The Importance of a Good Foundation - Self Confidence

Hello, dear friends,

Another week has passed.
The School is growing beautifully and steadily. I am so happy and fulfilled after each Tuesday night, I feel like flying.

EVENT INFO

The School of Hope and Inspiration

Tuesday, June 9th

Gathering: 6:30PM -7PM

Class: 7PM - 9:30PM

We will meet at the same location in Southern Marin.

email Auriela@AurielaMcCarthy.com for more information or with your RSVP. I appreciate if everyone RSVPs, so I know how many seats we need.
Please, be on time, we will start promptly at 7pm

Here is this week's food for thought:

Every builder knows the importance of a good foundation.

It has to be strong, level and stable for the building to stand straight and be safe for people.
If the foundation isn't level - the building will be crooked. If it isn't stable the building may fall down.
If the foundation is weak and breaks - the building breaks with it.

In that respect, we, human being, are not that different.
We too need a good foundation in order to function well in our lives.

And what is our foundation made of? Many things, clearly.

Among them, very importantly, is - KNOWING that you have value and worth,
Really knowing this, in your gut.
Also: feeling good about yourself, having confidence, knowing you are going to be OK, no matter what...

If these qualities are well-developed, your foundation is strong.
If they are not - you have a shaky foundation and are probably having a hard time dealing with a lot of things in life.
You also, most certainly don't like yourself.

An inspiration came to me last week to now and then teach an evening on one of the elements that make our foundation.

Last Tuesday we began with Self-Confidence.

How important is Self-Confidence?
About as important as being able to walk straight, breathe fresh air and know that you do have a future...

Yes, that important.

To put it simply, Self-Confidence is knowing that you can cope.
No mater what happens to you. Knowing you can survive no matter what.
Having this gut-level knowing. And living from this place.

Not many people have self-confidence.
Do you?

If you think about a self-confident person, who comes to mind? Anyone?

It will be a person who is not in their ego, not self-centered or conceited,
nor acting as if the world revolves around them... ( all of which are anything but..)

Think about a woman or a man you believe is a self-confident person.

What makes them so?

If you are not sure, here are the 4 qualities each of them would have to various degrees:

1.Courage.

They have the guts to live the life THEY want to live. (Not the life other people expect them to.)
And they move forward on their dreams, act in spite of their fear.
They may not have all the answers, nor have "all the ducks in a row ..."
More often than not their "right" answers turn out to be the wrong ones...

But it doesn't stops them.

2.Trust.

Self-confident people trust themselves. And trust those that are trustworthy.
They follow their intuition. Making a mistake does not terrify them...
They know the Universe is a friendly place.

How do they know it? They just do.

3. Hope.

Thanks to Barak Obama the very notion of hope is back in our consciousness.
Finally, it is no longer -the last resort, no longer something to do when everything else fails.

Hope is such an immensely powerful tool to create our lives with. And it is intricately connected to the Future.
People who can't hope and have no sense of their Future, don't change and don't heal.

Just think about it.

If you are a self-confident person, you are going to hope for and expect good outcomes. It will be automatic, like breathing.
You will expect the good, you will hope for it, and you will usually attract it. How else can it be?

Is it arrogant? Not at all. It is actually the opposite.

Because the fifth quality you will have as a self -confident person, is humility.

4. Humility.

Staying in the present and responding to each situation as if nothing like that ever happened before.
Not coming at it with the built-in expectations based on "how it always works."
For example, just because your friend is always late, he may be on time tonight.
Or - just because your neighbor never helped you with anything when you asked her, she may do it now.

Because in your confidence, you know you can cope with whatever happens, awful or wonderful.

Last Tuesday night we massaged each of these ideas and concept. Tried them on, found examples.

Sometimes discovering how little confidence you have is very painful.

But wouldn't you rather know it, so you can do something about it?
Telling yourself the truth may bring sadness...
So what?
Now, you have something to work with. Something to heal in yourself, something new to develop.
And that's exciting! And powerful. And - it can be done!

Equally important, if not more so, is discovering how much self-confidence you already do have!
I cannot stress enough how life-changing ( no overstatement) it will be if you were to sit for a bit with each of the qualities and notice not just the ones that are missing or weak, but the ones that work!

Print out this email. Look at the list.
Discover your strengths and own them. Celebrate them - and they will blossom more.
Then take a look at your weaker sides and begin to build them up.

And then one day, when a situation calls for action, you will find that you don't react the way you used to in the past.
You are now responding from a place of confidence. Handling things, doing what needs doing, being in your power...

So much will change in your life once you develop self-confidence. And if it is already beautifully there - becoming aware of it makes it stronger,

In our next class: Self-esteem.

Unfortunately, this is one of the most misused words in our culture. (And if you come to the class, you may discover it may not be what you expect.)

You can do a full day workshop just on Self- Esteem and still not cover everything.
I will do my best in the format of one evening:).

If you live in the Bay Area and have been planning to come - this one is definitely not to be missed.
I will say that much: Understanding what Self-Esteem is (and is not) and working with it was one
of the most important steps in my spiritual journey. Life-changing information and tools.

All for now.
Look forward to seeing some of you on Tuesday,

Love, Auriela.