Self-Confidence and Identity Therapy
in Roseville, CA

Self-doubt, people-pleasing, and low self-confidence: What makes your head spin?

• You constantly doubt yourself, your achievements, or legitimacy 

• You find it hard to receive compliments; they just don’t resonate with you

• You’re afraid to make people angry, sad, or uncomfortable

• You feel too old, too young, too inexperienced, or too….. just not enough

• You fear that people find out that you’re a fraud or imposter

• You find it very hard to promote or assert yourself and stay true to yourself

While you often doubt yourself and seek others’ approval instead, you live in their version of reality, not yours. You may get increasingly frustrated because your life is not going where you want it to go, or you don’t enjoy much of your activities.

You may feel like a shipwreck cast aside while others seem to enjoy the ocean waves, the warm breeze, and each other’s company, living their ideal lives. 

Anger bursts out of you at times. But it often seems out of context because, when you’re feeling overwhelmed, you are not good at explaining yourself. If it makes no sense to you or others, you feel embarrassed or ashamed, and your voice sinks back to silence. 

You are not yourself.

It’s hard to trust yourself when you don’t know who you are

Some people grow up in an environment where they fit neatly and their identity develops quite effortlessly. Others may have to work a little harder. 

You may have never fit quite that well and learned to suppress parts of yourself to adapt. You may have been a puzzle piece from a different box. Nobody listened to your voice so you suppressed it and fully accepted others’ ideas of who you are without a doubt. You internalized others’ doubts of you. Instead of questioning the goodness of fit, you question your goodness.

Or perhaps you have developed a strong sense of identity; you knew who you were at some point — but circumstances have changed and you lost familiarity and your sense of security. You are getting disoriented, not knowing anymore where you really fit. You are plucked and transplanted from your native soil.

When you look at yourself from a narrow angle, focusing only on things you cannot do or do not know, it’s easy to distrust yourself because you are missing out on a whole lot more that’s still in you. You rely on others to see what you keep dismissing in yourself and want them to validate the Whole You. You keep distrusting you until someone else approves you. 

As if hearing the words from the outside seemed real while the internal voice — your own voice — lacked authority.

What you are experiencing may be a natural transition from a child’s need for predictability in the external circumstances so you know who to trust, follow and expect to nurture you, toward trusting your own internal skills to speak up for your needs and negotiate with other people to fulfill those needs — and ultimately, trusting your own abilities and strength to maintain composure and grace when you don’t get your wishes fulfilled.

Identity and self-confidence develop as you try yourself against the world

When plants grow in their natural environment, arbitrary external circumstances (nature) are in charge of their flourishing. When the environment changes, plants may lose their grounding. When you transplant one into your garden, your cultivating efforts become the strongest influence in developing this plant’s identity into its strongest self.

Self-confidence and identity therapy is your place to grow beyond a childhood reliance on circumstances outside your control for developing your identity and nurturing your confidence. You move into a cultivated environment where you are in charge of discovering what makes you flourish and cultivating a vibrant, well-rooted version of your Self.

As a child, you follow others and trust they know where they are going and have your best interests at heart. You believe they know you and how to nurture you to your best self. You learn about yourself from their feedback. When you want to see yourself, you look into a mirror. When you want to see your Self, you listen to other people’s opinions.

What you don’t know yet is that mirrors don’t always see or show everything you are. Mirrors can be crooked. People have their own agendas and limitations, including your parents. Giving birth to a baby does not guarantee knowing you or what’s best for you. Their feedback may not be the most fertile soil for developing what’s still hidden in you.

Therapy offers a new kind of mirror: a space where you can examine yourself with thoughtful, evidence-informed feedback from someone who has no personal stake in what you decide, other than your wellbeing and the goals we establish together. I don’t believe in an identity that’s out there waiting for you to find. Growth comes from exploring your inner hidden gems and making thoughtful choices of your own. It’s a lifetime quest because who you are, like the world, is constantly changing.

Our work starts with identifying your goals, ideals, and values and exploring practical ways of responding to conflicts within you and between you, so you can find the companion plants with whom you grow strongest. You learn to set external boundaries: what you are willing to give and accept, and develop internal boundaries: what you are willing to believe as true.

You learn to trust your creative thinking in response to the external world’s resistance to your efforts to position yourself. Other people, just like you, have their own meaningful agendas. Even if they exclude you, they are not out to betray you; even if they are not there to take care of you, they may still help you take care of yourself.

Speaking up for yourself and negotiating mutually favorable outcomes with others becomes the path to internal safety. Separating your identity from your behavior helps you be gentle with yourself while changing your behavior to meet your growing standards. You learn to consult both your emotions and reason for guidance.

Build a “safe home” in yourself—a supportive internal relationship you can return to when the outside world becomes stormy, as you become clearer about who you are and more courageous about stepping up for your needs and wants.

This sense of “I am who I am” develops through your own experiments with cultivating what’s best for you rather than relying on others to figure you out and, like random acts of nature, nurture you.

At the end of your days, you can truly say: “It was me. It was worth it.”

Wait, wait—I have questions…

“If I get proud of myself, I will be boasting”

There is a difference between having a healthy self-evaluation, being proud of who you are and what you have achieved with hard work and rubbing it in people’s faces. You can feel good about the person you are while not putting others down or putting yourself above them. You can stay in the middle: at the same level as others.

“It’s selfish to put myself first.”

Each of us is naturally “selfish” because our life is about us: deeply personal. Your body takes up space that others can’t. Others can’t have the air you breathe and the job you take. Your ideology, your values separate you from some — and connect you with others. 

It’s not what you take, but what you do with it, that matters. Trees “selfishly” take from their environment but then they nurture others with the fruit they bring.

“I don’t believe I have anything to offer.”

What have you tried? Is blindness to your strengths humility? 

Isn’t a sense of inferiority and then not developing your gifts selfish? When you deny your value, you are practically saying: “I have nothing to give, I can only take from others. Feed me forever because I am not capable of feeding myself and others.” So, I suggest you try. Let’s open that “old closet” and see what we can find there that can be useful to you and others — and make you glad you have it.

Open Your Mind — Open Your Wings

Self-confidence is knowing who you are and claiming your place in the world — neither above nor below others, but equal to them. 

You have the right to discover what you are good at, develop your strengths, and bring what you have to the world. 

Some of us were made to feel small for what we do well.

Most of us were never taught how to recognize our strengths or how to develop them.

When you’re ready to explore what you have, claim your pilot seat in life with greater self-trust, and let me be your navigator.

Make a free 15-minute call.

We can meet in person at my Roseville, CA office or virtually anywhere in California. 

Have any questions? Send me a message!

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