the stories that we adore and cherish so much. We know this is true. We know this is real. And maybe on some level, this is a desire that we hold for ourselves.

This is a desire to find the confidence and the courage. To create the change that we really want to make, because if we're going through our life and we really want some sort of change, we really want something to be different. We really want to learn and grow in some specific way. We really want to experience different set of circumstances that we want to inhabit a life that not only feels different.

But feels different because we ourselves are different. And I think we know at least on some level that if we're unable to create this, if we've been unable to experience this, if this has been absent in our life, if there's been. Something holding us back, holding us away from the experiences that we really want to have.

The missing element is confidence. The missing element is belief. The missing element is faith. And we're missing these elements because we lack the courage to truly believe. We lack the courage to truly know. We lack the courage to let go of our doubt, let go of our old ideas that aren't serving us anymore.

Let go of constantly trying to hedge our bets, trying to live in multiple possibilities at the same time, just waiting to see which one works out for us. Trying to straddle as many icebergs as we can, even though this act of straddling He's just pulling us apart, or at the very least is using up all of our energy to try to hold them together.

Because we're not really committing, we're not really focusing, we're not really choosing. In some way, we're trying to live the life of an opportunist, we're trying to live the life of someone who only jumps on board what's already successful instead of choosing what feels authentic to us. In seeing that success grow seemingly from nothing.

That we want to jump on and jump into something that's already done. Instead of truly creating and manifesting, we actually want ourselves. And we can do this out of fear, we can do this out of expediency, in patience. Greed. But whatever reason we have, by not fully committing to something, by not fully believing in something, that keeps us separate from it.

We're holding these things at an arm's length. And if it's our visions, our dreams, our desires, that we're holding at an arm's length, because we're too scared to commit fully, we're too scared to believe in it fully, we're too scared to really ask ourselves the question, Do we believe in this or not? Are we willing to commit or not?

Are we willing to actually have true and deep faith in what we purport, what we project, that we actually believe? Do we believe or don't we? Because as long as that doubt is still active, then it will keep us fractured, that will keep us separate, that will keep us from reaching our ideal. Because we're simply trying to do too many things at once.

Or at the very least, we're not really moving forward. Part of us is trying to move forward and backwards and sideways. Because ultimately, to create the full version of what we want to create, what's required is commitment. We can't truly create and then experience what we really want if we're only partially committed to it.

If we're only partially focused on it, if we're just going along with it because it seems to work, seems to be the right choice, this is kind of the sacrifice that we have to make in actually getting what we want is first believing in what we want fully, finding the confidence and the courage to do so, while also finding the confidence and the courage to forego in a shoe what we don't actually want.

Stop keeping all of our options open. When we know, we know deep down in our heart, that actually only one option will do, that even if those other options do come through, we'll never be truly happy, we'll never be truly fulfilled, because those things aren't what we actually want. Those things aren't actually us, that we are choosing, we are settling, we are compromising, because we don't have the confidence and the courage.

To go after what we really want. We don't have the confidence and the courage to let go of what doesn't actually serve us. What isn't actually ours. What we don't actually want. Of course the way we work out these sorts of decisions for ourselves does usually end up being a process. It's too jarring, it's too much to try to let go of everything at once, to try to jettison and abandon everything we don't want, everything we don't want to strive towards.

That's too scary, that's too complicated. A lot of times that's actually pretty unreasonable, might even be pretty foolish, because this isn't about doing everything as quickly as possible, doing everything... in one step. This is about getting to where we want to go eventually. This is about learning and growing along the way.

This is about identifying and living out and living through more idealized version of ourselves, of our lives every day. Because one really difficult thing to see, one bit of snow blindness that we can get, one thing really difficult to Ascertain, acknowledge, and appreciate in the moment is how going after things, striving after things, maintaining things we don't actually want, is actually harming us.

At the very least, it's taking up the space in our life for what we actually do want, what we actually do desire. And this can be really hard. This can be really hard to fully acknowledge what we actually want. This can be really hard to realize that. If we are trying to create change in our life and for whatever reason we've been unsuccessful or unable to do so, the limiting factor is our own knowing, is our own faith, is our own commitment to what we say we want.

Even more so, if we are experiencing pain or frustration or sadness because of our current circumstance, it can be really difficult and be really hard and be really challenging and trying truth. If we are the ones who are keeping us in these various situations, if we are the ones not moving on, not changing, not creating change, and that's continuing to experience this pain, this harm, all these ill effects, because we don't have the confidence and the courage to do something different, to try something different.

And of course it's important to be gentle with ourselves. It's important to Not take these kinds of realizations that even if they may feel true to us, it doesn't mean we need to be overly harsh and critical that even if we understand the answer to the question, it doesn't mean that we need to berate ourselves because we're not getting to that answer fast enough.

That took us too many tries, took us too much time to arrive at the answer that we seek. Because creating change in life is difficult. And the further we get into life, the more difficult those changes seem to be. We can have people who are counting on us. We can have people who rely on us. We have expectations from not only ourselves, but from everyone around us.

We can have issues of our own identity. That can make life feel, that can make our circumstance and conditions feel intractable. That we're in too deep, that it's too late to change, or that we couldn't possibly do something different than what we've always done, even if doing what we've always done has never really made us happy.

That try as we may, endless possibilities to try to cope and make things good and make things okay, but it just never is, it never really gets there. That we know there's something missing. We know there's something more for us. There's no, there's something more out there. We just seem to be stuck. We just seem to be mired in our current circumstance.

And either we've been unable to create. The kind of change that we want to create, or we don't think we can. But then that brings us back to these ideas of confidence and courage. Because if we experience pain in our life, if we experience frustration in our life, we experience stagnation in our life, we experience dissatisfaction in our life, we experience disappointment in our life, it's important to take a look at ourselves.

Like, um, take a look at it. What our role in this pain and frustration and disappointment is, and see how our choices, the decisions that we're making, are keeping us on this path, that is keeping us locked into these circumstances, that is delivering the pain and discomfort. That it is. Perhaps we have ourselves locked into situations that have never actually worked out for us, but we still continue to try.

We still continue to pursue. And if someone came in from outer space and beamed down and watched what we were doing and then tapped us on the shoulder and said, Why are you doing this? This just causes you frustration and pain. This doesn't seem to be getting you anywhere. Why do you continue to do this?

And you just kind of shrug your shoulders and say, I don't know, but this is just what I do. So I'm going to continue on doing it because of what we've always done as consistently created a certain type of feeling. And continuing to always do what we've done is choosing to continue those feelings as well.

That by choosing the activity, we choose the outcome. And this is our agency. This is our freedom. We all get to choose what we do and what we don't do. We get to choose what we go after and what we don't. We get to choose if and when we change or not. And there's no judgment in these choices. That in order for freedom to be real, in order for agency to be real, there's no inherent judgment on how we exercise that freedom or that agency.

It's always up to us. It's always up to us to decide when change is needed. It's always us to decide. To embark on a new course of action, to implement this needed change, which is why we love it so much when the hero in our story makes that choice. When they finally come to the place where they've realized they themselves have to change, they themselves have to choose, they themselves have to find the confidence and the courage to not only do something different.

But accept the idea that they themselves can be different, they themselves are different. And in doing so, they can decouple, they can detach from the past, they can leave all that frustration and that conflict and that pain and that dissatisfaction behind to embark to create something new, to create something different, to try something else.

And sometimes, some of us, when we finally get to the point of creating this sort of change. We really have to be backed into a corner, really only do it until it really seems like there's no other choice. Or at the very least, we just can't take it anymore. We just can't stand, we just can't abide to live under these rules and strictures that this is how our life is, and this is how it will always be.

That we realize the Savior we're looking for, the hero we're looking for in our story, Is us, is ourselves, that we're the ones that we're waiting for, that we're the ones that we're waiting for to swoop in and save us and create the change we so desperately, deeply want that we finally figure out, that we finally decide that this is on us and that we're going to do something about it.

We are going to take charge. We are going to create the change. That we want to create. That we are the hero we've been waiting for. And sometimes we only arrive at this when every other possible hero has been eliminated. That we've gone through this horrible, draining process of elimination. Of trying every circumstance, every person, every book, every seminar, every blog article.

Every webinar, every podcast, everything we can think of to finally save us, only to finally arrive at the truth, and to finally arrive at the reality that not only are we the only ones who can save ourselves, but this was always true. We have our Dorothy back in Kansas moment, that we had the power to save ourselves whenever we wanted.

We had to go in this fantastical, frustrating. Conflict ridden adventure to finally realize it because we wouldn't have believed it. Otherwise we were so Dedicated we were so inert in the idea that salvation lied external to us that it was within Someone else something else we just had to find it It was like we were playing this game of life where the treasure was hidden and not only hidden physically But hidden behind it almost endless series Of obstacles and wild goose chases and detours and distractions only to find he was within us all along.

But for some of us, that's the only way we could have ever known. That's the only way we could have ever found it was to exhaust all other possible options first. To finally get to the point where we seized our own confidence, where we seized our own courage, where we decided to believe, we decided to know because we landed on something that finally felt like the truth, that finally felt real, that finally got underneath.

All of our seeking, all of our dissatisfaction, all of our doubt, and realized it was in us. It was us all along. And of course different people's paths unfold in different ways. Our path through life is a completely individual one. No one can tell us. Where our path leads and no one can walk it for us. We are the ones who have to discover it and we're the ones who have to travel it and we're led to these decisions, we're led to these realizations.

We are led to this knowing, we are led to the change that we want to create in our life at exactly the perfect time, exactly the perfect circumstance. That's right for us. That's true for us. That's what we actually need. And maybe this knowing, maybe this knowing that our path is ours and it's unfolding exactly how it should can be the bedrock, can be the base, can be the idea, the opportunity to start to gather and garner some of this confidence, some of this courage to actually be able to create the change.

That we want to create, to actually be able to let the past go, let the pain go, let the failure go, let the frustration go, let the dissatisfaction go, and embark and endeavor To something new, to move forward from where we are, rather than constantly trying to re inhabit or re animate the past. Because we can choose to drop the past.

We can choose to occupy the present. We can choose to walk our own path and embrace the change that we need to make. We can choose to have faith. We can choose to have knowing. We can choose to have the courage to allow that faith and knowing. To go deeper and deeper, we can use that faith and that knowing to give us the confidence to be able to create the change that we're trying to create, because true, lasting, meaningful change requires confidence and courage.

And we can choose to build up those aspects in ourselves. We can choose to make investments in those aspects within ourselves. We can choose to deepen and broaden those aspects of ourselves. We can choose to believe. We can choose to commit. We can choose to let go of what doesn't really serve us. We can choose to move towards what we actually want.

We can choose to move away from what we don't, because ultimately, we're the ones who choose. We're the ones who have. Authority and autonomy and agency over the direction of our life, over what we prioritize, what we seek, what we relinquish. And if it's change that we want to create, then we ourselves can decide to build up our own confidence and our own courage.

Because ultimately, belief, faith, consciousness requires courage. Because whatever faith, whatever belief we have... Will be challenged in order for our faith and our knowing to really penetrate deeply and really be meaningful to us It must be challenged. It must be tested because or otherwise it isn't real.

Otherwise, it isn't really ours It's a loose set of ideas. It's not an experienced truth because of its depth we want. It's a depth of experience It's a depth of change that we want. Belief and faith is required Confidence and courage are required. We can choose to develop these aspects of ourselves. We can choose to walk this path whenever we wish.

We can choose to believe, to really believe in ourselves, in our lives, in our desires. And where we're trying to go, what change we're trying to create, what sort of life we're trying to experience, because if we've been trying to create change and so far we've been frustrated by the lack of change, if so far we've been frustrated by seemingly being stuck in a level of stagnation and routine and sameness, if our desired change is simply frustrated us, because it always seems out there, it always seems someday.

It never really feels real, it feels like some theoretical, academic idea. Then we can ask ourselves, well do we really believe in it? Do we really have faith in it? And if we realize that our belief and our faith... needs to grow. If our confidence in our own ideas, in our own vision, in our own dreams, if our confidence in ourselves needs to grow, then we can find the courage to do so.

We can choose to do so by choosing to have the courage to do so. And this is a choice we can make whenever we want, whenever we wish, because it's been my experience anyway, that to experience a depth of life, to experience a richness of life, to experience a life full of aliveness, requires courage, requires commitment, requires belief, requires faith.

Because otherwise... If I don't really believe in anything, then nothing really matters. Otherwise, if I don't really believe in anything, then life sort of redounds to just a superficial sensory experience that's never really satisfying, that never really gets at. That more soul level hunger or thirst just seems to create more striving, more pursuing, more chasing, never really nourishes me the way I want to be nourished.

It never really satisfies me the way I want to be satisfied because it's not deep enough. It's too superficial. And the reason why I was dwelling so much on the superficial is because I didn't have the confidence, I didn't have the courage to be able to go deeper, to really be able to build lasting and meaningful change.

By having a set of beliefs, by having a knowing, by having a consciousness that was expanding deeper to the more real, to the more fundamental, this is a never ending path. Depth of experience, depth of consciousness is infinite. And so no matter where we are, if we go even a little bit deeper than where we were before, it's superficial in comparison.

We can always choose to be less superficial, we can always choose to be less self centered, we can always choose to be less devoted merely to... Our own sensory or ego centered pleasure and go after something deeper, a little more real, a little bit more meaningful. But in order to do so, it's going to require confidence and courage.

And the beauty is once we know this, We can start working on this once we've decided that this is something we want. This level of depth, this level of meaning, this level of nourishment, that it's something we actually want. And we can begin right now, we can begin in this moment to work on our own confidence, to working on our own courage, of building our own faith, building our own beliefs, of expanding our own consciousness because we've decided to, because we've decided it's worthwhile and that's a beautiful decision, that's a beautiful day when we finally arrived at a place where we're willing to do so, where we're willing to look deeper, we're willing to go deeper. We're willing to be the hero we're waiting for.