While growing up, I struggled to learn an embarrassing number of things.
Math and science never clicked for me. The teachers were cold and they lacked a sense of humour. Their classrooms seemed drab and uninviting.
I had no confidence in my ability to work with my hands. For some reason I feared the precision of tools and machines. Success in wood work or metal work appeared impossible. It was as if I could not handle the real, physical world.
As I grew up and matured, it became evident that I was becoming a rather lopsided individual. In the arts I was king. I could draw and I could write. I loved to read and I had enough curiosity to study the detailed histories of several civilizations. But in just about everything else I was a zero. As many of us do, I had learned just enough to be gainfully employed and I could hide my ignorance about everything else.
When I reached my forties I realized that I had missed the boat with my learning. It was now clear to me that I had not yet learned the most important lesson of all: to trust myself wholly and implicitly. I was terrible at it. I loved the relative safety of following others and heeding their advice.
To trust yourself can be challenging at the best of times, but it seems to be most difficult when you come to it later in life.
The process of learning to trust myself has been ongoing for decades.
Initially I started to draw inward and just accept that I could decide things on my own and would be okay. The encouragement of others was immense here. It was important to see that the sky would not fall if I took an unpopular or unexpected decision.
Next I took a closer look at the culture and religion I had inherited. This was not a case of rejecting all that I had been taught. Rather, it was a case of examining things closer, of seeing what I truly believed in versus what I had been told to believe in.
I put my faith on hold and decided to explore the possibility that all religions had been man made. Gone were the ideas of a real hell and a real heaven. Gone too was the god that I created in my own image.
I considered the source and logic behind every suggestion that came across my mental desk. I weighed the advice of others with more caution.
Walking without a safety net beneath me has been challenging. Trusting yourself is wonderful but it can be exhausting. Sometimes you can choose your steps quickly. At other times choosing is a laboured process, fraught with self-doubt and some residual guilt.
Mostly, however, it is a humbling experience. Contrary to what some may think, trusting yourself is not a carte blanche to do as you want. Rather it’s a daily mandate to walk through life in a thoughtful way.
Because I have taken charge of my life, I am not easily pushed around or coerced into something I do not want. I relish my freedom to just be and I am grateful for an opportunity to live life authentically.