How our inner safety helps us to choose with confidence
Standing behind our decisions with confidence can be difficult. For many of us, decision-making has been shaped by past experiences where it didn’t feel safe to choose for ourselves, where avoiding conflict, staying small, or putting others first felt like the only way to stay protected.
This pattern of over-thinking and trying to tick every box correctly to try to make absolutely sure we are going to make a safe choice becomes ingrained, so even simple decisions become complicated and overwhelming. The fear of getting it ‘wrong’, upsetting others, or being judged clouds our vision and leave us stuck in indecision.
So, if this has been ingrained in us for years, what can we do about it?
Part of the healing process is learning to listen inwardly, trust the quiet voice of our adult, wise Self, and make choices that honour our truth.
That sounds all a bit vague.
How do we ‘listen inwardly’ and ‘trust our adult wise Self’?
It’s a journey of self-awareness – one that takes some time and practise.
The goal is to gradually bulldoze the deep well-worn pathways the neurons in our brain automatically travers when we face choices, and build new pathways that are not dictated by fear.
We do this by exploring how and why we make decisions the way we do, what is important in our decision-making processes and why we feel those factors are important. Often this is the first realisation that we refer to past conditioning from parents and role-models without question. Asking why these factors matter and how, brings some clarity. Sometimes the things we have been conditioned to consider important, or even critical to our survival, are not actually what is important to us in the present moment as the adults we have grown into.
As we explore ourselves more deeply, we get to know the parts of us that fear making decisions – often it’s our younger, vulnerable self carrying old messages of doubt or rejection. If there has been years of being told you are stupid, incapable, wrong, selfish and unworthy then it is going to take time for you to come to terms with the fact that your current thoughts about yourself are merely a story you are replaying from your conditioned past.
Maybe you witnessed stress in your family around decisions which taught you that any choice could be dangerous. If you witnessed angry arguments about family decisions, then this will have infused fear into your own decision-making. It is interesting how our bodies keep the score here too, how we can feel in our nervous system the fears from the past as soon as a choice needs to be made, no matter what it is. That is the body remembering the stress surrounding decision-making that we learned from our past experiences and gearing us up for fight or flight. The big problem here is that being in a state of stress is the least productive way to start making decisions!
As we question ourselves and become more aware, our sense of inner safety grows and decisions begin to feel less like a threat and we are able to truly consider what matters to us, to who we are, and to the life we want to live.
It’s important to remember that confidence in decision-making isn’t about always knowing the outcome. It’s about learning to trust yourself enough to make the best choice you can, with the information you have, and then be kind to yourself as the path unfolds.
Together, we practice slowing down, noticing where fear speaks louder than truth, and work to find a clam place from which to think clearly. Sometimes that looks like pausing, breathing, and asking: What do I need right now? What would feel most aligned with who I’m becoming?
Over time, we begin to feel more anchored and less swayed by old patterns or other people’s expectations. We learn to move forward from a deepening trust in ourselves. It is a freedom I’d love everyone to experience, to be able to stand behind decisions with a sense of calm steadiness and self-respect, no matter the outcome.
