How meditation can build confidence
Confidence techniques are many and varied. A very important one is mindfulness meditation. At first sight this may not seem like a confidence technique, but it is. My own confidence has certainly increased since I've been meditating.
It is not easy to build confidence when your head is spinning with negative thoughts, stress and tension. It is much easier to build confidence when you feel calm, relaxed and patient. Meditation can help you do this and help you feel more accepting of yourself. When this happens confidence has a solid foundation upon which to build.
There are many ways being able to meditate can help you become more confident. Here are just a few of them.
1. Reduce negative thinking.
Negative thoughts can destroy your confidence. What meditation can do is to help you recognise when you are having negative thoughts. It can then train you not to latch on to and believe the negative thoughts. In this way your confidence has more freedom to develop.
2. A clearer mind can be a more confident mind.
Negative thoughts are more likely to be produced in a cluttered, frantic mind. Meditation can help you to have a clearer, more peaceful mind. This means it can become easier for you to reduce the amount of negative thoughts. With fewer negative thoughts you have a far greater chance of being confident.
3. Greater calm leads to greater confidence.
One of the major benefits of meditation is that people can become calmer and less easily upset and flustered. They can also become more patient and less prone to frustration, anger and irritation. By staying calm in difficult situations it is easier to think clearly and to stay confident, instead of losing your confidence in a rush of emotion.
4. You will look more confident.
A calm face which is free of worry or tension, anger or anxiety is more likely to be perceived by others to be confident than one which looks tight or unsettled.
5. Less anxiety.
Anxiety and worry can eat away at a person's confidence and self-esteem. When people meditate they often find that they become less anxious and worry less about what is happening. Meditation helps you to learn how to stay in the present moment. This means that you spend less time worrying about what will happen in the future, or going through regrets in the past. This can lead to greater levels of contentment which in itself can build your confidence.
If you want to feel calmer and build your confidence consider adding meditation to your set of confidence techniques.
Written by Rachel Green: Motivational Speaker | Communication and Networking Specialist
Rachel has been meditating (on and off!) since 1987, and now teaches it, usually to beginners who think they can't do it. If you'd like to know how to meditate, she is the author of the 2 CD set: "Happy not hassled: Easy meditations to manage your emotions and find contentment".
She guides you through four practical and easy-to-follow meditations and explains how to use meditation to manage your emotions, such as stress, anger and anxiety.
Copyright Confident Woman Australia, 2011.
NB: This article is not provided as an alternative to obtaining professional advice from an appropriately qualified professional. Please seek the help you need with your confidence techniques.
Rachel Green
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