Confidence at Conscious Cafe
At Conscious Cafe last Monday, we were looking at confidence by asking questions such as,
- Can you have too much?
- Too little?
- What helps develop confidence?
- What hinders it?
- Do we get confidence from only ourselves or can it come from others including a higher power?
A keyword used by a participant was ‘transitional’ we can be confident in one situation but not in another. So often it is about being confident in certain things and lacking confidence in others. The question for me is how much does something matter, how much do I want to do this?
The culture in which we grow up often tells us what we need to be confident in. In my culture ‘football’ had currency. If you were good at football you had status. I wasn’t particularly good and nor was I particularly interested yet I spent many hours beating myself up for not being better at football. What I was missing about not being good at football was the acceptance and adulation that fell on those who were. It wasn’t about football itself.
I was good at running but I didn't particularly like being competitive and then I experienced the converse acceptance being based on aptitude. I wanted to be accepted.
I talked a lot and still do. It comes naturally without thinking of it as anything other than living. Questions are also part of my life.
I heard myself say, in one of the groups I was in, that since a very young age, I have had trust in God and Jesus. Those relationships have given me confidence.
Jesus spoke as God being his father and I understood God being a father so I see myself as a son and relate to Him as my father. Jesus is a human incarnation of God who I can relate to as a fellow human and often as an older brother.
I explain this as in the circles I am in people generally speak of God as the Universe, the Spirit. As a child, I needed to understand God personally and Father worked, Jesus also worked and it still works. As I said whether you believe in God as the Father or as Jesus doesn't matter it works for me. I too accept that this is faith and one day it could be proved that both were my Imaginary Friends (IF).
IFs they may be but there is a reality to them as through my relationship with them I make decisions particularly decisions in which I lack confidence.
I could be in a dentist's chair or stuck in traffic and not feeling great. In such moments I will look to God and ask that he get me through this moment. The ‘looking to’ takes me away from myself into a greatness that brings with it an awareness that I am not alone.
Most of the major decisions of my life that have been positive have been made after ‘looking to’ and being given a sense that although I may not be confident that God, Jesus will be with me indeed they may be leading me to walk this way.
I can think of many moments in my life that occurred due to hearing a whisper and then going with it,
In 1988 I took an impromptu train first to Dublin and then Carlow to visit some people I had met the previous year in the Isle of Man. It was at the train station in Dublin without any plan that I bumped into one of them who I then stayed with during the trip.
It was after a dream in Birmingham in 1988 in which I saw the words ‘Christ Unites Ireland’ that I felt led to spend the next three years of my life living those words. If it was off me I would have dismissed it but I felt it was asked of me and in he who was asking I had confidence. I also had to learn to hear when a job was done.
In 1989 I took the decision to live in Galway, the west of Ireland without having visited the place and without an income
In 1990 with £40 in my pocket, I hitch-hiked from home and spent 7 weeks travelling as far as Portugal in the south, Denmark in the North and everywhere in between. My first destination was a conference in Bern, Switzerland.
In 1991 when stuck up a mountain in Romania with an articulated lorry of aid a path opened up. During the said trip when asked to speak at a church of 500 people in Romania, I said yes
In 1991 moving to Banbridge and establishing a Pub with no Beer. This project only survived 6 months.
In 1993 moving to Hertfordshire, England where I have remained
Whether it was getting married, deciding to try for a child, where to live, where to remain in work all these decisions I have ‘looked to’ and continued only when I felt this was the path to walk. Divorce also came my way after 20 years and other troubles so it is not to say that the path is easy.
The most recent spectacular prompt was to go to Jerusalem in 2019.
What is not so noticeable is the everyday prompts when I have to listen to know what to do to see me through what can seem at times impossible demands.
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