"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else ... is to fight the hardest battle."

- E. E. Cummings

I always felt I lacked confidence. I hid behind this persona of being the quiet one, the introvert, the one that never had anything to say. And I deeply felt unconfident … about pretty much everything in my life.

Even through my years as an accomplished horse rider. I represented my school, I represented my pony club, I represented my state. I hit some pretty awesome achievements as a young – and tiny – rider in many disciplines. From a household that had limited finances, and using second-hand gear, I still rose to a place of state representation. Yet – I still compared myself to others around me, and from a place of self-judgement I had a serious confidence problem.

From the outside I looked confident and together - others looked up to me as an inspiration. It appeared I knew exactly who I was and exactly what I wanted. I guess to a certain extent this was true – throughout those years all I wanted to do was ride my horse and compete. That was my focus and my dedication. But deep down there was a huge gap between how I appeared and how I felt.

I was such a wallflower. It didn’t matter which environment I was in, I stayed on the outskirts, never feeling liked I belonged in any of them. I remember being recognised at a school assembly for my equestrian achievements and feeling more like I wanted to disappear than being proud. This nagging inside of me as to why I lacked self-confidence, when everyone around me ‘appeared’ to be so sure of themselves, and so certain in their belonging. I carried this feeling, and this approach into my adult life, and carrying the question inside of me for years: why can’t I just be confident?

We enter adulthood and don’t just suddenly become more confident! (if only it was that easy) We step into the working environment, which I guess is the next initiation. So discombobulating as a young adult stepping into this world of adulting in an environment where everyone appears confident. But are they? Or are they simply performing confidence? I was 100% performing confidence. I acted like I knew exactly what I was doing, and what my boss was asking of me. Maybe that is the ‘fake it until you make it’ narrative.

From a limited perspective this seems to work, but what is actually going on underneath that pushing through? I tried many things to build my confidence. Things like trying to fit in, agreeing with everyone (especially those who appeared smarter than me), attending courses, daily affirmations. But none of that really stuck, because I was treating a symptom, not the root of the issue.

And it’s exhausting! Maintaining a version of yourself that didn’t actually fit in, didn’t actually believe in themselves. No wonder my health spiralled. I suffered from extreme fatigue and pain. I carried a headache with me each day, and I questioned what was wrong with me. I used my health as an excuse to not fully show up to life.

There was a gradual dawning that happened for me that something deeper was off though – not just around my health, but why was I the way I was. Why did other people seem to glide through life like they knew their direction, and I seemed to be aimlessly going through the motions. Who am I? What am I here to do?

Those two questions seemed to always surface, and it frustrated me so much that I didn’t have the answers. The guidance counsellor at school – “So what do you want to do when you grow up Tina?”. Me – “How the fuck do I know, I’m 14 and the only thing I love doing is riding my horse!”. FFS, there felt like so much pressure to know exactly what path I wanted to take and who I wanted to be when I grew up.

This pressure to be so confident about what you want to do and what that looks like 10 years down the track. I know I wasn’t the only one that felt that way, but there was those around me who knew exactly what their plan was. It’s like they knew their identity from the get-go. So, I made stuff up – I looked at what others were saying and I thought – yeah cool that sounds good, I’ll go with that. Even though none of it actually felt true for me.

Now several eons later, I completely understand why that pressure felt so deep and true for me to not know who I was. This is through the knowledge of having an undefined identity centre in Human Design. The relief in understanding that my fluidity around my identity is exactly how I am wired. I am literally influenced by the people and the environments around me. I am designed to not have a fixed identity, and something that I once judged myself around, is now something that I cherish and love about myself.

Before understanding this, it felt like a trap, like I was losing myself under the guise of being agreeable or selfless. I was absorbing everyone else’s direction, desires, and definitions of who I should be without realising what was happening. This is not a flaw I carry. It is my design, and how I am meant to express this energy.

But before knowing this and getting to this point of realisation, I outsourced so much of myself to others. Like decisions. I didn't just allow other people to make decisions for me – I quietly engineered it. Created the space for it to happen without ever having to ask. This was generally a subtle, mostly unconscious autopilot behaviour for me. It showed up as deferring decisions, which meant someone else would step in and make them for me. I would seek approval from others before acting, or I would edit my own desires before I even voiced them.

Things like what fun activities I wanted to do over the weekend – “I don’t know … what do you want to do?” Or what movie to watch on a Friday night – “Whatever, you choose.” It seemed like I was being agreeable, easy going, not needing much.

But I was simply abandoning myself, my dreams, my desires, my wants for my life.

And so over time I stopped being able to hear my inner voice over everyone else’s noise. It didn’t disappear, it just got very quiet because I didn’t trust myself, so I suppressed what was important to me deep down. And the more I let someone else decide for me, the more I absorbed other people’s identities, the more I sent the message to myself that my own knowing couldn’t be trusted.

I can recognise now that the outsourcing was simply a protector part running the show based on my fears. Two fears I can name specifically running simultaneously were fear of being judged for having desires and dreams, and the deeper belief that more wasn’t meant for someone like me. Other people got more, had access to more. I wasn't deserving of it.

Those beliefs came from conditioning absorbed early – through the environment I grew up in, the beliefs of the people around me, the unspoken rules about what was and wasn't available to someone like us.

The deep belief that ‘having more and achieving dreams were for other people’ ran deep. Of course, at the time I was not consciously aware of this – we generally aren’t at a young age, and even into adulthood this realisation can elude us. I know I did.

And so we compensate for our fears. We disguise them as practicality, humility, or being realistic. “I’m just being real”. Geez if I had a dollar for every time I said that!! That ceiling of ‘real’, was a story I made up, and every choice I made was based on this limitation. Coming from a limited programmable mind that forgot how powerful and deeply deserving I am.

"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The realisation, when it finally landed, was disarmingly simple: I didn't need more confidence. I needed to know who I actually was. Not what I am. Not what job or career I have. Who I am at my core, my inner truth, and learning to listen to my inner authority. Learning to listen to my body, because this is where my real identity lives – beneath the conditioning, beneath the limitations my mind had placed on me based on the fears and stories.

This doesn’t suddenly happen though. This is a gradual process of learning to trust yourself. Trusting that you are your own guide, that you are the one best placed to know what is best for you. Deconditioning myself from outsourcing to others was a bitter pill to swallow. Something that came so naturally to me, and that was on autopilot for most of my life, was (and continues to be) a significant unlearning.

It took years of doing the inner work, and over time I started to build the trust muscle. I am still in the process of continuing to build a deeper level of self-trust, because I truly believe there is always a deeper level. When you move through one layer, the next layer is revealed. We build our capacity as we go, to hold that next layer of ourselves.

This is why nervous system regulation is so critical in our evolution. It is the foundation of how we hold the next iteration of ourselves. Because when you truly allow yourself to listen to your inner authority and know the depths of your identity and how to unapologetically be you: confidence has no option other than to exist.

Is doing this work confronting? Yes. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Is it worth it? 100% it is.

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."

- Carl Jung