Self-Doubt, Ego, Humility, and Acceptance

posted 30th November 2010    Written by: Doniree    CATEGORY: Doniree, Inspiration, Job/Career/Work, Season 3, What I've Learned

“Am I ready for this?  Am I even good enough?”

“I should be practice teaching more often, otherwise I’m never going to get this.”

“Is my love for this practice going to be apparent in my teaching, or will I be so distracted by ego — by how I sound and what I’m saying that that love will be totally lost?  How can I move through ego in order to get to heart?”

“Maybe I should take a few more months developing my own practice before I should start really teaching.”

“What if I teach something wrong?  What if I mess up and everyone knows?”

Self-doubt is ugly.

It’s especially ugly when you’re on a beautiful journey, preparing and training for something you love, something you feel called to do.  I’ve known for years that I want to teach yoga.  That desire morphed from a fun “I want to teach yoga on the beaches of Hawaii!” to a way of giving of myself and back to a practice that’s had such a profound influence in my own life.

A practice that’s given me coping mechanisms for anxiety and has helped manage panic attacks.  A practice that’s released tension in my shoulders and has alleviated frequent tension headaches.  A practice that’s connected emotional to spiritual and helped me move through periods of questioning self-doubt, loss of identity and the precious connection to my own sexuality and energy, healing a damaged spirit, and learning how to move through any of life’s challenges – small or seemingly massive.

A practice I want to translate into my role as a teacher.  So here I am.  A year out of my first teacher training, Official Yoga Teacher Certification under my belt, and halfway through a hands-on, four-week, get-’er-done second program.  By mid-December I’ll be more than equipped to step out into and lead my own class, and sometimes, that lights me on fire.  Recently though, and a bit without warning, I start to question myself, asking myself if I’m really ready, really capable.

Then, it gets worse. I start to blame myself.  I find myself in a downward spiral, hearing the words of self-criticism course through my veins and the subsequent internal conversation that happens when I try to talk myself down from that.  “Am I capable?”  “SURE you are!”  “Am I sure?”  “Stop this chatter.  This isn’t productive.”  And so it goes.

From student to teacher to student

And so it went, right up until the part of the sequence I was supposed to teach.  In the time leading up to my turn to teach, I kept telling myself to bring these feelings into and through my practice – to acknowledge the nerves, accept the fact that I didn’t know everything and wouldn’t be perfect, and allow where I was to be the right place.  I tried to relate my nerves and internal arguments to a place of compassion and humility that perhaps my students could relate to.  I tried to find a way to use where I was to guide me and my students.

It worked and it didn’t. It worked in that I truly felt present in those moments.  It worked in that I remembered and felt comfortable talking through the postures, looking to my students to guide my next words in response to what they needed to hear.  It worked in that I felt more confident than I did last time I taught.  I genuinely felt as though I spoke from a place of authenticity when leading the class into and out of final savasana.  It felt natural to remind them to find a place of love and acceptance, because I was telling myself to love, honor, and accept where I was in my own practice as a student and as a teacher. I felt a little emotional as I finished with, “The teacher in me honors the teacher in you, namaste” and bowed towards them.

It didn’t work as well as I thought it might to “fake it ’til you feel it,” to bury the feelings of nerves and fake feelings of confidence when the first piece of feedback I received from my instructor was “You sounded nervous.”  I over-compensated for nerves by inflecting too much energy into a surrender part of the sequence.  I was so caught up in sounding stable and confident that I lost some of the connection to the energy in class until I came back to a place where I could relate to them — that place of humility and of compassion.

My Commitment to Myself

To me, self-doubt perpetuates more self-doubt if the thought processes don’t change.  Thoughts become things, right?  In order to change this, my self-dialogue has to change and ego has to be addressed.

I acknowledge that I’ll question myself again, and that I need to detach from this idea of “good” and commit to a practice that is instead focused on being authentic.  I’ll also slowly start to undo the notion of “working” and will start instead surrendering into the challenge, the doubt, and the questions.  I’ll acknowledge that they’re present and then let them pass me by.  I won’t “fight” the questions that pop into my mind, but I’ll welcome them, surrender into them, and learn from them.

I’ll remember that I can use these feelings of self-doubt and this journey right now to relate to future students who may be going through something similar.  I’ll be able to teach strong postures and speak from the heart of someone who’s been there.  I’ll be an authentic voice, and will hopefully be able to say and teach just the right thing for just the right heart at just the right time.

And that is what enables me to detach from self-doubt, to see it, to open up to it, and move through it.  To rid my thoughts of it and to replace it with humility, self-love and acceptance, and an open-heart.

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Comments (4)

4 Responses to “Self-Doubt, Ego, Humility, and Acceptance”

  • Alisha Says:
    November 30th, 2010 at 11:21 am

    Yes. Surrendering is so hard, but so necessary in order to move through life's challenges. Good luck with teaching. I know you will do a fantastic job :)

  • Doniree Says:
    December 2nd, 2010 at 8:12 am

    Thank you – I am starting to actually DO it more and falling in love with it more and more each time :)

  • nikki_klecha Says:
    December 2nd, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    You are wise, wise, wise. I think I need to read this a few more times to apply it fully to what I'm going through and the self-doubt I'm feeling. Thank you.

  • Doniree Says:
    December 2nd, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    You. Are. Capable. End of story.

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