Our Real Self truly knows what it is doing and we can trust it.
Self-confidence can be hard to define, but we know it when we feel it. We’ve all felt it, at least a time or two. It’s that moment when we’re solid and we know what needs to happen. We have self-confidence when we’re aligned with our truest nature and living from our Real Self.*
What exactly is this Real Self?
Our Real Self is the most alive part of us. It expresses itself freely when it is liberated from the layers of doubt and confusion that impede our vision.
If we’re healthy and spiritually mature, we are well-acquainted with this part of ourselves. Our intuition guides us and we can trust ourselves.
Too often, though, that’s not where we’re coming from. We’re riddled with fears that drive distracting compulsions. Our layers of error and illusion pull us further into error and illusion, robbing us of peace.
The whole point, then, of this work of self-search is to free ourselves from those obstructing layers so we can readily access our Real Self.
Our Real Self is immediately available, right under our nose so to speak. But for the most part, we’ve lost sight of it.
Since we’re not in touch with it much of the time, we prefer to express another version of ourselves—the part that lives on compulsive drives and impulses. That part is not who we really and truly are, and unfortunately it blocks our intuition.
Whatever comes from this other level is not expressing our real feelings, for those can only come from our Real Self.
The misguided belief that blocks the Real Self
Once we start doing our work, we will become aware of how prevalent all our compulsive currents are. We will feel these forcing currents distinctly, like some kind of foreign body inside us. Wherever such a forcing current exists, it belies some basic misunderstanding about life.
These forcing currents all stem from our fundamental desires to be happy and to be loved—and the two are always linked. The problem is that the child in us believes that we can only be happy if we get our way.
We often desire to be approved of or admired, which stands in as a substitute for being loved. But maybe the other person has contrary opinions to ours, or faults of their own. When they don’t approve of us, we think—in the split-off young part of ourselves—that our happiness is doomed.
In truth, when we cling to the notion that “in order to be happy, my will must be done,” we are doomed.
This hidden conviction is what blocks our freedom. It creates struggle and unending anxiety. The less aware of this we are, the more potent the anxiety becomes. Unconsciously, we become locked into believing that getting our way is akin to life and death. If our will is not done, that spells annihilation.
The fear this creates is powerful. So much so that we often can’t admit it when we haven’t gotten our way. Instead we pretend that we no longer desire what we once wanted.
There is a vein of pride at work here, of course, but there’s also more to it. There is a deep-seated conviction that not getting what we want equates to interminable unhappiness. This results in despair.
Sure, a more grown-up part of us realizes that we can’t always have what we want. Unfortunately, such thinking, by itself, doesn’t really help. In fact, it adds to the conflict if we secretly believe that having our way and being happy are one and the same thing.
When we ardently strive to find inner fulfillment, we simultaneously live in fear that we won’t succeed. Unconsciously, we attempt to hide such a “failure” from ourselves. This sets our life force currents flowing in two opposite—and conflicting—directions.
One current calls for us to push and push, trying to force people and life circumstances to follow our will. Our goal is to conquer reality and make everything go our way.
The other current, going in the other direction, comes from our fear that we’ll never get what we want. This fear causes us to act in defeatist ways that sabotage the possibility of receiving what we otherwise could have had.
Neither of these beliefs—either that we must always get what we want, or that we can never get what we want—is real. All our forcing and defending against these wrong conclusions is equally unreal.
Every drive and impulse we put into the service of these imaginary notions will then be ineffective and cause further damage.
This is what is covering up our Real Self and keeping us from walking with self-confidence in the world.
The truth of the matter
In reality, it does not make us unhappy to not always get our way. Or when others don’t agree with us or have faults we don’t like. Or even if everyone doesn’t love and admire us all the time.
Beyond this, it’s not reality that we can never get what we wish. It’s also not true that we can never be loved and respected.
Our Real Self knows all of this.
When we’re in the flow of our Real Self, we are smoothly carried forward. We aren’t caught in a duality of two equally wrong ideas.
But when we are trapped by an illusion, we often feel there’s nothing secure to grab onto—and we would be right. We can’t hold onto reality—which is the only thing that is secure—as long as we cling to illusion.
Indeed, safety can only be found in the flexible, ever-changing life stream, which is not connected to whether or not we got our wish. The way out then—the way to find true safety—is by finding our own personal illusion that we need to get our own way.
We can look for the tense nucleus inside of us that loudly claims, “I want!” It is harsh, rigid and precariously unstable. Once we discover it, we must also see the means we resort to in order to get our way. And avoid the imagined horrors of not getting our way.
Three ways we try to force life and others
Submission
There are basically three problematic attitudes that arise from our forcing current. One of them is submission.
When we submit, we cling, hoping against hope that we’ll receive the love we want. To get love, we’ll sell our own soul, forsaking our own opinions and not standing up for ourselves. We put ourselves at a disadvantage, costing us our dignity and our self-respect.
We cover this with rationalizations of how selfless we are. We see ourselves as always sacrificing and being so loving.
In truth, we’re just using a forcing current in a very blatant and self-centered way. We’re bargaining. We are essentially saying, “If I submit to you, then you must give me my way, love me and make me happy.”
Outwardly, we may seem meek and oh-so-flexible, but inwardly we’re hard as a rock. We have to find this hidden nucleus, no matter how cleverly it’s hidden. What’s more, we have to understand it.
Make no mistake, this isn’t love.
Don’t be fooled. It might look like love on the surface, but it’s made up of something very different. Whenever we act to appease another person, there’s something we want. We’re only giving to get, and we’re willing to grab for it.
We’re not willing to wait for it to be freely given.
Aggression
Another problematic attitude—also arising from our forcing current—is aggression. It is an attitude we choose, especially when we feel hopeless about getting love and being happy.
In this case, we think our only hope is to use all our power—all our ruthlessness—to defeat the enemy who is always standing in our way. We become hostile, believing the whole world is stacked against us. We think aggression is the only means for grabbing the happiness we so desperately desire.
This doesn’t work, obviously. In fact, the opposite generally happens. People who feel antagonized become hostile in response. Unfortunately, their hostility only seems to prove our point that an enemy stands in the way.
What we’re missing is that we are the ones who created the turmoil. It can be hard to fully trace cause and effect when it comes back to us in a vicious circle.
It’s easy to see how the submissive person makes themselves dependent. But the hostile person may deceive themselves into thinking they’re being independent. That they are taking on the world by themselves and not bending to the will of others.
What they don’t realize is that they’re just as lost and therefore just as dependent. They are simply choosing a different strategy for getting their way in the search for happiness.
The aggressive person rejects “touchy-feely” emotions, thinking that they make a person soft. To them, softness is dangerous territory. Instead of having real feelings, they fabricate a kind of inner hardness that’s not any closer to love than the false affection of a submissive person.
Withdrawal
The third way of coping is to withdraw. Here, we convince ourselves that love and happiness “just ain’t never gonna happen.” This seems such a tragedy that we pretend we don’t even want it. We avoid the dreaded feeling of defeat by making isolation our friend.
We don’t realize what a lousy bargain we made.
We kept ourselves safe from disappointment and failure. But in reality, those things wouldn’t hurt half as much as we imagine. Meanwhile happiness—which we missed out on through avoidance—could well have been ours.
When we take this approach we may seem more cheerful and well-adjusted than those who follow the first two. But deep down, we’re wallowing in even greater hopelessness. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t have resorted to such drastic measures.
Manipulating feelings distorts the Real Self
All three of these pseudo-solutions keep us from feeling our real feelings. Often, we go further and cripple our feelings. We whip them into an exaggerated frenzy to obligate someone to love and obey us. Or, in fear of defeat, we crush our intuition and real feelings, preventing them from guiding us through life.
Our Real Self has true wisdom and it may at times soften our real feelings in a particular situation. But that’s not the same as what we do through artificial manipulation, even if the momentary aim is the same. Our Real Self truly knows what it is doing. We can trust it. Our compulsive behaviors, by contrast, are utterly blind.
When we act compulsively, we move haphazardly through life. It’s a forced and unnatural way to walk in the world. At any point, we might be right and we might be wrong. Imagine how insecure that makes us feel.
Our Real Self, on the other hand, acts in harmony with life. Then whatever happens feels organic and right. We can have confidence in our choices.
When we make our feelings bigger or smaller than they really are, we live in unreality. This manipulation of our feelings is not a zero-sum game. It leaves a mark.
Feelings are a living organism. Like anything alive, they will suffer if they are perpetually isolated or thwarted. This is true whether we’re stifling unpleasant feelings or over-dramatizing positive ones.
It happens when we convince ourselves to feel resentment or contempt for someone, thinking this protects us against the tragedy of feeling rejected.
It’s no surprise, then, that we end up with no idea of what we really feel or really want. Or who we really are. Our feelings are the expression of our being—of our Real Self.
If we constantly tie them in knots or swap them out for false but better-looking versions, we can’t get to know them. In the end, we won’t know our true selves.
Facing our forcing current
When we find ourselves feeling obstinate, we can realize that we are being unreasonable. Even if we can’t change it yet, we can see that, somehow, we believe our old ways are protecting us. We’re still buying the story that armor is necessary and “winning” is possible.
We don’t have to fight or retreat to avoid the dangers of life. We don’t have to beg or cry, submit or sell our souls to have what our hearts desire. It’s not necessary to constantly defend ourselves against being defeated.
Our work is to find out in what specific way we feel threatened. To ask what the danger is. And then to let go of the stubborn “I want” current we mistakenly believe will save us.
We also need to look at our resentments and disregard our quick-and-easy excuses about how it’s someone else’s fault. If we look honestly at the reason for our resentments, we will often find we’re hoping for an imagined advantage that comes from adopting a hostile or aggressive stance.
Resenting someone is not an avenue that leads to self-confidence. When we resent, we are helplessly caught in the current of resentment. We are unable to control our emotions anymore.
If we attack the other, it is often because we want to hide the same thing in ourselves. The stronger our dislike for something in ourselves, the more we project our dislike onto others. The more hidden it is in us, the more we’ll go on the attack.
Resentment sucks us into this whirlpool and we lose our ability to govern ourselves. When we are bound up in such drama, is it any wonder we lack self-confidence?
There is only one way out. We’ve got to see where and how we force a current of “I want” on the one hand, while fearing “I won’t get what I want” on the other. Our banished real feelings will then slowly rise to the surface. We wouldn’t allow this earlier, when we couldn’t trust ourselves.
We will recognize our real feelings by their calmness. There’ll be no need for urgency, as real feelings don’t mind waiting. They’re firmly rooted and when they express themselves, we’re not in doubt. Best of all, they’re in sync with the universe. If we’re willing to trust them, they always take us in the right direction.
There will be frenzy inside us until we find and dissolve our hidden wrong beliefs. Then, and only then, can we give all this up. We discover that real self-confidence arises alongside our real feelings.
Our intuition will become a constant companion, giving us the deep inner knowing—not from our brain but from deep down in our gut—that we’re making the right decisions.
We’ll spontaneously say the right things at the right time, and we’ll also know when to hold our tongue. We’ll do what’s needed and cut out what’s not, acting without fear. We’ll feel relaxed and yet able to concentrate at the same time. We’ll know that whatever is to come to us will come. It can’t not. No need for worry.
Maybe it sounds impossible that we can experience serenity like this while here on Earth. Of course, we won’t get there overnight, but eventually we will arrive. It often comes by taking two steps forward and one step back.
Eventually, this way of being in the flow will become our first nature. We’ll float through life, shedding useless struggles. Our potential will become reality and we will walk with self-confidence.
This can be our path. Let’s go this way.
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Adapted from original Pathwork® Guide Lecture #77: Self-Confidence: Its True Origin and What Prohibits It
* Note on the use of Real Self. This is the term the Pathwork Guide used in lecture #77, and it is interchangeable with Higher Self and True Self. However, the Lower Self is also considered real. For more clarity about the distinctions, read Get a Better Boat, Essay 3: The Real Self vs the True Self | Listen to podcast
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