Anyone who would tell me their life was perfect or that they have never once felt a lack of confidence would truly surprise me.
We all have times during our lives where our confidence can be shaken. However, it is not until you come face to face with a big issue that you have never dealt with before, that you learn how you will react, or how it will impact you.
I remember being in a Norway train station and a man covered in blood, holding what looked like a knife came into the station yelling in a language I did not understand. I kept my head down, continuing my knitting, until the man was suddenly standing over me stroking my face.
In that moment I did not make a conscious decision, my reaction was instinctual. To fight, flight or freeze was not a conscious thought. I froze. I remember my hands which held my knitting needles being suspended in mid-air, unable to move. It was like time slowed down, stopped, and just as suddenly time started again, as the man moved away, and again people moved about their lives.
Yet for me the world had not just moved on. In that moment, my life hit the pause button. I had felt my own fear and experienced a feeling of powerlessness. I needed time for the experience to be coded in my memory banks.
On reflection, it was a small yet significant life event. I realised that I could not have predicted how I was going to react. I was not in conscious control. I also became aware that even though it had been a potentially dangerous situation, everyone else just watched. I was on my own.
Remembering this incident became relevant when recently life sent me a curve ball which turned my world upside down. I always thought of myself as a strong and confident woman who could pragmatically deal with most issues. This incident blew up my world as I knew it in an instant. I had never anticipated or prepared for such an experience. In the moment, I had no idea how I was going to react, and my emotions went firstly to automatic pilot and then just refused to be controlled.
The emotion of grief was so intense, so guttural, I cried so much my eyes refused to secrete anymore tears and sleep became elusive. The words that were spoken at that time echoed in my ears and each echo repeatedly stabbed me in my heart.
However, the wonderful cliché that says “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is something I do believe in. I also believe in “your own time” it’s important to reflect on what you have learnt from the experience. I don’t mean this in the previous cliché way because some of the life’s lessons are not always positive. They can be hard, raw, and coldly real.
When we go through difficult times we can lose faith in others, and confidence in ourselves. Although this is not useful, sometimes we may give ourselves permission to be there for a while, until we lick our wounds and recuperate. It is not a place to linger as it can be corrosive and erode your confidence and potential.
From my experience I found giving myself permission to be sad, helped me to take little steps to a more positive outcome. Yet sometimes it was one step forward and two steps backwards and I had to accept this too was OK.
So many people in my Executive Coaching practice or in life express a lack of confidence. There are many techniques that can be used to help us regain confidence, such as creating and implementing a plan to move forward or engaging with reliable friends without (over doing it). However, during this intense drama in my life, I realised that there was something else that I did to regain my confidence. The following is a simple technique that I use professionally, and it certainly helped me through. I call it the animal totem.
When working with executives who at times become very stressed, I ask them what animal they are and what other animals they are surrounded by. One such person said they were a bear in a shark pond. The answer spoke volumes.
For me I have always seen myself as a leopard. I sit under the tree and watch what is happening on the savanna and when I need to act, I run like the wind.
Nearly every day after my recent life curve ball, I asked myself in my mind how the leopard was today? Some days she was on her back with arrows through her heart, hardly alive. Other days she was up the tree looking for safety and shelter. Other days she was licking her wounds, with the occasional dripping or oozing of blood where the arrows had been. Yet on other days as the pain subsided, she either laid quietly planning her recovery or venturing out on the savanna to see the world from a different perspective.
During this time my wise friend who had been my boss in a previous life always asked me when he rang how the leopard was doing today? He would often remind me and say, “and Jenny, remember you are still the leopard.”
I realised, although I had been wounded, I was still a leopard, and the leopard was recovering even though the healing was not complete, and that some wounds may reopen. I had not turned into a snake or a pussy cat. I was still the leopard, and I was proud of how the leopard endured. Consequently, while my confidence had wavered, it had also recovered and endured.
The leopard is slowly moving beyond the tree. There are more days where she runs like the wind to embrace the world and create a new future. When life sends you the inevitable curve ball, using the metaphor of an animal totem may be a useful technique to guide you along the way and help to rebuild your strength and confidence that ….. only you can preserve.
