Photo Credit: Pixabay
Photo Credit: Pixabay

Today I want to tell you about a moment in my life where I needed my confidence to be at its best. I needed it desperately as I was due to speak at the United Nations in New York. It was indeed a very big deal so two days prior I was chatting with my sister Emily on the phone. She'd rung to check that I was ok and to wish me the best of luck for my trip to the Big Apple. She knew it was going to be somewhat challenging as I'd not spoken at the United Nations before, and that my presentation subject - kindness, equality and the limiting boxes we find ourselves in - was dear to my heart.

So Emily asked if I was feeling nervous or confident.

I said, "I’m not nervous in the slightest, and I have a feeling of calm and inner peace whenever I think about speaking in New York in front of so many people." and that " I’m not sure how my confidence is, but I’m not worried one little bit."

I think hearing this cool, calm approach from me must have been a bit of a surprise to my sister, because although she knows I speak and teach a lot, she also knew that I'd struggled in the past with issues around my self-esteem and had suffered horrible panic attacks and anxiety over the years.

She wanted to know… "How come Mr Cool & Calm has arrived in town?"

I explained that my prolonged Commitment to Kindness had boosted my confidence and made me feel very relaxed about speaking, even at the United Nations in front of world leaders.

Here's the backstory, and an explanation about this idea of Committing to Kindness.

About 15 years ago I was working with a client within my practice, and we were talking about how she felt her parents had left her with little or no confidence. They'd had really high expectations of her, and were highly critical of everything that she did, leaving her with a sense that she wasn't ever good enough.

I asked if she saw much of her parents now, and she said, "No they'd both died about 20 years ago, within a year of each other."

At that moment it came to me that this lady had taken over the role of her parents and was still evaluating and criticizing everything she did, and that we should explore time together.

So, over the next few sessions, we explored the nature of time and how she was constantly undermining her ability to become truly confident or good about herself in the present, based on her parents’ expectations of her in the past.

We started to look at how her past made her feel now, and how her actions in the present would influence her in the future, which all seemed to make sense to her.

Then we took it up a level and explored the possibility that the past, present and future versions of herself all existed in this moment, and that they were all connected and influencing each other. And that's where it started to get even more interesting.

I asked her to talk about her inner dialogue, what she was saying to herself.

She described how whenever she did anything, she'd go back and analyse the decisions she'd made and the actions she'd taken, to see if she'd made a mistake, or done something wrong.

"And what do you find?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, of course, I find mistakes or things I could have done better," she said.

"And then what do you do?" I asked, although if I'm honest I already knew the answer.

"I go back and beat myself up." she said, "I ask myself… How could I be so stupid? and questions like that."

As we explored this some more, it turned out she'd go back years and years, to really early versions of herself, and beat them up, over and over again. There wasn't a limit to how far back she would go back to find a version of herself that hadn't done something well or made some mistake. Or how many times she'd beat them up.

When I asked if she always tried her best, she looked shocked. "Of course I do, I always try my best."

So here we have it. Someone who tries their best, and still gets beaten up by a future version of themselves, repeatedly. A person who really tries hard and does something in good faith, and still gets torn apart for not knowing something that only becomes apparent much later. I thought… "How cruel and unkind is that?"

So, over the next month, I asked her to make a Commitment to Kindness, which involved her agreeing to not beat up, be cruel or harsh to any previous versions of herself. She could go back to the past and learn, and grow from their actions and that experience, but she was expressly forbidden from beating them up. As I sent her off, I didn't say what I expected to happen over the next month, and I have to say, I wasn't expecting to be so astonished.

Four weeks later, she walked in the door and she was smiling, standing taller, brimming with confidence and thrilled to see me. I asked her how she was feeling, and she said. "Amazing, calm and utterly different, like I'm free. What's happened?"

This is what I explained to her about why I'd suggested that she made a Commitment to Kindness and my understanding of what had happened as a result.

Every previous version of you forms the basis of who you are now. Every event, conversation, action, lesson and experience, absolutely everything. So if you go back and undermine, beat up or ruin the self-esteem of a previous version of yourself, you've just

weakened your own self-esteem in the here and now. You are your past, and your past is you. Plus your past and your present all exist together, so every action in beating up your past self, instantly translates into the now, and undermines your current self.

So, the moment you made a Commitment to Kindness and said you weren't going to beat yourself up, you started on a path to strengthen and build your past self, and as a result, your current self-esteem and how you feel in this moment started to improve. They're all connected. But that's not the real power behind a Commitment to Kindness and how that makes you feel in the here and now; there's something even more powerful.

The moment you make a Commitment to Kindness and say you're not going to ever beat up and earlier version of yourself, then the current version of yourself knows that it can try its absolute best, make the odd mistake and it's never going to be beaten up, ridiculed or destroyed by a future version of you. That's the commitment you've made, to treat yourself in a kind and caring way. As a result, you can learn, grow and expand to your most brilliant self, by stretching, exploring AND by making mistakes.

Does this way of treating your past as a kind lesson allow you to do absolutely anything? No. You've still got to operate within the bounds of what is decent and the right thing to do, in line with your conscience. You're just allowed to try your best and make mistakes.

And that's why I wasn't feeling stressed about speaking at the United Nations, and actually feeling quite confident. I knew I was going to try my very best, and if I happened to make a mistake, or learn something while I was there, I wasn't going to be beaten up by the person I share my most intimate thoughts and life with. I'd made a commitment to treat myself with a Commitment to Kindness, whatever happened. I knew that was the deal, and that a future version of me was going to stick to it. That was the promise I'd made and how I'd been living my life.

Making a Commitment to Kindness in the way you treat your present, past and future versions of yourself is a powerful way to boost your sense of self-worth, confidence and self-esteem, plus it's a whole lot nicer living with someone who treats you well, than some cruel and unforgiving taskmaster. Plus, imagine if you were treating a future version of yourself with kindness how much better your diet and exercise plan would be. You see, a Commitment to Kindness isn't just about our mental and emotional wellbeing; it has a massive impact on your physical and spiritual health too.

Based on this, I'd encourage you to initially observe how kind you're currently treating your present, past or future self, and if you think you could be a little nicer, then make a Commitment to Kindness and give it a real chance for 30 days. It'll make the world of difference, I promise.

Nick Haines
Nick Haines

Nicholas Haines is the co-author of The Story of Boxes, a Kindness Ambassador at the Five Institute and the creator of The Vitality Test, as well as an international speaker, author, strategist, teacher in Chinese energetics and a leading light in the #NoMoreBoxes campaign. This content is taken from his soon to be released book, Feeling Good About Yourself. Visit www.nicholas-haines.com/ks to take The Vitality Test and find out more.


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