Self-Confidence

This is an ongoing series running through May to compliment the twice weekly meditation sessions that I will be hosting on YouTube (and are now archived on my YouTube page). If you have any questions, please contact me.

My teacher use to say of meditation practice that it was like tasting good food. Once you have tasted good food, you want to go back for more. Similarly with meditation, once you start to taste or experience the fruits of practice, you will find yourself wanting to stay with the practice, to experience more and dive deeper.

Perhaps at the start of your practice there is the enthusiasm that comes with finding and starting something new. That sense of newness overrides any doubts that you have in the practice or in yourself. However, with time maybe doubts start to set in with regard to the efficacy of the practice, can really be of any benefit? You perhaps start to feel the tug of external attractions when it comes time for you to sit. You might have heard that meditation is a practice that takes times, but when you not feeling confident about yourself or the practice, that time can feel too long.

How do you overcome the doubts and build self-confidence in your practice?

Through practicing awareness and mindfulness we will start to experience the fruits of practice in our own mind. The instruction is no longer the words in a book or a meditation teacher. Instead the words become a part of us. We experience them for ourselves in our mind. We make them our own through our practice of meditation. Our mind is no longer a stranger to us, but a part of ourselves that we are beginning to get to know more intimately. We see how busy the mind is. We get to know how it works and how the emotions arise within it. We start to notice what triggers us into the various emotions, and with that familiarization become less fearful of the emotions. We find ourselves bringing awareness and mindfulness into our lives and starting to respond more skillfully when emotions arise within us.

All of this takes time, but as we taste these fruits for ourselves we will know, experience the truth in our own heart. With knowing arises confidence in the practice that brought us to that place.