Confidence is a comfort
By: Alisa Schneidman
Next up in our series of Self Energy words is Confidence and it the is the word I dreaded writing about- says a part- but this blog has been the clearest. And here I am writing about it pretty early in the month, and that has to do with confidence.
When I thought of confidence, before writing this, I pictured outspoken people- saying whatever they wanted without concern for accuracy or other’s feelings. The most important part was their conviction. Honestly, my parts found it intimidating. Sure, I respected the guts people had to do it, and the integrity to some degree, but I didn’t know if I could get behind it as something I wanted to embody, let alone promote it. There are pieces of it I liked but I wasn’t convinced it connected to Self-energy.
Before I go on it has struck me how important it is to get clear on what I mean by Self-energy. Simply put (and this is my translation) it’s our life energy. I am going to switch hats to Energy Worker and speak in those terms. I have been practicing Energy Work for 15 years and the first modality I learned was Reiki. Loosely translated it means Universally guided Life Energy. Reiki goes where it is needed- the practitioner is there to facilitate the connection- not give their energy- you cannot “do” Reiki wrong because Reiki is doing the healing- you, as the practitioner, are doing the connecting and offering. Reiki goes to the parts of the client’s systems where there are blocks and works with them- the system can accept it or not- the Reiki is there either way. The Reiki does not force the client to accept the Reiki, in fact you do not do Reiki without permission, and if someone is done, you’re done with the session. If someone chooses to reconnect to it the Reiki will be there- it is constant. That is what Self Energy is and that is why Reiki works- we have the Ki in us- Life Energy- mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual that in some combination animates us into a living being. Our Ki is the little piece of the Universe within.
The Ki- or Self Energy within is always accessible and always present- the pieces of us that are hurting may not be willing to connect to it yet, and that is ok because it will still be present when and if those hurt pieces are ready.
With this explanation of Self, I want to shift focus back to the concept of Confidence. Confidence in terms of Self-Energy is a sense of trust that this presence is bigger than the fear inside- it can protect me, and I will let it. Most every fear we have goes back to keeping us safe, so the parts of us have to feel that Life Energy that Self can do it- do what was never done- that’s a big ask for parts of us that have been working so hard since we were young to do that job. They aren’t going to hand over the reins easily, and our Self knows it and honors it. It makes space for it and wouldn’t ask for it- in that there is a sense of comfort, a sense of calm- the more that type of interaction occurs. The more that Energy stays present no matter the shift in the part. Confidence the space for our Self to connect.
Please reach if you are curious about this topic or the way IFS can work to help you access an inner source that you can trust is there for you whenever you reach out.
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