The Day Self-Confidence Skipped Town

I just returned last night from an intensive 3-day weekend of coach training. And it was a great experience. I learned a lot and made many new friends… so why the heck was I fighting back tears almost the entire time?On the way there I had a 3-hour drive to ponder what was ahead and to try to figure out who I wanted to show up as. I’ve done a lot of work in the last year to practice greater self-love and acceptance, to celebrate and be present in who I am, and to be courageous and strong. And I really wanted to show up in that.Most of the time I feel happy, grateful and confident in my daily life, more so than I have in years. But it’s easy to be a big fish in a small pond – as most of my time these days is spent alone working, journaling, exercising, or having the occasional chat with other parents at soccer games! However, when it came time to venture into the unknown, and to try to create a place for myself in a group of interesting strangers, all that newfound self-assuredness went out the window and insecurity came rushing in to take its place. Note to self: that is NOT cool!As I think it over I’m getting the sense that this weekend was about more for me than learning coaching skills. It was about stepping out into the world, into a new career and a new community, totally clueless, exposed and vulnerable. For one thing that’s not a place I’m super comfortable with. But it was also my first new endeavor as a single person. There is no ring on my finger, no symbol that somebody “picked me” and therefore proof of my value. It sounds silly, I know, but part of the way I’ve identified myself for the last 16+ years is gone. It’s just me now, and I’m still not sure how to be with that.Apparently I was more transparent than I thought, because during an exercise in which our classmates assigned us an archetype to represent parts of ourselves we weren’t showing, and that we might need to bring forth in order to be great coaches, they gave me the moniker “Bull (on Xanax) in a China Shop.” In other words it may serve me to tap into more conviction and serenity, to relax into myself a little and be willing to make mistakes. Bingo. That resonated with me so much in terms of how I was feeling all weekend that much to my chagrin I started crying during one of the practice coaching sessions. (Damn it, that really shattered the illusion!)I guess in the end who showed up this weekend was Me. Not the ideal, confident, has-it-all-figured-out, totally-fine-on-her-own woman I wanted to seem like. But the Me who simply is right now. The Me who is learning a whole new way of being and is still a little unsteady on her feet, who doesn’t always have it all together, and who quite honestly has been a little lonely for human connection and a sense of belonging. In essence I did spend the weekend stumbling around like a bull in a china shop internally. I’m grateful to my new friends for bringing it into my awareness. And, yes, I failed this time at feeling as confident as I wanted to feel. But the learning (the Xanax part) is to be gentle with myself about it, shrug it off, and go knock some more stuff over.