Self-confidence is such an interesting topic, isn’t it. There are so many books arising from countless perspectives on it, and I remember my long, seemingless endless journey of chasing down the self-confidence lane started around the notorious adolescence phase.

After 20 years of chasing and chasing for answers through countless methods, and after idolizing so many people, the chasing finally stopped.

And THAT’s when I stopped being super-anxious about every movement I made, and the thought of “Am I doing this right or wrong” stopped haunting me. And then I could just relax, knowing that I am ok, exactly as I am. I don’t need to be at the mercy of what others thought of me and base my actions on what I think they thought of me (funny, what I think they thought of me, vs what they could have been really thinking of me, could have been different, anyway!).

Since that epiphany, it has also been made clear through various personal experiences and teachers, that the kind of inner glow, of inner radiance and strength, that I associate with true self-confidence, can be cultivated. Yep, it can be “extracted”, nurtured and made stronger and stronger. I speak for myself, having grown up as an awkward kid that I found to shake off as an adult up until my early 30s.

Just recently, as I finished sipping a cup of tea from our favorite mug (it’s made from rice husks!), the little tea-bag label revealed one powerful word, which to me sums up one of the most powerful methods of nurturing true self-confidence. Can you read it in the picture? Yep, it says “savor.” Ahhh… yes. Savor. So simple. Made all the more poignant that day as I had steeped myself into slowly savoring the positive aspects of myself that I knew to be true, but avoided acknowledging so much of the time. It’s funny how we fear acknowledging and accepting the best in ourselves eh.

I so love how Marianne Williamson puts it:
“Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”