PERMANENT ZEN BLOG: HOW TO OVERCOME CONFIDENCE ISSUES & THE 3RD CHAKRA
The Solar Plexus Chakra, located at the solar plexus below our heart center, is the core of our personality, our identity, of our ego. The Sanskrit word for the third chakra is Manipura. It is associated with the element of fire and it means "lustrous gem of the city". It is directly linked to the endocrine system through the intestines, pancreas, liver, bladder, stomach and upper spine.
The third chakra is the center of your self-esteem, self-love, your willpower, self-discipline, self-compassion, as well as warmth in your personality. The gift of this chakra is sensing your power, being confident, responsible, and reliable. The energy of this chakra allows you to transform inertia into action and movement. It allows you to meet challenges, be persistent and move forward in your life.
People with blocked or deficient third chakra are passive and inactive - allowing life to pass by while they do nothing. Conversely, people with excessive third chakra energy react to life circumstances, they have emotional outbursts and are often frustrated and hot-tempered.
We all second guess ourselves and can be critical of our approach to things in our life at times, and this is a good thing. A regular dose of self-analysis is a good, healthy way to stay focused and keep yourself growing as an individual. That being said, being hard on yourself and overly critical is devastating to your confidence and your ability to create inner + outer momentum in your life.
Signs a person may be excessively hard on themselves and injuring their self-worth include:
Lacks of success in career, relationships, financial life
Quits easily
Presents themself in a passive, timid manner
Lacks belief in their abilities and strengths
Suffers from chronic sadness and/or depression
Susceptible to abuse and mistreatment by others
WHERE DO CONFIDENCE ISSUES COME FROM?
Confidence issues often come from early life experiences and how we’re treated as children by our parents and others. Overly critical parents, poor academic performance as a young child, experiencing abuse at a young age, or ongoing medical problems (chronic pain, disability) can all lead to low self-esteem.
We also live in capitalistic world that feeds off of our insecurities. Companies that want to sell you products usually start by making you feel bad about yourself, often by introducing a “problem” with your body that you would never have noticed otherwise. Now that social media has become ubiquitous, the messages hit closer to home. It’s easy to believe that everyone around you has the perfect marriage, a dream career, and supermodel looks to boot. But remember: What people post online is heavily curated and edited. Everyone has bad days, self-doubt, and physical imperfections. They just don’t trot them out on Instagram.
So how does one go about opening/reopening their solar plexus after they’ve lost their confidence?
Look at What You've Already Achieved
Think about your life so far, and list the ten best things you've achieved in an "Achievement Log." Perhaps you came top in an important test or exam, played a key role in an important team, produced the best sales figures in a period, did something that made a key difference in someone else’s life, or delivered a project that meant a lot for your business.
Then, get more granular. Look at what you’ve been doing well over the last week. Look at any small improvements you’ve been able to make in your life. You are retraining your brain to look at what you do well, as opposed to what you’re not doing well.
Study and Hone your Personality Strengths
By focusing on the building blocks of your personality at peak performance, you will be able to call forth the best parts of ‘you’ when you need them. You first need to take a reliable personality test, and that consciously work to use those strengths throughout the day. By focusing on your innate personality strengths, you will have a more accurate, healthier image of yourself and what your worth is to the world and to yourself.
Spend more time ‘Savoring’.
You want to expend the majority of your mental energy throughout the day in doing what is called “savoring” in positive psychology. What is savoring? Savoring just means that we attempt to fully feel, enjoy, and extend our positive experiences. Savoring is a great way to develop a long-lasting stream of positive thoughts and emotions, because positive events cannot always be relied on to make you happier.
In order to build self esteem and inner momentum, savor your daily success and your daily displays of strengths. If you got a big promotion at work, make sure you replay that event— the moment you got the news, the feeling that it gave you and the meaning that the event has in your life. If you give a solid presentation in front of audience and you use a personality strength like Humor, that makes you shine during the presentation, make sure you replay the feeling that strength gave you in the moment.
Visualize yourself as you want to be.
“What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” -- Napoleon Hill
When we struggle with low self-confidence, we have a poor perception of ourselves that is often inaccurate. Practice visualizing a fantastic version of yourself, achieving your goals. We will naturally attract what we are visually creating in our mind. The more you can paint the building blocks of your own success in your mind, the more your behavior will take cues from those thoughts.
WHY REIKI HEALING IS EFFECTIVE FOR DEPRESSION
Many individuals who are either suffering through depression or anxiety tend to rely on some form of medication. However, there is a growing number of people who are becoming aware of the fact that depression and anxiety can be cured without the use of anti-psychotics. Depression and anxiety need to be understood as energy imbalances rather than a mental disorder. Thus, in order to cure depression or anxiety, it’s critically important to treat the imbalanced energy and the behavior and mindset that proliferates the imbalance.
To overcome the root cause of depression or anxiety, Reiki in New York, as well as Spiritual Counseling can prove to be powerful solutions.
Reiki is a technique of transferring the universal energy to the patient by the practitioner to area of the body where it is needed. Turning to Individual Reiki Sessions NYC can help you regain the natural flow of energy that our bodies need to be relaxed, happy and healthy.
Namaste!