Find your purpose in life and make the necessary changes so that the love of your dreams will find you hard to resist.
CHAPTER 7: THE CONFIDENCE WITHIN
The Love Story
A year ago, Maria had ended her relationship with Michael. Michael was a successful businessman whom she fell in love with. He had a great sense of humour, and he was a romantic kind of guy.
After just six months of dating, he stood on a bended knee and asked to marry her. “I found the most amazing woman in the world, and she means everything to me, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her” were the words that left her in endless tears. Without an ounce of hesitation, she mustered the strength to say, “Yes.”
He placed the most glamorous engagement ring on her finger. That day was the happiest day of her life.
Her fairy-tale Prince charming and her dazzling diamond ring left all eyes that saw and all ears that heard with envy.
Everything in her life had changed from that day, her sleep was deeper, her mood was joyous, her self-care was lengthy and her clothes were stylish. She felt like she was on top of the world. But it all quickly changed, within a few weeks.
“You never have enough time for us,” she always told him. She had not taken Michael’s business trips into consideration. Maria sought advice from her friends and family on what she should do.
“I felt that it was too good to be true. Don’t you remember what happened to your cousin and how it left her broken?” her aunt Nicole told her.
“Yes, but Michael is different, he is caring, romantic and he loves me,” she replied.
“That’s what she said. How long have you known him, and do you really know him?” she said with displeased stare. “Look Maria, I really care about you and I don’t want heartbreak to destroy you like it did your cousin. He is a man; he is maybe seeing another woman on his business trips.”
The thought of it all being a lie had already begun to break Maria. Doubt and fear crept into her life. Nicole’s advice to her was to employ clever tactics to force Michael to give up his business life. She began to dismiss his calls, she became argumentative, she stopped thanking him when he sent her gifts and when they were together, she stopped being loving. She became unappreciative because Nicole’s advice was to make him feel worthless, so he would drop everything for her. It was an ultimatum kind of strategy, either her or his career.
“I found someone who really likes me,” she once told him over the phone. Nicole had been sitting next to her whispering words in her ears. And so, Michael did as she wanted, and he left his career. She found out that Michael had been telling the truth all along. He had been faithful to her.
But a few months later, she ended the relationship. Michael had become a shadow of himself; his attractiveness as a confident man had all but gone. She realised that she had fallen in love with the image and idea of Michael but not Michael the person. Maria also ended her close relationship with her aunt; her vengeful and destructive ways had left a bad taste in her mouth. Maria spent weeks carrying guilt because of what she did to Michael, and she eventually asked him for his forgiveness. They became friends months later.
When Doubt and Fear Gets A Hold of Us
Doubt and fear can sometimes deny us the best things in life. When we doubt ourselves, we begin to instil beliefs in our minds that we are unworthy. Unworthiness leads to poor self-esteem, which in turn dents our confidence. We doubt others because we are afraid that we are unworthy, or we fear that the person may be too good to be true. Doubt creeps into our minds that they somehow must be deceiving us. We then seek advice from others because we have little confidence in our decision-making, which in turn opens the gates to bad advice.
Maria fell in love with the idea of Michael because of her doubts and fears of her future. She gloated over her engagement to him because it made her feel secure and confident that her life was moving forward.
Nicole was consumed by negativity as a consequence of insecurities, and she either had no good faith in others or she intentionally sabotaged her niece’s relationship.
Michael placed his confidence in his career; it gave him a sense of control, comfort and power, but as soon as he gave it up out of fear of losing Maria, his self-worth and confidence diminished.
Doubt and fear, as a consequence of bad experiences or lack of emotional growth, can become and define us, unless we begin to have confidence in ourselves.
Two Forms Of Confidence
Have you ever met someone who is not attractive, yet they are so confident? The person may be over overweight, yet they are dating someone very attractive and slim. This is because they have realised the true source of confidence.
There are two sources of confidence: the spiritual source and the superficial source.
Spiritual Confidence comes from within your soul. People who are naturally spiritual or who have undergone spiritual awakening, tend to rely on their natural source of confidence. Their confidence does not rely on external factors, making it generally constant. If external circumstances in their life changes, their natural source of confidence puts up a barrier.
Superficial confidence comes from external factors. These factors may be appearance, social status or material possession. People who rely on these unnatural sources find themselves having confidence that fluctuates regularly. If their unnatural source of confidence runs dry, self-doubt and fear take hold of them.
The mistake most make is believing that real confidence comes from our appearance, our status in life or wealth. These may give a sense of false confidence because without them you would not have a sense of self-worth.
Have you ever come across a person who is so good looking or someone who is wealthy, but yet they are so shy, withdrawn, angry or hostile in crowds? This is because their source of confidence comes from an unnatural place.
However, superficial confidence has its benefits; it allows us to reap the rewards of our hard work and as human beings we thrive on admiration as a consequence of what we have attained.
The Gift From Within
There are some who seem to have all the confidence in the world but, yet the one they loved left them. The reason is most likely that their superficial confidence easily attracts the person they desire but overtime it is unable to keep them around.
There are plenty of men or women who have left a physically attractive or wealthy lover for this very reason. The major problem with superficial confidence is the source that it derives from.
People who rely on their superficial source usually do not devote effort, time and patience on self-improvement. Why should they? They have gotten used to getting what they want with their appearance, status or wealth. So why should they put in so much effort becoming better internally?
Overtime they become predictable, unchallenging, unexciting, inelegant, powerless and they cease to entice their lover to remain in their arms. Their lovers may stick around hoping for change, but the question is, will they accept change? Because superficial confidence is easily plagued with self-doubt and fear, especially when external circumstances change, the person reacts to demands of change from their lover in a predictable, unchallenging, boring or powerless way.
Michael left his career as soon as Maria threatened him; if he was well read in the art of seduction, he could have responded and solved the issue without giving up his career.
You should not rely on superficial confidence, because if the one you desire runs into your arms, but they later discover that you easily crumble in the face of challenges, then their attraction towards you will begin to dwindle.
Spiritual confidence allows you to face the challenges life throws at you. The reason the overweight guy is appealing to the attractive slim woman and why she sticks around is because his source of confidence is constant in the face of adversity. It allows him to showcase himself as being worthy and valuable.
The confidence you seek has always been there, you just needed to find it and believe in it. Do n
ot let anything or anyone make you doubt yourself.
CHAPTER 8: PRACTICE TO BE CONFIDENT
The Love Story
“Hey Maria, what’s up?” Bruce said. He had called her around 8 p.m. on Thursday evening. The night sky was shimmering in the moonlight with stars visible in the backdrop of blackness. Maria had been anticipating Bruce’s call since the beginning of the week. In fact, since she had arrived in her two-bedroom apartment, she had been waiting for his call. The call was brief; Bruce arranged to pick up Maria on Saturday evening, at 8 p.m. sharp.
Maria took the longest bath that evening; she could not help but grace every room in her apartment with her love songs. Before bedtime, she practiced her positive affirmation. She had been doing so for a number of weeks now, and her self-belief had changed because she had reprogrammed her mind with positive thoughts about herself. She vowed to never let fear or doubt, or anybody’s advice, influence her life.
Your Spirit
Your spirit encapsulates your entire existence, an existence brought to life so that you can contribute to the universe. Your purpose on earth makes you as valuable as the soil that gives life to acres of green fields, the sun that brings warmth or the rocks that hold everything together. You are special in your own kind of way. We all are.
To find the confidence from within you, you need to dig deep and evaluate yourself as a human being. You need to find your true value — the positives and dreadful negatives.
Once you do so, you will discover that:
You are not as valueless as you led yourself to believe.
The negatives are not as bad as you or others made you believe, and they can be worked on.
There is more value or talent left in you that you have yet to discover.
The List Of Negatives
Before we begin practicing in believing in you, you need to write a list of all your doubts and fears, from childhood to adulthood.
All negative thoughts that you think about yourself or that others have said about you. Try to keep each of the negatives to a maximum of three words.
Before calling Bruce the second time, Maria began the process of self-evaluation and self-discovery. She started with a list of all her negative thoughts.
I’m bossy
I’m scared
I’m possessive
I’m difficult
I’m easily influenced
I’m argumentative
I’m alone
I’m easily angered
I’m getting old
The Sources of Negatives
Once you have written down the negatives, you could spend some time evaluating the source of each of them. Writing is therapeutic, it is liberating, it is eye opening, and it sets you free.
Maria found the following sources:
I’m possessive – she’s possessive because she has a low self-esteem. She feels she is not good enough, so she is afraid of losing the person to someone better than she is.
I’m bossy – she is bossy because she likes things to go her way. She has gotten her way since she was young, as her dad spoilt her. If things do not go her way, she is afraid that she may lose control.
Easy influenced – she is easy influenced because she has little self-confidence. She is afraid that her way ruins things, so she asks and takes advice from friends or family.
I’m alone – fear of being alone makes her feel sad and fearful of the future. She stays up at night crying sometimes.
Not good enough – she feels she is not good enough because of past failed relationships.
I’m difficult – she says she is difficult because she is afraid of being heartbroken again.
I’m argumentative – she argues because being made to feel wrong makes her feel insecure and worthless. She likes things to go her way, even when she is wrong, it just feels better. She avoids any discussion that makes her feel bad.
I’m easily angered – she gets angered easily when she is afraid, when she’s insecure, when she feels she is losing control or things do not go her way.
The common source of Marias negatives is fear of her perceived worth, fear of losing control, fear of being hurt, fear of being made to feel worthless and fear of trusting her judgement along with a few bad habits she picked up when she was young. These fears cause her to have self-doubt, which makes her bury her self-confidence in a mountain of negative thoughts. That mountain of negativity becomes her.
The List Of Positives
Write a list of positive things about you. They have to be things about your personality or internal attributes, including all the positive thoughts that you think about yourself or that others have said about you.
Try to keep the positives to a maximum of three words. Maria wrote her list.
I’m funny
I’m giving
I’m loving & caring
I’m adventurous
I’m thoughtful
I’m open minded
I’m creative
I’m loyal & honest
I’m loved & cherished
I’m playful
I’m social & fun
I’m trustworthy
I’m hard working
Positive Affirmation
Affirmation is a technique where you read out true statements about yourself with confidence. These true statements are positive things you worked hard to list.
A daily routine of reading out the value you bring to the universe will replace the negative thoughts with positive or amazing things about you. The idea is to reprogram your mind so that it changes the way it thinks.
Affirmation Schedule
The next step is to create your schedule of reading out your positive attributes based on your confidence level. For each you read out, you should spend five minutes reading the list of how amazing you are over and over again.
Confidence Exercise
The level of your confidence:
☐ Low Confidence – you should read out loud your positive list three times a day for five minutes. That is five minutes in the morning, five minutes midday and five minutes before bedtime.
☐ Medium Confidence – you read your positive list twice a day, in the morning and before bedtime.
☐ High Confidence – you read your positive list once a week, maybe at the beginning of the week. It is just to maintain your level of confidence.
Once you feel that your confidence level has increased, you move on to the next level. If it decreases, you move back down a level to increase your routine of affirmation.
To uncover your inner confidence, you need to devote effort, time and patience in your daily routine of positive affirmations. The more you practice, the more confident you will become.
CHAPTER 9: PERSONAL & PRIVACY
The Love Story
Maria finished work early on a Friday afternoon, and Michelle had come to pick her up. “So, the date is on for tomorrow? Finally! I’m excited for you, I hope he is the one,” Michelle said with a hint of sarcasm.
Maria had known Michelle for 18 years, to be exact, and they were inseparable best friends.
“I have a feeling he is the one, since we met there hasn’t been a day, I haven’t thought about him,” Maria replied.
“Didn’t you say the same about Michael?”
Maria was seated on the passenger side of Michelle’s convertible. She gazed at her with a stern stare. “Did you have to bring him up?”
Michelle chuckled, “I’m just saying you don’t know Bruce well enough and you haven’t dated him yet.”
“And how long did you know Derek for? It took you two damn years to realise he wasn’t the one?” Maria replied harshly.
Michelle had been single for six months—the longest she had ever been.
“Okay, I get your point, you’re right. I knew all along that Derek wasn’t the one, but you know me, I hate being alone. Plus, I hate the thought of sleeping around. But I am learning how to be alone now, it’s hard. I’m 36, will I ever find true love
?” Michelle replied with tears falling down her cheeks.
Maria sighed and reached over, lending her hand for Michelle to hold. “I know it is, but it’s for the best. Have you started reading the book I gave you, The Rhythm of Love?”
“No, I haven’t yet,” Michelle replied while wiping tears from eyes.
Maria held Michelle’s hand tightly, rubbing her shoulder to comfort her. “You have to, it is life changing. Look at me, have you ever seen me this confident? And Bruce is pursuing me now. It teaches you to find yourself, so the one for you finds you.”
The two had arrived at their destination, and Joanne, Susan, Megan and Diane were waiting inside the bar. Maria had later found out that the others had known about Bruce and her date with him tomorrow. She asked Michelle to accompany her to the toilet.
The Rhythm of Love Page 3
