For You, Who Lack Confidence

Hey you, who lack confidence – you, who are frozen with insecurity. Yes, you!

You don’t have to stay this way, you know. This is not the real you.

But it’s been so many years, has it? Year after year without changing? Those cringe memories that cause a stab of shame that only grows worse over the years instead of better? Those foolish knee-jerk reactions that make you wonder what’s come over you? Again!

Is it those memories from when you were young and rash that haunt you? Or was it just last week that you spoke without thinking, acted without constraint? Were you foolish and hasty with your words? Did you leave, wondering what they must think of you – that you were too loud, too boastful, too quiet, too mute, a non-entity. Are your defences ripped away, like a turtle without its shell, the membrane of your emotions raw, and thin, and stretched taut?

Are you outspoken? You spout off words without knowledge, which will undoubtedly change in a year or ten when you’ve questioned yourself again and again? Oh, truthful one. You seek to understand, to make sense, and to make peace. Your words break walls; your love builds them anew.

Are you scattered? A zillion projects going on at once so that you can never get your act together? Oh, resourceful one. You dream high, and you don’t rest until you’ve seized the flag at the summit where the air is thin and the view is spectacular.

Are you ponderous? No move is made until you’ve considered every angle and weighed every possible outcome? Oh, steady one. You don’t change and shift like the shadows, and you keep the masses grounded. Even the bright and shiny balloons need to be secured somewhere so they don’t float away.

Are you sensitive? Do you read every expression, mimic every emotion, cower under every challenge? Do you bend with the force of others, wondering what it is in you that needs to change?

Oh duckie … do you think confident people think that way?

I’m not talking about the confident people who discern a grace which covers all the rough edges – the ones who welcome others exactly as they are – the ones who have a heart. No, I’m talking about those who are never tortured over someone else’s pain. They are impermeable, inflexible, unyielding. The granite people. Do you think that each time there’s any tension or unhappiness, they think that they’re the ones who need to change in order to fix it? Do you think the granite people constantly question their every decision?

It’s the sensitive ones, who are always questioning themselves, who grow, you know. They are the ones whose every petal unfolds with each truth until the bloom explodes with color – heady with perfume. Not so the granite people, whose mind is curled up tight like a bud, whose heart is untouched.

But … don’t let’s compare ourselves to the granite people. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.

Look at your eyes! They’re kind. Look at your smile that lights your whole face! It’s welcoming. Look at your arms that are a soft landing place for the ones who love you. And yes, they do. Maybe not that one who should have – whose love should have been instinctual – but this one who owes you absolutely nothing loves you – this one loves you. And this other one, and that one too.

Who else has your patented mix of humour and gravity? Who else displays the precise blend of sincerity and irreverence? Who is like you in both your industry and your adorable weaknesses? Who carries such strength in this aspect and such tenacity in that … like you? No one, that’s who.

No one from your past can negate who you are. They might have inadvertently bruised you through careless handling, or they might have flung you deliberately so that you smashed into a million pieces, but they have no hold on you. No, none. They did not will you into being, even with all the decisive force in the world.

You belong here. This air was made for you to breathe, this space for you to live in, this food for you to eat, this love for you to receive, this flow of grace to cover you again and again and again so that any flaw is polished into smoothness.

Breathe in the air, and claim this space that was set out for you. No one else was meant to fill it. Only you. You own this corner of the world …

and, oh friend, I’m so glad you do.

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