Defining Self-Belief

I want to believe.  No, this isn't that blog entry.  ;) 

I do want to believe though.  Really, I do.  Mostly I want to believe in myself.  That has probably been my biggest pursuit in self-knowledge, self-acceptance, self-help and the like in my life.

I think that this type of believing - this believing in your own skills, abilities and soul really - it is different than having determination or grit.  Determination can certainly stem from belief, but I believe isn't necessary for it.  Sometimes I feel like determination takes the place of belief for me and people often mistake it in me for the belief that I am missing.  Grit is simply something you are born with, or have developed due to circumstance.  Stubbornness can also be mistaken for belief and I damn well have plenty of that.

All of these comparisons and what not have become absolutely clear to me during my attempts to transition from subdivision life to farm life.  People have come out of the woodwork to either support or detract.  Unfortunately, the very family that taught me not to believe have been some of the major detractors.
 
I don’t have a big family and we certainly are not what I’d consider “close-knit”.  My dad lives the closest to me and helps me a lot with projects and such.  It doesn’t occur to him to not believe in me because, well, he knows I’m stubborn and I’ll eventually “get it” I think.  Also he doesn’t hear very well so I am not sure he catches half of what I say so there isn’t anything to disagree with.  My mom lives half a country away and my brother is about an hour from me but due to careers and other obligations we are lucky to see each other once a year at best. 

I’m still 12 to these folks really.  Isn’t that odd how when you don’t see people, even family, for years and years on a regular basis that their view of you doesn’t progress?

So, the lack of belief for others has gone something like this:  You can’t do this, it is crazy, why would you want to live on a farm?, all that work, what about the weather?, what about not having anyone? (I LOVE that one the most - as if I have anyone now)…  I’ve remained surprisingly calm through all of this and explained my whole thought process logically, which is damn surprising even to me because I have a known short fuse when my soul is in question and I am absolutely, admittedly the “different” child.  So maybe the logical calm has made an impact because slowly, over the course of a couple of weeks, we have gone from “you can’t” to some odd sort of guarded support and all kinds of helpful information.

I myself feel still a long way from any of this working out but my mom said yesterday - I told Ed (her husband) that you have always been extremely independent and that if any single woman can live on a farm it would be you.  I guess I’ll take that.  It is a drastic step up from “you can’t” so, yeah, I’ll take it. 

But, belief.  Is it born?  Is it made?  Is it a combination?  Like most things I would say it is a combination.  I can’t say that it is completely made because if it were, how do we explain still having it after being taught otherwise?  By the same token, how do we explain having self-doubt (often a learned pattern) if belief is automatically within us?  Determination, stubbornness, grit…are these all things that our brains and spirit already have uploaded to whatever degree when we pop out?  I find all this stuff extremely fascinating and sometimes I stand back and look at within myself like I’m a scientific observer.

This belief (or lack of) in oneself question probably could be defined in the same category as doubt in terms of things to be liberated from.  The thing I found interesting with it lately was the transition of other people related to my own belief.  Can self-belief (and confidence or logic within it) transform the doubts of others?  The very doubts that one’s own lack of self belief was learned from to a certain extent…

These are thoughts worth pondering, and I’m sure I will have time to do so as there is always something or another that I find myself involved in that makes no sense whatsoever to others… 


  

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