If alienation has left you second-guessing every text to your kid, rehearsing every conversation, and borrowing confidence from everyone but yourself — this episode is for you. This is Part 3 of Shelby's series on the inner work of healing (following episodes on self-doubt and self-trust), and today she breaks down why self-confidence isn't something you lost, it's something you can rebuild from the inside out, even before you have proof that you can.

 

Main Talking Points

 

• Confidence vs. Self-Confidence — They're not the same. Confidence is situational and comes after experience. Self-confidence is internal — the belief you can handle whatever comes, even when you've never done it before.
• Why Alienation Destroys Self-Confidence Specifically — Alienation strips your role, reputation, finances, and identity. It trains your brain to look outward for validation, which compounds the erosion of self-trust.
• The Emotions That Rebuild It — Self-confidence isn't forced overnight. It's built through cultivating specific emotions: self-compassion, curiosity, gratitude, acceptance, courage, optimism, determination, and joy/self-pride.
• Practical Exercises That Actually Work — The Trust Jar (keep small promises to yourself), the 90-Second Emotion Rule (feel it without reacting), micro-risk routine breaks, and a self-compassion mantra for moments of failure.
• The Two Questions That Change Everything — "What exact thought is causing me to doubt myself right now?" and "Who do I want to see myself as if the old story wasn't running the show?"

 

Key Takeaways

 

✅ You don't need confidence to move forward — you need self-confidence, the belief you'll figure it out as you go.

✅Alienation attacked your identity, not your capability — your skills are still there; it's your belief in them that's been shaken.

✅Discomfort is not a stop sign — it's evidence you're actively building self-confidence. Every time you feel it and choose yourself anyway, you're training your nervous system.

✅Stop looking outward to refill what's inside — validation, acceptance, and proof-seeking outside yourself deepens the trap, not the healing.

✅Self-trust is built in small promises kept — not in big wins, but in the daily follow-through with yourself.

✅Emotions are survivable and finite — the peak of a difficult emotion lasts roughly 90 seconds if you don't loop it with more thought spirals.

✅This is your season to be self-focused — if your child isn't in your daily life right now, this is the invitation to rebuild you.

 

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Episode Transcript

You are listening to The Beyond The High Road Podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 184. Stay tuned. Hey y'all. How we doing today? So, um, today we're gonna be talking about self-confidence. Actually, we're gonna be talking about confidence in general. . Having gone through alienation or any kind of long-term complex trauma confidence can feel like it belongs to a different species of human.

You might look back on that old version of you and think, who was that person who could just get on a plane or walk into a room or set a boundary without rehearsing every worst case scenario? now, it's like every decision that you make, even the little ones has a committee in your head voting like, no fucking way.

No way. . Maybe you notice it in really practical ways where you overthink sending a text to your kid, right? Every client, I think that nearly every client that I've ever had has had that happen, just a simple, like, I love you text or thinking about you text, because of all the advice that we get from all the other people. There's influx of information from. parental alienation, experts and what have you, right? You rehearse what you'll say to your ex or to a lawyer a hundred times until you feel sick. You second guess the way that you've handled something weeks ago, you find yourself asking other people what you should do about everything.. Everything, Because the idea of trusting your own judgment feels dangerous. Underneath all of that is this quieter grief, though it's this, I don't recognize myself anymore. I used to be brave. I used to be fun. I used to just do things on a whim, that loss of self can hurt worse than anything. The court, your child even or your ex, ever said to you. So if that is where you're living right now, if you feel a little smaller shakier little bit less sure of yourself today than you've ever been, you are exactly who I'm talking to today. So before we talk about how to get any of that confidence back, I wanna quickly pull apart what I actually mean by confidence and self-confidence, because they're not the same thing and the difference really matters when it comes to our situations of alienation.

So confidence, definitions. Confidence is a feeling. Confidence itself is a feeling that comes from experience and evidence. Collected evidence. It's, I've done this before. I know what to expect, It's mostly external.

Situational, you might feel confident driving a car, doing certain parts of your job, making dinner while at the same time feeling completely unsteady or unsure about sending a message like I just talked about to your kid or walking into court. . Self-confidence though, is different. Self-confidence is internal.

it's not about what you've already done, it's about what you believe about you. . It sounds more like, even if I've never done this. I trust my ability to figure it out and handle myself all the way along.

It's a more general mindset that you can carry from situation to situation. Not just one narrow scale.

So one super simple way to see this . Confidence is, I have done this before, I can do it again, Self-confidence on the other hand is I can handle whatever happens, good feelings, bad feelings, positive, negative, however you wanna look at that. It's all okay because I know I can get through this.

It's this deep rooted trust that you will know how to get through whatever comes your way, right? And for us as alienated parents, I mean. this is one area that I think has been tested so much, and I'm gonna get into that more in a, in a few minutes. So hang tight. So confidence is fragile. one bad experience, one curve ball, one harsh comment, can knock it down in an instant.

Okay? And I'm gonna explain that more in a second too, or give you an example of that more in a second. Um, self-confidence is steady because it's rooted in self-trust and in your beliefs about your capacity. Not in one specific result, on one specific day. After alienation, most parents are trying to fix their confidence by collecting more evidence that they are okay or that they can do it, or that they're gonna get through it, you know?

But really what's been eroded many times is self-confidence, their willingness, our willingness to believe that they can trust themselves again. Okay. That's the thing. Alienation puts the focus on us in all the negative ways and what we do from that, which is makes sense.

Why is to focus outward because of that. It's like almost like we've been scooped out everything, you know, our role got taken our, um, reputations many times. Maybe finances, maybe all the things, right? And so because we feel like we've been emptied out, we go trying to look outside.

To get those things back, to replenish us, which is ends up being so backwards because those things, not our children, but otherwise are just things. And we have us like who you are. Who I am are, our human brain is so powerful. Our systems are so powerful and we are capable. If we've created it once, we can go create it again and we can create it even better.

But when we're coming from all the trauma that we have, we end up thinking, oh, well I need to get it out there. I need to get the validation. Or I've been abandoned. I need to go find people to accept me again, or I need this, whatever it is. Our focus gets drawn outward just by the nature of this whole dynamic, right?

And that's what causes this fucking hell that we live in many times. I mean, there's a lot of aspects of this, but this is one of the major aspects. So to sum up the definitions real quick. It's the difference between a fixed or growth mindset.

Confidence is fixed and self-confidence is growth mindset. Okay, so I did an episode on that too, you guys maybe in the last half of 2023, like I, I can link it below. Um, I forget it was the fixed or growth mindset episode. Talking about stress could be a positive thing for you. And it was all inspired by, now that I'm thinking about it was all inspired by, Huberman podcast episode that I had watched back then.

So once you see the difference that I just explained up there, that between the fixed and growth mindset, it gets clearer.

That confidence from experience is optional. I think this is really fucking important to point out. Okay. You don't actually, and I know I led up to that last week and maybe the week before, like you don't need the confidence. You could just, it comes after, yes, for confidence and we're talking about specific tasks, but really confidence is optional.

I could swear that I did an episode on this, on the difference between confidence and self-confidence back maybe a couple, few years ago, but I couldn't find it anywhere. So I'm doing it now and it's gonna be different anyway, so just what I said reminded me of something I know thought that I said back then.

But anyway, confidence from experience is optional, but self-confidence is not like your experience for sure can make some things feel much smoother, right? But it's your belief in yourself that actually lets you do hard, new or scary things. Think of confidence from experience as a bonus. It's what shows up after you've done something a bunch of times, right? It is usually domain specific. and it's why certain parts of your life feel easier now, Like your routine tasks, you, you've done a thousands million times,

driving a car, brushing your teeth, walking in a straight line, drinking a glass of liquid, whatever it is, milk, water, whatever. Take your poison, right? You know how to do that. You know, you're not gonna, port down the front of you most of the time.

You know? And even if you did do that, you probably wouldn't lose confidence in the fact that you could probably do it the next time without failing, without pouring it down the front of your shirt. You know what I'm saying? Confidence is great to have. For like these automatic automated tasks, right?

Mastered skills. Also, the pieces of parenting or co-parenting that you've had to do on repeat or skills of maybe woodworking or um, uh, coding or anything that you have to do in your day-to-day job that you didn't, or skills that you've mastered, this is where that belongs because your body wants to be efficient, right?

And so it learns those things on automatic and you're confident about it. It's like a no-brainer that you know that you can do it. It makes your life much easier, right?

Predictable situations is another place That confidence is nice to have conversations and appointments where you already know the drill.

You know, you're not like an alien coming down from, you know, up in the sky, coming down and not knowing how to set an appointment. You know how. You have confidence that you can do it because you've done it before. You know that you know how this works, right? Um, public performance also task, like public speaking when you have a history of successful presentations to look back on,

Your nervous system can relax there because it already has proof. We've done this, we survived this, and that is confidence or that you're even good at it, whatever. It's, you know, that's confidence.

[00:10:02] You Don't Need Confidence 

But the truth is that you don't actually need that history to move. What you really need is self-confidence, your belief in you.

Self-confidence is what lets you pivot or start something new. Handle adversity, , having the faith that you can manage a situation, even if it doesn't turn out as you wanted, walk into court again after a horrible last hearing, whatever it is, you know. Um, I always go to what's going on for me, but like, I just remember, you know, it's, well, I don't even have to talk about me.

You know, it's like they always say like, if you fall off a horse, get right back on, That's because you wanna have confidence But even if you don't, if you have that gap between doing it once and then there's this buildup of, oh, I tried that before and it didn't work out for me.

What I'm talking about is the opposite of that. Like, I tried it before, it didn't work out. Now this is data and it's okay that it didn't work out, and what is working out anyway. Working out could mean, that I did fail, and that failure is building my self-confidence because I use that now to build my resilience and my capacity, and I'm gonna get into that later.

I keep jumping the gun and going off my notes. So, self-confidence helps you to take risks, right? Step outside your comfort zone, such as like showing up for your kid's game despite feeling nervous because last time you were rejected, self-confidence helps you do all that stuff. Knowing you're gonna be facing adversity and you do it anyway because it's okay, because you have you.

Facing judgment, facing the haters, facing, whatever it is, it's all gonna be okay. self-confidence also helps you to recover from that failure if there is a quote unquote failure viewing setbacks as challenges to overcome rather than a reason to stop. And then another thing that self-confidence, there's two more things helped you to do is operate without validation.

Choosing to take an unconventional path, as most of us kind of have, um, like speaking up in a room full of people who might judge you, Because you are comfortable in your own skin. , And like I said, the problem with us is maybe you were comfortable in your own skin years ago, but then all of this stuff happened and the microscope was put on you.

You feel like it's swimmin' around in a fishbowl and everything you do is wrong and you've screwed everything up from the narrative that you're receiving, right? So then you become uncomfortable in your own skin and in order to get out of your own skin for yourself, you go looking outwards and we think that that's gonna fix it.

And it doesn't. It ends up actually compounding the situation because then you are literally beside yourself. You know? Hopefully I make sense when I'm saying that. Um, also like things like leaving a relationship, changing your career, reinventing yourself after alienation, those kinds of things. In all of those moments experience might be missing,

it might be messy, it might even be painful, excruciating, even. What carries you there and through all of what I just talked about isn't, I've done this before, it's, I trust myself to figure it out, and to stay with me behind me while I do. So here's the part that nobody tells you too, as long you're willing to feel uncomfortable.

As long as you're willing to feel uncomfortable, you can get really, really good at self-confidence at feeling it and embodying it. Self-confident. Confidence is basically a relationship. Your relationship with discomfort not, oh, I felt discomfort before I can feel again. Right? Like confidence or like rolling your eyes about the discomfort.

Instead, it's once you've practiced feeling scared and sometimes it's not our choice, right? But it's the attitude that you take along the way. Once you practice feeling scared, awkward, exposed, or unsure, and then doing the thing anyway for the sake of growth, Self-confidence starts to become your default.

It becomes your narrative, your, and it becomes native for you. So that's why I care, and I'm so passionate. About self-confidence, When you really believe in yourself, willing to feel discomfort on purpose, you can achieve anything. Anything you put your mind to, anything that you want to do, and you have good reasons, like you have your good why if so long as you're willing to feel that discomfort, you can do anything. Anything. Okay? So let me make this really concrete because I know that you've lived this.

There have been so many times in my life where I had no experience, no track record, and still felt completely sure that I could handle it. There wasn't confidence in a skillset. It was self-confidence.

It was a belief, it was self-trust. And then there have been other moments where I had plenty of experience and my confidence still shattered, Because of what I was believing about myself at the time. Let me walk you through a few examples for my own life so you can start to see for your own self,

The easiest way that I came up with here is being a mom. I had No, neither did you. I know. Real life experience in , doing it, being a mom. Being a parent, back then, whenever I had my kiddo, I know we've got different age groups listening to this. Back then when I was pregnant back in 2006 and part of 2007, internet was a thing, but it wasn't what it is today.

So it's not like I thought, oh, if I run into some sort of issue that Google will tell me, or YouTube. YouTube was, I think it was there, but it wasn't a thing, you know, or ai, no way. You know? And yet I remember this deep knowing of like, I will figure this out because I care. I care enough to keep, I'll figure it out.

I'll keep trying. In fact, even there was no, keep trying. It was like, for me, it was like, I will figure this out because I'm her mom. You know, even before I ever had her, and I'm sure that you guys can all say the same thing, moms and dads alike, that was self-confidence. I wasn't confident in diaper changing.

Or soothing techniques or sleep schedules or swaddling. Right. I was confident in me in my willingness to learn on the job, like in the moment, right? So it was self-confidence first that I had, and then confidence caught up later. In that situation. Same thing. I was reminded about this, um, funny little, I don't know what to call it 'cause I don't know if I'm quite proud of this moment or more embarrassed, but here it is.

I'm gonna tell you anyway. Somebody reminded, they were like, Hey, remember when, uh, same thing happened outside of a, this neighborhood bar restaurant? One time where there was, um, this cocky bar back had challenged me to, to a pushup contest. Right. And back at, I was, at that time I was in my peak performance shape, you know, and so

he had challenged me to push up contest first, right? And so push up contest, I was like, yo, yeah, I'm down. And then I did it and beat this guy, right? And then he got upset. And so then he was like, how about one arm pushups? I can't believe I'm telling you guys this. And so, and I did this with arm wrestling sometimes too.

But anyway, so I had never done a one arm pushup in my life. Like ever, never attempted it, nothing, right? But I, I remember clearly being like, oh sure, absolutely, I'll do this for with you. And so we were supposed to do five one arm pushups and I just did it. No questions asked. It was not even a, you know, not a doubt in my mind that I could, I could get it done, I had full confidence, full confidence in myself, like self-confidence, and I probably couldn't do it again, who knows? But in that moment, my belief and my strength and determination even more was sky high. I had zero doubt, so, there it was self-confidence, maybe a little bit of confidence too, because I knew that I was strong, you know?

But most of that was coming from determination and knowing that it, when I put my mind to doing it, I would figure it out in that moment. 'cause I was like, on a mission, you know? And so maybe you had something like that. Um, another silly example here is playing pickleball. I had never played before in my life.

. But I walked onto the court that day that I tried with the expectation that I would figure it out as I went. That's not, I'm amazing at pickleball. That was definitely not my thought, right? That was, I trust my brain and my body to learn something new again, that's self-confidence. Not confidence, because I had no history that showed that I could do this, but I just knew that I would be, I would figure it out, you know, I've played other sports before.

I'll figure it out and if I'm not great at it, it's okay. I'm just gonna go on and give it a try. Meet some people, hang out, you know? And that's what I did and it was fun.

So the, another example is leaving my ex, right? Maybe this one's familiar to you too. There was no guarantee that when I left that it would go smoothly, there was no track record that said, you've done this before and it will be easy. Not in this situation that I was, that I'm, um, thinking about this, this one time.

The last time what I did have was a line in the sand that said anything less than figuring this out is unacceptable. The pain had gotten so much. I was not scared of what was gonna, what was gonna come. I was more, , feeling resolve about leaving and knowing that I could do this right. I had let all the other options go out the window.

I was like, I'm there. Nothing else is a possibility. I must leave and I will figure it out. Doesn't matter what happens, I will get it done. Right. So I chose to believe on purpose that I would find a way, right? It was a very conscious decision and like, I will figure this out. And I'm sure many, many, many of you listening have that same experience when you left, you know?

Um, and then on the other side of things, do you guys remember that story? If you've been listening for a while, maybe you do that. I told just after New Year's, I think it was last year, like 2025. It could have been 24 though. I don't know where I had decided to buy a Harley after years of not having one.

Right on paper. My confidence should have been rock solid. But

I went and bought that Harley and I left the showroom, right? Got on the highway and then I almost killed myself. I mean, not intentionally, right? Almost killed myself on this really high exit ramp or overpass in Austin, From then on. From that point on, I couldn't go right. It was like Zoolander, I just couldn't go.

Right? I think his was left. I couldn't do it. I was a train wreck on this bike. And so here's the thing though, like I was saying, um, a second ago, is that I had ridden a bike for years before this incident happened. After all the things that had gone on and the fact that I was, at the time that I went and bought that bike, I, my life was at an all time low as far as my thoughts about myself, what I was capable of.

I, it felt really dark in my world. My future looked very bleak.

And so my extensive years of riding a motorcycle in the past, had zero bearing on my ability to ride again. My thoughts about my ability to ride again, at that very time in my life, all of this shit had gone down and it was still going down. That incident happened a few, like was right at the time where I had not sold that house yet in order to go back to court.

it was just before all the last big boom of stuff was gonna go down. Um, my lack of confidence in my ability came from what I was believing about myself back then. At that time, I doubted everything I knew about myself, and I probably wouldn't have even bet like $1 on me, you know?

Because I didn't believe in myself in my own capacity. I didn't believe in my follow through and my confidence had shattered because it was fixed. I told myself before things were different. I was different. Now I'm not capable. I can't do it anymore. I can't go right on the bike. what I'm saying here is suddenly all of that experience I had in the past, all that confidence that I had, I've got a hair in my face meant nothing because my self-confidence had already been shattered.

That's how you can have confidence in a skill and still feel completely unsafe inside your own skin. You know, I mean, I had done it before. I'd done it a million times over and yet something happened and you know that something was a lot of things in a whole period of time where I changed my, all of my beliefs about what I was capable of, and then I was capable of nothing.

Even the things that I knew so well I couldn't do, you know? So when I say confidence comes from experience and self-confidence comes from your thoughts and your willingness to feel discomfort, this is exactly what I mean, you guys. It's about what you're willing to believe about yourself intentionally and what kind of discomfort you're willing to put yourself through in the name of growth for the sake of growth.

Because if your self-confidence has been eroded by trauma, the trauma of alienation, or trauma and alienation, years of criticism, whatever it is, your actual skills can feel unavailable to you. The work is re rebuilding that inner belief in your capacity to feel uncomfortable on purpose so you can access who you've always been.

So if you're listening to this, I'm thinking, okay, cool. But I don't have that belief anymore. I want you to know that there are real reasons you're feeling like that your confidence has been shattered.

You weren't born second guessing yourself. You know, self-confidence gets chipped away over time, usually in really predictable ways.

[00:24:32] Factors that Erode Self-Confidence After Parental Alienation

Okay, so let's talk about how wood erodes self-confidence, For alienated or traumatized parents and or traumatized parents. So the first way, I'm just gonna list these, I've got them bullet pointed here is ACEs in childhood adverse childhood experiences. 

Okay? Growing up with overly critical parents, lack of affection, abuse, or high pressure environments can cause you to feel inadequate or unsure of yourself and your judgment. The next way is bullying and social rejection being laughed at, excluded, or talked about, especially as a kid or teen plants, the idea that you're too much, well, number one or not enough.

Two. Okay. Or three. The other option is it's A goes back and forth. Two, you're being too much. You're not enough, you're not being too much in this area, and you're not enough in all the areas that count. Which prevents you building competence. and it causes you to second guess yourself. So the next way is negative self-talk. 

When you've spent years talking to yourself in the way that your harshest critic did, whoever that was minimizing every win, magnifying every mistake, your brain starts to believe that version of you is the truth. Mental and physical health, depression, anxiety, trauma responses, chronic illness, all of that can drain your energy and distort how capable you feel even when nothing about your actual abilities have changed.

The next one is social comparison and social media. constantly seeing other parents as thriving or looking as though they're thriving can turn into a 24 7 reminder of how you're behind, or you are failing or you don't have, uh, the right situation or the right setup to thrive as well.

And the last one I have here is trauma and life events, right? Hello, alienation. Divorce, job loss, financial crises, and especially the interruption of your relationship with your child through alienation,

all of those things don't just hurt your heart, they shake your identity. they can leave you feeling like, if I couldn't protect my own child, then why would I trust myself with anything else? And it may not be those words too, you just may actually still hear the voice of, like I just mentioned, the voice of your worst critic, which right now may be the alienating parent and so you might be judging every nitpicking, every little thing that you do without even summarizing it as, I can't trust myself.

It might just be that you have like this, this, this voice heckling you throughout your day to day. You know? So when you stack all of that together, of course your self-confidence can take a hit. Of course, your brain is trying to protect you by saying, don't risk, don't move, don't trust yourself.

So just know that of course, there's nothing wrong with you if this is where you're at right now, as I say in probably every episode.

[00:27:32] Emotions To Generate That Cultivate Self-Confidence

Okay, so now what? Now you have a clearer picture of how your self-confidence got eroded, This is where you can start to take your power back, not by magically feeling confident, self-confident overnight, but by generating emotions that will help you to create it.

And also, I have some questions for you. Two, two main questions for you at the end. Okay? But so you wanna,, in order to feel self-confident, you can use other emotions. What do I have listed here? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, like eight different emotions plus a mindset that will help you to create self-confidence

okay? So I, I was originally gonna do it word this a little bit differently, and this is the part. Um, I was just going to give you a couple exercises, but I really think it's important for you to notice, you know, I talk about this a lot, if you're a new listener, I talk about emotions a lot because emotions drive all your actions, And what you're thinking is going to cause your emotions. So right now, I'm gonna do it a little backwards and we're gonna talk about the feelings that you need to generate, and then I'm gonna go from there and how to get those emotions to you. Okay?

[00:28:45] Foundational Emotions

So your foundational emotions that you need, like your inner workspace, if you will, that you need to create internal stability in order to trust yourself before you have like, so any sort of external proof of success, is self-compassion is number one.

Treating yourself with the same kindness as you would offer a friend. Obviously, this emotion allows you to forgive your mistakes, viewing them as moments in time rather than permanent reflections of your character. Okay, so self-compassion is one. The next one is curiosity. Super important, okay, to have to embrace curiosity throughout all of this work.

And really, curiosity is such a great emotion to lean into, experience, to lean into in all the areas of your life, especially the challenging ones. But, so instead of judging your fears or failures, observe them with fascination. I talk about this a lot, you guys. , Curiosity shifts you from a fixed mindset of being good or bad, or right or wrong, or, lucky, unlucky.

you, you, you get me right to a growth mindset, which is focused on learning and expanding. So self-compassion, curiosity, gratitude is my next one here. So focus on what you do have and who you are right now, being okay with that. You guys know I preach this too. being okay with where you are right now as you sit before trying to need to get somewhere else.

It's so this one is, seems so backwards. Like you need to get somewhere else to get happy. But that's the opposite way to do it. It's back asswards. You wanna to be, get okay with where you are using gratitude even for your small daily wins. little things that you can appreciate about your life as it is right now, even from the darkest place you've ever been in. 

Okay? I speak from experience here. This is one of the things that pulled me out of where I was, was getting happy or getting okay with where I was and where I was, was not pleasant. In fact, my coach told me back in the day when I was in the darkest space, you know, when I was up in the, I guess it wasn't the darkest, darkest space, but it wasn't a happy place on the house, on the hill when I had first just moved there and I was ready to already move away from the whole situation, like get the hell outta Dodge.

And my coach encouraged me to stay there until I didn't need to leave, really to get happy there or be, have the ability, cultivate the ability to be happy there. And then once I could do that, then I could move. And that's what I did. And I'm so glad that she ever told me that, and I'm glad that I listened to her anyway.

So, Gratitude for small daily wins creates a positive feedback loop, That strengthens your perceived self worth. . Instead of basing your self worth on all of these external factors, the next one is acceptance. This is the last one of the foundational emotions.

Acceptance. Radical acceptance. If you're, if we're talking about this situation, you know, the willingness to experience the full range of emotions, the good emotions, the bad emotions, the ugly, all of it, including the uncomfortable ones like shame or frustration without trying to escape them. It is so key.

If you can do this, if you can get comfortable with the uncomfortable, then you can achieve anything. I mean, this, . Not make the uncomfortable mean something about you or about what's gonna happen,

[00:32:32] Action Driving Emotions

the second part of this of emotions is action driving emotions. And this is what I really, I mean, they're all, it's all really important, but I think that you, you, this element is really important.

If you're feeling stuck right now, if you're feeling stuck and you can't generate momentum, motivation, these are your fuel. I have, you know, clients that say, two or three clients now that have said that they feel like rudderless, like recently rudderless or directionless.

And this is because they're not leaning into these four emotions. They are energetic states that move you from thinking. Just thinking about doing it, pondering it, waiting until the time is right to doing, which will ultimately solidify your self-confidence through experience. Yes. But also just, trust in yourself and knowing that you're gonna do what you say you want to do for yourself and not let excuses and fear hold you back from those things that ultimately you really, really want from yourself.

That's what erodes our self trusts too. Um, and I just got off doing a whole episode on that last week, so if you wanna, if you haven't watched that one, you might wanna watch that one too, but, or listen to it. Um, when you allow for fear or for your own excuses, making excuses or somebody else to stand in the way of what you know you actually really want for yourself, and then you convince yourself that you don't want it anymore because it's just easier that way you're in survival mode.

You lose self-trust, right? Which will erode your self-confidence. Alright, so first emotion is courage. Often mistaken for the absence of fear. It's not, true courage. And if you've listened to any Brene Brown or watched any of her stuff, and you know this, or read any of her books, um, true courage is the emotion of acting despite feeling afraid.

Okay? In spite of negative emotion, practicing emotional courage builds a track record of your own resilience, you cannot have courage without fear. They're, they, they come together, they're, they're like holding hands, you know? So fear has to be there or else there would no reason to have courage.

So optimism. Is the next one, cultivating the belief that your positive outcomes are possible and that you have the capacity to handle whatever happens, as I've been saying throughout this whole episode. Okay. skeptical optimism fosters curiosity needed in order to gain and keep learning, gain knowledge and keep learning.

Okay? The next one, and the one I really, um, wanted to lead with is determination. The drive to follow through on promises that you make to yourself. And I was kind of just mentioning this a second ago. Each time you do what you say you are going to do for yourself, yourself, trust, um, I wrote this and I always forget what I write.

Um, your self-trust and therefore self-confidence grows, increases. Okay. And the last one is joy. And it's actually, uh, sub pride like self-pride, acknowledging and soaking in your small successes. Reinforces a positive self-image and also provides the energy to take the next risk. It provides that like momentum.

Like having pride in the work that you've put out there to the world, or even just the steps that you've taken out there in the world, you know? So the other thing that you need, and I've already talked about this, but I wanna bring it home, is that you need the processing growth Mindset, processing slash growth mindset.

it's not just about feeling good about yourself, self-confidence. It's not just, oh, I feel good today. I feel confident in myself and my abilities. No, because that's fleeting. You know?

It's about. Being good at feeling everything and being okay with that and trusting in your ability to handle, as I've been saying the whole time, anything that comes your way, any, anything, you know, you may not have the skill of public speaking, right? You may be scared shitless of going up on a stage. Not to say that you ever need to do that, but you know, going up on a stage and, um, speaking eloquently, succinctly, to a group of people, right?

Many people have this fear of public speaking, me included. I did, I probably still do. It's been a while since anyway, it's okay to have the fear. It's okay to have the fear and maybe if you've never done it before, there's gonna be that added. Like what if? But here's the thing about that, and now I'm going off of even what I was even planning on talking about is that even when you are afraid to go speak.

In public, right? What you're ever, actually fearing is you, and the thoughts and the discomfort that you will feel as a result of going up there and speaking. Because in your mind you're thinking, you are thinking if this is you you are thinking, they're gonna hate me, they're gonna judge me, they're gonna this, right?

We don't know what they're actually thinking. It's you that's creating a story about what they're doing, which that story that you tell yourself is what is causing your discomfort, and that's what you're ultimately avoiding. Do you see? So then you are afraid of going up on stage and talking in front of other people because you're, you're scared of what you will think about other people thinking about you, which is still all your own thoughts, you know?

So if you are willing to. Embrace the discomfort of having human thoughts, you know, and not giving into those thoughts and believing them. Then you can also accomplish anything. So when you trust that you can handle any emotional outcome, including the worst case scenario of feeling rejected or embarrassed, you become unstoppable, unfucking unstoppable, right?

[00:38:46] Exercises

So, um, now I have six, seven. Very quickly I'm gonna go through exercises that you can do. I'm gonna go through these very quickly to build up all of these emotions, to like, help you to hone in on these emotions and also build self-trust, so your foundational exercises to go with the foundational emotions.

Um, Brene Brown talks about this, and I actually use this, and I got this from my coach way back, is she talks about a trust jar. And you can actually do this, um, physically and have a jar. Every time you keep a small, boring promise to yourself, like I was talking about in last week's episode, keeping all those, whatever you think, like they're not gonna make a dent in your situation, but those promises that you keep to yourself when you ask yourself what you need, and then you respond.

accordingly to that, keep your word to yourself. You build trust with yourself, but you could, the way that you could do it, sorry, I'm being all wordy, is that you can either envision a, a jar that you add a marble to, but I like it even better if you actually get a jar. And I do this for, the way that I use it with, uh, habits clients is I call it, it's an urge jar.

And so each time you have an urge and don't answer the urge, then you go put a marble in the jar and you do the same thing here with the trust jar with yourself.

Each time that you keep your word to yourself and follow through with what you say you're gonna do, then you put a marble in the jar. And it's so crazy how stuff like this. The re your reward system internally. It, it gives you a hit of dopamine each time you put a marble in the jar. And as you see it, especially knowing that it's building up to go to the top, , it becomes your motivation, momentum and all the things, but you can do it.

Um, you can imagine it too. It's however you want anyway. It also kind of gamifies, it makes it fun. And your, your brain loves a good game or puzzle to solve and it likes that easy wins. So that's one way. Okay.

For self-compassion, what you can do is when you feel like you failed, this is something so simple, it would be so good if you could just pause and say just a couple through, two, three things to yourself. One is call the moment what it is when you fail. This is a moment of suffering for me. It's a moment of suffering. 

Suffering is part of life. That's the second thing that you say. It's part of life. This is what the human condition is, we're all gonna suffer. And suffering also means growth. That's not the other thing that you say. And then the last thing that you say is, may I can continue to be kind to myself and with myself during this. 

It's all gonna be okay. You know, something along those lines. It anchors you in your own humanity, um, and it stops any sort of self shaming spiral that goes on that will kill confidence. When you shame yourself. That's like a choice that you make. And well, it isn't a choice until you know it's a choice.

And then it's a choice from here on out, okay? Now that I've told you there's no going back. So it's a choice. So, um, and each time you make that choice, it chips away your self-confidence. All right, so.

I talked about this kind of a little bit last week, but in a different way. Um, you could also just give yourself, uh, put one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly, and just basically it's like giving yourself a little hug. Listen to your breathing and just doing this alone. And inhale and exhale. It can actually calm your nervous system. It does calm your nervous system, and it will help you to process your emotion rather than reacting to it. Okay. Which is really important because the more reactive you are, the more outward external focused you are and the less internal focused you are.

And the more back to where we started where I said that alienation teaches us to do that, and then it brings us further and further away from ourselves, which is not what we need. Okay, so you wanna bring yourself back to home.

[00:43:04] Action Oriented Exercises

Alright, so action oriented exercises. Listen, um, the first one I have here is that when you are feeling a quote unquote scary emotion or really uncomfortable emotion like embarrassment or, uh, rejection, right?

Rejection's actually not an emotion. It's more of an assessment, but unloved or something like that,, shame or whatever it is, when you're feeling it and you can actually feel the physical sensations, it would be really helpful to try to set a timer on your watch, on your phone, whatever, for 90 seconds, two minutes.

Because here's the thing, if you can sit with the physical sensation, the physical drop into your body and sit with that wherever it's landing for you, if it's, um, embarrassment, maybe your face feels hot, you're feeling it tight in your chest, anxiety's got the rolling in the belly, everybody's a little bit different, but whatever it is, drop into your body and feel it for 90 seconds, it, it will pass.

And without reacting to it, because again, like I. Just been talking about when you try to fix it. Usually when we're feeling, uh, one of those icky emotions, we wanna fix it outward, right? But when you can sit with it, you're communicating to your body, to your nervous system, that there is nothing to be fixed, that maybe nothing is actually gone wrong here for you in the moment.

That maybe this emotion is part of the human condition, right? And it is maybe part of some of the necessary suffering that we all go through. And I know that as, as alienated parents, we go through a different kind of suffering than many people go through. But let's, no, not for a different episode right now.

So just normalize the emotion. Okay. There. I mean, there's the, the gamut of emotions every human feels at some point, you know, so normalizing it without trying to externalize it. Go fix. Go chase. Go do something , to change it. It proves to your brain that when you do this, that the emotion is survivable and finite.

it's not gonna last forever. And you don't always need to do something when you're feeling an emotion. And I was brought up the opposite of this. So this was a foreign concept for, to me, for a long time. You know, until I started doing this work, years ago. And I tell you it's everything.

To be able to just learn, to learn and bring myself through the toughest of emotions that I thought I could never survive without picking up a beer or a drink or going and acting on that emotion. When you can teach your body that you can survive this emotion, then you earn trust with yourself.

And also confidence, self confidence, that you're gonna be okay. You can bring yourself through this. Super important. Okay. 90 seconds, that's all you need. The big scary parts of the emotion. Usually only last 90 seconds. So long, so long.

As you don't loop the motions with your thoughts. Okay. This is super important because many people will stay in anxiety, and I know that's probably what you guys were doing just now. Some of you were arguing with me like, no, my anxiety lasts sometimes all day long, or it's not 90 seconds. an emotion actually can be processed in that amount of time in 90 seconds time.

So long as you don't then go back up into your head, I want you to drop into your body. Don't go back up into your head and start entertaining more thoughts that cause your, unnecessary suffering. You hear me? So don't go looping thoughts. Go all, get all heady. That is what's causing so many people so much angst, especially us as alienated parents, is because , we drag all of the emotions on for way too long.

Or we're trying to push the emotions away and try to think our way outta the emotions, which also is going to drag your suffering on for unnecessarily long periods of time. Okay, now, um, where was I?

Another way is through micro risk, sort of, routine breaks. So if you are, , a creature of habit, most of us actually are, even though some of us don't wanna admit it, you order the same thing at restaurants or you have the same thing every day for breakfast. You can build this a little bit of courage in little areas by.

Doing something like a slightly uncomfortable, right, that is low risk, really low risk, like, um, brushing your teeth with the right hand or the left hand instead of the right, if you're right-handed, you know, the opposite side. Or, um, writing with the opposite hand, which actually does help you if you're a right-handed writer and you right with your left hand, you start to use your right brain as opposed to your left and the opposite, right?

So, um, it, that can help bring you out of yourself, number one. But it also can help you to build up your courage at a low stakes, , setting, if you will. Another way is to order something completely random from a menu. You know what I do all the time, and I just do this by, this is my kind of habit a lot of times, is if there's too many choices on a menu.

So I'll just tell whoever's serving me to bring me whatever they choose here are, here's three things, completely different things. Pick out of one of those you choose and it just helps to like stir things up a little bit and get you out of your own cycle of doing the same things over and over and over again. All right. There's other exercises. In fact, if you guys want them, let me know 'cause I can, um. Maybe put them on the blog or something like that for you.

But I'm, it's getting to be too long right now. Um, so I'm gonna try to wrap it up.

[00:48:58] Growth Mindset Exercises

But the last thing I wanna talk about is that, you know, I was talking about your processing or growth mindset. So the exercises that you can use to, um, exercise that mindset or to grow it, um, sounds so redundant. Grow. The growth mindset is write a letter to yourself from the perspective of a friend who sees all of your flaws, but loves you anyway, loves you fiercely anyway. And it helps doing it like this, like a full on letter, like knowing everything, all of your deepest, darkest secrets, but still loves you for all of the things.

And here are the things I do love about you, you writing that letter to you can help you to separate your worth from your performance, from your mistakes, which is really the ultimate key to unshakeable self-confidence. And self-trust. And self-love. And accessing the friend, Version of you.

if you can be your biggest, best friend, like your most, your biggest fan. then it's so much easier to relax in settings with all the other people in settings where, you know, you might be judged. 'cause let's face it, everybody's gonna be judged at some point, right?

Just expecting that you're gonna be judged and be okay with it because you know that you're your biggest fan. And that if, if the world all just fell away right now, there was, uh, an apocalypse, you know, that you would be okay, right? That you could handle things because you love you and you can't be abandoned.

You can't be all the things because you are your own best friend. You know, and Yes connection, emotional social support Yes, of course we all benefit from that. But I always, always wanna encourage you to be your biggest supporter because what happens when those people fall away for some reason?

Who knows if they will, but I just, it's always best to be able to rely on yourself first and feel really fulfilled and enriched by your own energy. You know? Okay, so that's one way. Write a letter to yourself from a friend, who knows you and knows all your flaws, and still loves you, and what are those reasons? All right.

And then the last thing is the reframe audit. List your top three inner bully phrases. 

Okay? So I'm gonna look stupid. I suck at this. People are gonna judge me. I have terrible clothes. I'm a terrible parent. whatever it is that you say and ask, of course, you heard me talk about this before. Is this factually true or is this just a protective emotion, protective thing to say, what am I gaining by I offering this to myself?

[00:51:47] 2 questions to Pose

Okay. And then the last thing is those two questions that I want you to ask for yourself. Question one is

when you get to a specific situation or a specific, scenario where you know that you don't feel confident and you look to others to find confidence, to borrow their confidence, that's what it is really, you wanna ask yourself why this is so simple, but it's so helpful when you pinpoint it.

Why am I not feeling confident right now in this moment? Right? Not in a vague way, very specifically, when you notice yourself freezing, overthinking, or handing your power to somebody else, ask, what is the exact thought that's causing me to doubt myself right now in this moment? It might sound like I always messed this up.

It's just like I was kind of saying a second ago with the reframe audit. I always mess this up. If I get this wrong, I'll lose my child forever. Everybody will see I'm a fraud. I can't handle another disappointment, something like that, right? We don't often question those sentences, but instead we just wear them internally like name tags for ourselves,

we. Take it on as being fact about ourselves. So the first question is about pulling the sentence whatever the sentence is that you're leaning into right now outta the dark, and actually looking at it like as if you could hold it in your hand, the sentence, everyone will see I'm a fraud.

Oh, that's what I'm saying to myself. How interesting. Curiosity. Okay. That's where you start to embrace curiosity here. Huh? So that's what I've been saying to myself. I wonder why I believe that. You know? And now when you say that, don't go looking to all the evidence out there. Okay. Instead,

You just wanna hold it there. Okay. And see it, huh. That's interesting. And then the second question is, who do I want to see myself as? If I wasn't letting the old story run the show, Who do you want to be in this moment? Old stories erased.

Let it go for a hot second. Who do I want to be right now? If there was no, barriers in the way, like there was no, oh, well I can't be that person because this person will judge me. I can't be who I wanna be because my child is gone, or I don't have the money or I don't have the resources. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

who do I want to see myself as? Take all the barriers away. Okay? What specifically do I want to believe about me from here moving forward? Don't worry about what other people are gonna think that is the problem. And that is what takes you back off the course and right back into the external again.

And it will keep you. It is a trap. It will keep you in a loop of always seeking external validation. And I know that that's not what you want. So, just some quick, quick examples. It's maybe it's, I'm a parent that keeps showing up even when it hurts. Maybe it's, I'm a born leader, you know, the leader of your, I was talking about this maybe last week or the week before. The leader of your family, the leader of your life, the leader of me. Right?

Instead of looking for your leader, who's gonna be my leader? I'm the leader. I'm the leader of me. What do leaders embrace? They embrace courage. They embrace confidence, assuredness a feeling, and, and a aura of knowing that they can handle it. So how can you do that today? Just knowing, without even having any experience.

I'm gonna figure this out. Determination. I really, really wanna encourage you to lean into the, the four emotions I mentioned in the action part of that, right? Because that's whats gonna bring you out of the stuckness. And maybe another thought is I'm, I'm willing to feel uncomfortable in order to grow what I've been talking about through, throughout this whole episode.

I'm building a track record with myself, not with outcomes that I can't control. You know, this is all for me, and it's okay. It is my time to be focused on me, especially if your kids are right now, not in the physical picture. They're not in your everyday life, you know, day to day world, this is your time.

This is your sign to really lean into being self-focused. I was gonna say selfish, and I don't think anything's actually wrong with that, because likely you weren't self-focused ever, and that's why we're in this whole mess to begin with. So now is your time. so you're not forcing yourself to feel confident, self-confident, instantly, you're choosing a direction for your self image to grow toward.

[00:56:20] Summary

The whole point of all this in summary, do not wait to feel ready, okay? Do not wait to feel ready. Do not wait to feel confident, either let the discomfort that you're feeling or that you will feel, be proof that you're actually building self-confidence, self-trust, all of it. Self-love. Because as long as you're willing to feel uncomfortable, as I've been saying, you can get good at self-confidence.

Every time you feel that tightness in your chest, the hot face, the shaking hands, and you still choose to back yourself. To have your own back. You are teaching your nervous system. We can do hard things. And I'm still not gonna abandon you. I'm still here for you, you know, talking to yourself, that's self-confidence.

And over time, those discomfort reps, like you just continuing to allow for the discomfort. They add up the belief that I can handle whatever happens, stops from being some cute little affirmation and starts feeling like your default setting. Um, next week we're gonna take a look at this even further, and talk about capacity versus capability and what you can actually have the energy and resources for and how self-confidence will slowly expand what's possible for you as a parent and as a human.

Okay? So that's all I have for you guys. I love you. Have a lovely week. Bye.