Dancing with the Voice of Doubt

Take a moment to pause and reflect, what has your relationship with doubt been in the past? Learning to constructively move alongside feelings of doubt can lead to increased confidence, problem solving, and overall creativity. There are many reasons doubt creeps in due to our fight-or-flight instincts as well as social conditioning. We won’t go too far into the multiple reasons why it exists, as would rather share a few personal stories and tools for you to consider the next time you hear or sense this voice of doubt.

From an early age, I learned to address doubt through participating in both individual and team sports. I spent many hours on the court competing with my volleyball team, in the ring sparring as a kick boxer, and eventually in the saddle flying over jumps in partnership with a horse. In the early days it was my sport coaches who supported the skill of noticing, naming, and reframing what my relationship with doubt meant. They helped me to see it as a normal reaction to step into these arenas and I learned to welcome the discomfort of butterflies in my stomach. I read a number of psychology books and eventually worked directly with a trained sport psychologist who opened my eyes to managing my emotions, along with my true sense of agency. Activating choice offered a distinct moment of reflection, as once we had established greater self-awareness related to the voice of doubt and recognized that I could choose my response, then I could reframe what my relationship to doubt was. This literally changed the game for me. This voice didn’t need to run the show or hold me back from performing.

When working with coaching clients over the past few years, it has become apparent that their voice of doubt (also known to be the inner critic or even the voice of judgement) tends to run the show for the majority of people. Based on my experience, when this voice of doubt is in the drivers seat, we are not able to meet our goals from a place of wellbeing and dignity, but rather from a place of anxiety, scarcity, and fear. Learning to work with and eventually dance with doubt - as a welcome partner - is a key skill to build, whether you are in the sports arena, in the boardroom, or somewhere in between.  

When we pause to consider our social conditioning and norms growing up, let us consider the following questions: Which voices did you listen to that shaped your beliefs and mindset from an early age? Are there voices from the past that created a stronger narrative of doubt than others? What did these voices say to you and was there factual evidence that this story was true? Read on for a few ideas and tools on learning to dance with doubt.

8 Ways to Dance with Doubt:

- Notice and name your thoughts and emotions. This cognitive tool is practiced as a component of emotional agility, as outlined by Susan David and Christina Congleton. They suggest the simple act of labelling your thoughts and feelings allows you to consider the situation more objectively. Labelling doubt as an emotion means you can see it for what it is: a temporary form of data.

- Be curious! Curiosity opens us up to many possibilities with a beginner’s mindset. What a beautiful way to approach the world as we consider our experience to be constantly evolving and unfolding each and every day. Put yourself in the shoes of a detective or a scientist in a lab and formulate learning questions that will enable your curiosity to lead you forward. 

- Present moment awareness. Ask yourself – what’s here now? Then pause to really allow yourself to notice any distractions and find ways to let them melt away or dissolve as you increase your awareness in the here and now. Consider that you are already fully connected and complete, offering yourself grace in this present moment awareness.   

- Give yourself permission to walk backwards. Take a trip down memory lane to reflect on when this doubt first set in. How old were you at the time? Dialogue with your younger self. What were the circumstances and story that first came through and what emotions were reflected. How is this story different to the present day?

- Recognize your patterns. Does doubt creep in because you know this is an area to work on and you’ve been here before? Have you received feedback that stung and do you keep replaying that one jarring comment in your mind? Is there a story or narrative that automatically plays which you know is no longer true? As you learn to recognize these thought patterns over time, you will be better able to dance with them rather than wrestle them.

- Practice the pause. Mindfulness may mean stillness to collect your emotions and thoughts as you take a pause. Think of it as a beneficial time out. Rather than speeding past this feeling, what if you embrace and savour it. The practice of mindfulness develops our sense of tuning in with others, the world, and ourselves.

- Reconnect with your purpose. Why are you doing what you’re doing? What purpose does this serve? Who will benefit from you moving through doubt? What’s the higher purpose that you are in service to? Your sense of purpose is larger than your fear. Chase your purpose to move you back into action with confidence.

- Invite love in. Consider yourself a compassionate witness and set an intention or affirmation that you “invite love in” or “allow myself to shift from doubt to love”. Cultivate what the Buddhists call loving-kindness, starting with inner love to yourself, which then extends out to the world around you.

There are many different tools available to work through and learn to dance with doubt. Dancing as a metaphor holds that much wisdom is found in the body and many of these practices are indeed somatic tools. Dancing itself is something that helped me to literally shake off emotions that were tucked away throughout the pandemic with my head, heart and body becoming more attuned rather than fragmented. Early on in the pandemic, I learned of a few different dance studios that offered online classes and have much gratitude for these virtual bursts of movement, expression and energy. Dancing has a way of dusting off the cobwebs from our mind and spirit to allow us to open to new possibilities. Perhaps dancing should have been number nine on the list!

To wrap up, consider that the Buddha suggests we are liberated from fear when we stop clinging to the mistaken idea that things are enduring and instead embrace the reality that life is impermanent. This too shall pass. Emotions are energy in motion. Consider all the different ways that you can learn to move and dance with your emotions. They are temporary visitors and friends. If we recognize our emotions in this way, we can establish a more balanced perspective on how we acknowledge them, embrace them and eventually learn to let them go.

“You must discover for yourself the most skilful, effective, and compassionate ways to open your body, psyche, and heart. No one can tell you what the right way is for you. The journey is individual by nature, requiring primary experience; collective spirituality might not be able to meet the longing within you. Although many mentors and guides appear as signposts along the way, the true teacher or teachings will always point you back into your own uniqueness by way of a secret language only you can decipher. The journey of the heart is radical and revolutionary and requires you, exactly as you are, in all your chaotic glory.” – Matt Licata

References:
David, S. & Congleton, C. (Nov 2013). Emotional Agility. Harvard Business Review: Managing Yourself.

Kozak, A. (2015). Mindfulness A to Z: 108 insights for awakening now. Wisdom Publications.

Licata, M. (2020). A Healing Space: Befriending ourselves in difficult times. Sounds True.

Mohr, T. (2014). Playing Big: Practical wisdom for women who want to speak up, create and lead. Penguin Random House.