I have observed how my level of self-confidence, my self-belief, self-assuredness, impacts my energy and feelings of lightness and brightness. When doubt creeps in, it brings a heaviness with it. A heaviness that likely wants to anchor me to the known and to the safety of what I have done, and not failed at.
I sense that it does this out of protection and therefore is a component or facet of fear. It’s an alertness to the new, to novelty, to change - to the unknown. It makes me slow down (cos I tend to go kinda fast a lot of the time!) and increases my awareness of the possible pitfalls, roadblocks, dangers or risks that may arise.
The heaviness of doubt is like a brake to my enthusiastic, ‘let’s-give-it-a-go’ accelerator. It’s my faithful co-pilot, making sure that should there be a cliff at the end of the road, or a sharp bend, I can stop in time or take the corner without flipping out of control.
Sometimes you have to turn doubt on doubt itself...
I am reminded of Sogyal Rinpoche’s perspective on doubt in his book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I found his book in a wonderful second-hand bookshop several years ago, and his teachings helped me see the light and the dark of doubt. In his book he says that doubt is “nothing more than ego’s desperate attempt to defend itself from wisdom”. I loved this reframing!
Because that’s essentially it, isn’t it? There is wisdom in the fall, in the failure, in the risk, in the questioning. But how often does our ego, with its fear of looking like an idiot, being embarrassed, feeling lesser than, or judged as being batshit crazy, stop us from even trying? How often does our life’s conditioning (those damn unhealthy contracts, again) stop us from finding out who we are and from sharing our gifts with the world?
Our greatest learning and growth come from our failures, mishaps and falls, and our ability to get back up and be curious enough to examine what went wrong with complete self-compassion, non-judgement and acceptance of our humanness. Only then may we absorb the wisdom within those experiences.
And so, I welcome the heaviness of doubt. I realise that where there is doubt, there is fear. And where there is fear, is where my path lies – it’s where I am meant to go. Fear protects me, it does not imprison me. Thus, doubt should not, and does not, prevent or stop me.
I am still in the driver’s seat but I’m happy for its heaviness to slow me down, just to check the path is clear. Sometimes you have to go slow, to go fast.
