Why Would Someone (A Child) Lose Self-Confidence? Part 2

Excerpt from Abraham's latest book "The Vortex"- pp. 180-182

Continued from Part 1.

Jerry: I recall the negatives that were directed at me, criticizing me and causing me to feel really bad about myself, but then I remember my grandfather, who uplifted me tremendously. There were teachers who deflated me and tried to humble me and embarrass me and belittle me, but then I remember my speech teacher, Mr. Hanley, who uplifted me and made me feel good about myself. I remember the people in the gymnasium who made fun of me, but then Mr. Piers, the gym coach, uplifted me tremendously. I remember enjoying participating in the teenage programs at the church and in the choir and the Scouts, but then there was so much criticism in the church directed at all other churches and toward the rest of the world that I just wanted to get away from it. I wanted to take my physical body away.


But now, what I am hearing from you is that it's not an action kind of thing - that we need to leave what we don't want. We don't need to look to those other teachers or family members to uplift us or give us self-confidence, although it does help. We can find it directly in ourselves, no matter what's going on around us, right? 


Abraham: You have just pointed out, through the examples in your own life, the problem with looking to others for upliftment. Those who were in a state of appreciation - and therefore were in alignment with Source, with their Vortex, with the Pure, Positive Energy that creates worlds - as they held you as your (sic) object of attention, you felt the advantage of their gaze. But when those not in their Vortex, not in alignment with Source, held you as the object of their lackful attention, you felt the disadvantage of their gaze. It is the inconsistency of the response that you garner from others that eventually erodes your confidence.

Your Vortex of Creation, the Source within you (your Inner Being), is undeviating and dependable. When you make your way to your Vortex of Creation through the thoughts that you choose - you will always be replenished. A balanced, good-feeling life requires that you return often to drink from the Source.


© Abraham-Hicks Publications

Why Would Someone (A Child) Lose Self-Confidence? Part I

Excerpt from Abraham's latest book "The Vortex"- pp. 180-182

Jerry: Well, I guess I usually talk about my own experiences because they are the ones where I'm surest about what happened and how I felt. I remember that, as a little child, I had such self-confidence. I didn't know a stranger. I felt capable of accomplishing just about anything. But then, as the years went by, I began to accept the criticism of others, I began to feel criticism toward myself, and I lost that self-confidence. I became almost introverted.


Today, when I see little children coming in with that bravado and high self-confidence, I remember feeling that way. But hen, little by little, I see them get what I call "chopped down" as their self-confidence diminishes. Would you clarify why we experience this erosion of self-appreciation and how we can prevent it? And how can we uplift others to a higher degree of self-appreciation?

Abraham: You are right -- it is really only through your own experiences that you can understand anything, for this reason: your life has caused you to expand, to launch rockets into your Vibrational Vortex of Creation; but true knowledge, or understanding, is experience only when you allow yourself to catch up with and merge with those rockets. No knowledge is ever experienced by your trying to catch up with rockets what have been launched by others. That is why words do not teach. It is only your own life experience that teaches.

That is why you are so fiercely independent in the beginning: not wanting to take other people's word for things, wanting your own experience, wanting to make your own decisions, wanting your own freedom to choose. None of that wanting ever recedes or becomes less. In fact, it becomes more! The reason why the bravado that you are born with usually fades is because you allow yourself to become distracted from your Vortex. In other words, you allow others to convince you that it is more important to you to pay attention to how they feel than how you feel.

Every emotion that you feel is an indication of your relationship with your Vortex. When you feel confident, that means that your current thought is a perfect match to the way the Source within you, from inside your Vortex of Creation, is feeling about you. When you feel embarrassed, that means that your current thought does not match the way the Source within you is feeling about you. So, when parents or teachers or friends project an attitude of disapproval toward you (in an effort to evoke a more-pleasing-to-them behavior from you), if you respond to their disapproval by modifying your thought, words, or behavior to please them, you have distracted yourself from your own true Guidance and from your own true Source of confidence.

And so, it is not that your self-confidence erodes, but rather that you are disallowing the continual replenishment of it.  As you seek approval from them, you are distracted from your fountain of Source Energy renewal. Again, "looking for love in all the wrong places."

For you to uplift others, you must direct them to their own fountain of replenishment. You do not help them by asking them to respond to your approval or disapproval. Many of you think that they way to uplift others is by showering them with your own approval. But if they are looking to you for the refreshment of their being and you have other things to which you want to give your attention, they will be in trouble. Or if they are looking to you and you yourself are not connected to your own Stream of replenishment, so you have nothing to give them, they are again in trouble. But if you help them understand that they have a Source of Refreshment that is independent of all other humans and that they have only to understand the nature of their own Vortex of Creation and align with it often, now you have offered them true upliftment that will serve them, independently, all of the days of their lives.

Continued with Part 2.

© Abraham-Hicks Publications

External Validation and Weight Loss/Body Image

Blogger's note: This is relevant to those with any kind of external validation or approval-seeking issues, not just weight loss.

Abraham on Deflecting Catty Judgments

Abraham, Boulder, CO 06-11-05

Questioner has fear of being judged.

A: Well, that’s a valid fear, because they will judge you.

Q. Right.

A. And so if that bothers you then..because people are going to observe you and they can only see you through their framework and so many people would feel better if you would comply to what they think they need you to do so that they will feel better... but you sort of got to get over that...(laughter)

Q: And how do I get over it? (laughter) ...

Q. I know when you do have a thought that you don’t feel good about...

A. Such as...

Q. Such as walking into a store in a new city and you’re afraid that people are looking at you and judging you and then I go in and I say, "Well, no, God’s within you, you are God, there is nothing wrong with you." Is that just putting a bandaid on it?

A. Well, the reason it feels to you like you are putting a bandaid on it is that’s not solving the situation for you and here’s why:

So let’s say that for whatever reason you have been fostered in an environment where you were trained to care deeply about what other people thought and you’re not alone in that because most people need to control your behavior so that they can feel good, it happened in your home, it happens in the school system, it happens in the traffic. IOW there are so many things around you where they expect your behavioral compliance or they won’t feel so good and they’ll punish you because they want to feel good. IOW that’s sort of the way your physical world has come round to...

So lets say that for whatever reason in whatever way it happened to you, you are very sensitive to the opinions of others and you walk into an environment like you said and you feel them looking at you and disapproving and you think I don’t like this feeling. I should jump into the bright-eyed bushy-tailed fluffy...

I should love them. (laughter)

But you’re very far from that vibration and so when someone is looking at you, looking you over and you can see disapproval in their face, what is the first knee jerk reaction that comes from you, most of you, maybe not you? Don’t you wanna say... "Who are you?" Don’t you wanna say..."You wear those shoes and you’ve got the nerve to look at me?" Don’t you wanna say..."Who combed your hair today?" Doesn’t just a little feeling of revenge sort of bubble up like a life-giving breath of fresh air?

Now you and a lot of other people may not let yourself go there because you’ve been trained to believe that you should have love in your heart and you should not condemn them just because they are condemning you, but we wanna say to you that you can’t jump from being condemned and taking it hard all the way into love and sunshine and joy. You can’t do it; the frequencies are too far apart and we think that the knee-jerk response of revenge or anger is an approved vibration for you and what we feel from you and from so many who are sensitive and who want to be uplifters is that many of you have disallowed yourself the stepping stones along the way_on_the_way_ to your love and appreciation of everyone.

It’s sort of like... Jerry and Esther wanting to go from Phoenix to San Diego and finding themselves in Yuma and being so discouraged that they are not yet in san diego that they get disoriented and turn around and go back to phoenix.

So they go...(quickly)

phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma

and in time they say (dramatically and with angst), "We’ll neeeeever get to San Diegoooo. We must not be woooorthy of san diego. We must have done something in a past life that prevents us from getting to gooooo to san diego. There must be something in YUMA that is a higher puuuuurpose fooor us. God must want us to be in yuma. We must have done something really bad in a past life and karma tells us that _yuma_is_ our_ place_. (Huge audience laughter).

And we say, you come up with a lot of really funny things to explain why you don’t just line up with what you want, you see. So our message to you is you don’t line up all at once; you line up gradually.

Abraham, Boulder Workshop, CO 06-11-05

Abe: Low Opinion of Self Hampers Strong Desires

Originally from a long ago online friend who transcribed his talk w/ Abraham from back in the days before the hotseat. Now from my personal archive:

"Your desire to excel is in strong contradiction with your belief in self.  Your opinion of yourself and your fantastic desires are colliding. So Eastern philosophy would say "Desire not", and you would come back into balance, and that would be right.  Abraham's philosophy says:  Little by little raise the vibration of your belief of self and you will come back into harmony.   That is just not a fast process. 

And a very wise teacher would say to you: "Do some of both", do your best to booster your appreciation of yourself, while you bring your desires in check a little bit so the extremes is not so debilitating. 

We would so some of all of that.  We would do everything in our power to soothe ourselves.  We would sleep more, we would float on the swimming pool more, we wold meditate some, not extreme, we would go to pleasant movies.  In another words, what we want to do, we want to somehow find a way, and we are certainly not in a position to grant you anything.  But if we could, we would like to give you permission to pamper yourself more, to soothe yourself more, to love yourself more, to appreciate yourself more, because that is so very much needed.

When you say "what is it, what is it that keeps me in pain from the faster achievement of my desires?", we say lack of appreciation of self.  Now, you could spend time trying to figure out how you got there, that's ALL COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, you see what we are getting at?

Hold these words with you for a couple of days and use them if they soothe and if they help:

Abraham which is a non-physical energy and certainly the energy at my core - has expressed to me their utter appreciation, ADORATION, and certainly respect for me, and if Abraham, clear and guided and sure as they are, can look at me at as I stand in my humble mess, as I see though my eyes, and they can assure me that I am doing very well, that I am loved beyond words to express, then may I should lighten up on myself a little bit and give myself a break here and there. 

We would think that if you can really hear us when we say: You're loved and you're known fully, and you're appreciated by this non-physical energy called Abraham, which is not different from energy that some called God, if that energy can see me as I am and ADORE ME WHOLLY, and I AM SOMEHOW WRONG IN NOT ADORING MYSELF TOO.

As you focus there and hold this words, it will help you."