Dreamshaping: Seeds of Doubt

Enjoy an audio small plate. Her name is Bella, and she’ll be your server today.

It’s never too early to doubt yourself. While that’s unlikely to be spoken by the most advanced two-year-old, it seems to be one of the earliest concepts we learn. We teeter on our tiny feet, attempting to walk for the first time. The giants in our lives encourage us, cheering us on to put one foot in front of the other, and then … we tumble. Our faces scrunch up. We probably cry. We wait awhile, looking for signs of approval, and we try again.

One lesson we learn from this is that a second attempt is inevitable if we ever want to walk upright. Another lesson we learn is that we may once again fall, and the next time it might be harder. Doubt sets in: can I do this? Can I please the giants staring at me? Can I gain their recognition, their encouragement and love? Or will I fail? Will they give up on me? Will they tell me I’m not good enough? Will they be the first to tell me this, as a sort of preparation for a world in which doubting ourselves is a default position?

Doubt is a weed from the garden of childhood. Each of us has unique experiences of this, because each of us is unique. One self-doubting child grows up to be a Nobel laureate, another grows up to be a criminal, and too many never grow up at all, allowing the seeds of doubt planted in their youngest lives to metastasize until they become a self-annihilating cancer. They treat it with addictions, or rage, or, too often, suicide. Doubt got the best of them, and yet, the doubt that overwhelmed them—that can overwhelm us—is a toxic flower in the mind. It does not exist outside ourselves. The more we’re able to free ourselves from doubt, the more immune we are to the giants in our lives and in our minds who tell us we will fall. The voices in our heads began as other people’s voices! We can tune them out. We can get back up on our wobbly feet and walk wherever we want to go. We can run, and jump, and stand our ground! We can let the doubt be pricks on the skin we soothe away with a loving brush of the hand. We can weed the gardens of our minds and souls, and marvel at what new things may grow there.