Unshakeable Confidence: Facing Fear, Taking Risks, and Surviving the Falls

ziji (zē’jē) n. 1. radiant inner confidence

I’m writing this sitting on a plane ride from North Carolina en route to Ashland via San Francisco. Sitting next to me is Fred, a Texan hydrogeologist. He tells me a story. It starts with a dream. Back in the day as a single man, he promised himself that when he had kids, he would raise them in Mexico. For him, it was the perfect place for the way he wanted to raise his kids, allowing for cultural immersion and life-expanding experiences. Lo and behold, years later, at the height of his career, the kids arrived. Not the best timing. Did he freak out knowing he was at a highpoint in his career and tell himself, “Hellz no! I am not going to Mexico! Not now!” ?

Au contraire. And neither did his wife. He stayed true to his dream and they sold everything, moving their family to Mexico. The first six years were full of trials to say the least. It was challenging to find a job as a Texan hydrogeologist, even after having done work there previously. I think he may have used the words “it was actually kind of like hell.” They wondered, often, “What have we DONE?!”

BUT, over the course of about 6 years, things started turning around. He and his wife started a furniture business. It grew. It became a success. And now, after 16 years in Mexico, they are quite happy and content. In the end, he says he sees it as one of the best decisions of his life, and it has been a truly enriching experience for his kids, which was the whole point of taking that risk in the first place. Fred confirms this by saying that to NOT have ever gone to Mexico – wondering “What if?” – would have been far worse than going through those challenging 6-7 years. Fred, my friends, has Ziji.

Ziji is all about confidence. But not just any confidence. True. Radiant. Inner. Confidence.

Where the heck IS this Ziji?!

Let’s start by imagining what life was like before anything “bad” ever happened to us (sah-weet!). I’d like to use the metaphor of a house. Once upon a proverbial time, you were in a big beautiful home. You had lots of open windows that brought in lots of light and refreshing breezes. It felt spacious and free. As you looked through the windows and doors of this home and the breeze wafted over you, you got to experience life “out there.” The windows and doors allowed opportunity to come in, and for you to seek it out. Over time, as you looked out different windows and doors, you had good and bad experiences with the world “out there.” However, as you experienced the bad ones, they hurt you so deeply. They scared you. They pissed you off. You wanted to avoid those experiences and protect yourself from them as much as possible, so that you never had to experience them – or anything like them – ever again. They made you…uncomfortable. You closed those windows and doors, vowing to keep them shut forever.

What kinds of things cause us to close off to the world and shut those windows and doors of opportunity?
Well, a few examples from some of my past clients’ lives are:

  • Being told it isn’t realistic to live our passions (dreaming shuts down!).
  • A partner leaving you for someone else (trust shuts down!).
  • Splurging on yourself for once, then losing your job (generosity towards yourself – and likely others – shuts down!).
  • Hearing your parents argue day and night about money (being comfortable with money and abundance shuts down!).
  • Putting your all into applying to the best gradate school out there and not getting accepted (taking big risks shuts down!).
  • Putting on your first art show and nothing sells (believing you can be successful living your passion shuts down!).

There’s lots.

Blam! Slam! Boom! Thud! Eventually, all the windows and doors are shut, you are in a dark house, cold, dank, lifeless. But hey, YOU’RE SAFE! Woohoo!

Well, not really.

You think you’ve managed to protect yourself from those bad experiences ever happening again, but you’ve also closed yourself off to any possible opportunities, joy, and light. You don’t take risks where there is even the remote possibility of failing. You take apparent “risks” for things you are sure to succeed in, and are successful in the things you actually attempt to do. But you never take any real risks.

You only date people who likely won’t dump you. You apply for jobs that you’re overqualified for. You never take vacations or buy nice things for yourself because you need to save LOTS (“you never know what’ll happen”) and you pride yourself in being “frugal.” You have a safe job with good benefits and it’s “alright.” You paint as a hobby and your family admires your talent and tells you they are so glad you went to law school instead of art school. And you smile back. You put off starting that business of yours because you have kids, and no “responsible” mom would do that with kids so you’re doing the “right” thing.

By the way, we often write off living our passions and dreams with the excuse of needing to be “responsible.” Yet we seem to have the definition of resposible mean to only do things that are completely safe. No risks. Risks are “bad” and “irresponsible.” Well, perhaps Fred didn’t pick the “safest” option, but it didn’t qualify as irresponsible…at least not in Ziji land, or to his happy kids who now travel the world and dream big.

The result of not taking any real risks is you never know what might actually be possible should you live life full-out. Risks and all. And you’re scared as hell that you don’t have all your bases covered and something is going to sneak in through one of those windows and doors and knock you around again. And it probably will.

What a crappy place to be.

So what is the real fear here? And once again…where the heck is this Ziji?
Why do we protect ourselves with such fervor? It’s not because of what is actually happening in the NOW. Usually, it is because we don’t think we’ll be able to take what comes next, that we’ll be able to handle it again, or because we imagine the worse case scenario and we know we just don’t LIKE being uncomfortable (and its myriad manifestations of intensity)!

In her book Unconditional Confidence, Pema Chodron describes getting knocked down by ocean waves. Life is like standing at the ocean’s edge. Eventually, there will always come a wave that will knock us down. When the huge scary ones in life arrive that look like they will knock us down, we either try to run away or stand up with all our might to keep from getting knocked down. We try to protect ourselves.

Thing is, the ocean is powerful. The waves we’re talking about here always knock us down. It’s just part of being human. So you see, it doesn’t work to run away from them. It’s part of being alive. They always catch up to you, and if you run they just get ya from behind and you eat a bunch of sand and it gets in your eyes and in your undies. You can try with all your might to be “strong,” plant your feet, and not get taken out…but it’s exhausting, and once you’re knocked down, you’re just more tired at the end of it all. Sometimes you get held down a long time under water and get spun around like in a washing machine, and you barely make it up for air. Other times, you get a bunch of sand in your mouth and water in your ears. But what we seem to fail to notice is: we ALWAYS get back up!

Maybe one time we got knocked down and it took a few weeks…or months…or years to get back up. Another time it took a few days. Another time a few minutes. No matter what, we always stood back up. Shaken, but standing.

So our fear in the end isn’t in the waves themselves...it is the fear that we might not get back up.

These waves of life do recede. And we always have the opportunity to get back up. And we HAVE gotten back up many times in the past. So instead of trying to protect yourself, remind yourself of all the times you have gotten up in your life. THAT is where true radiant inner confidence – Ziji – comes from. And you can’t develop Ziji without having been knocked down and getting back up again. You need to know that you can stand up again and again. You always do! I’m not saying it is always fun. It’s way different than body surfing. I’m just saying you always get up, so stop worrying about that part.

If you start to embrace the waves, and if you cultivate your Ziji, your inner confidence, when these waves take you down, you will get up faster and faster each time. And the waves will feel smaller and smaller each time. You will stop focusing on protecting yourself from the waves, trying to figure out ways for them to stop happening, working out to stand your ground. Instead, you will accept that waves happen. You will have the confidence to know you will get back up. And somewhere deep inside, you will know that wondering “what if” is a hell of a lot worse than getting knocked down and getting back up. ZIji is inside you. In all of us.

The waves in life WILL happen, whether you accept them or not (they have!).

You WILL get knocked down (it’s happened!).

And you WILL get back up (you DID!).

You have enough. We all do. Build your Ziji, your radiant inner confidence, and you will be willing to take those risks, get knocked down, and get back up because THAT is living. Keep the windows and doors open, let in the light and the opportunities. The rewards are priceless: joy, fulfillment, passion, unshakeable confidence, contentment, peace of mind, growing beyond your wildest dreams, doing what you never thought possible, inspiring others around you to do the same.

So do it. Ziji Up! The perfect antidote to fear is action…even small action.

Bring it: make a list of the times you’ve been taken down by a wave and stood up again. See this as proof of what you already know: you have all you need inside of you.

“Car”ma, Community, and Connections

I’d been driving over the Siskiyou Pass towards San Francisco in my trusty 2008 Subaru Outback when I decided to christen her with the name “Rocinante.”  I hadn’t been inspired by a name until that drive. However, on this day, as I saw the volcanic valleys stretched before me and Mount Shasta boldly standing her ground, I was reminded of Don Quixote’s  companion horse (albeit a skinny one) named Rocinante, which happens to also be the namesake of Steinbeck’s camper truck in which he journeyed the country in Travels With Charley. I thought it fitting for the amazing adventures I’ve had–and was looking forward to having–with my earth-brown auto with “MIDWYF” plates.  Her trunk was perpetually filled with camping gear and toys for journeys into the mountains or to the ocean.

I don’t know if she took offense to the name, but Rocinante broke down suddenly and fiercely only a few days later on my way back to Oregon in Willows, CA, about an hour south of Chico. It was a dark and lonely night (really–it was!), and the gas station at which she blew two head gaskets was desolated and dimly lit with buzzing fluorescent lights. Many days later, we would discover she developed the auto-equivalent of a pulmonary embolism.  Her radiator suddenly and unexpectedly formed a plug that blocked all flow to the engine. Poor Rocinante…she sat steaming and gurgling at the Willows station until all that built up pressure and heat finally dissipated. When it did, the station seemed to slowly  fill with curious and chivalrous townsmen who hmmm’d and haaaa’d at her engine. The general consensus was that she was toast.

I managed to have her towed to the nearest Subaru dealer in Chico after a night at the Willows Holiday Inn Express. While the mechanics in Willows were kind and generous, they looked at her engine like it was made of laser beams and I had to bring her to the nearest qualified shop. I missed a day in clinic as I spent that Monday being told of the thousands of dollars I would have to pay if this ended up not being covered by Subaru or my insurance.

Later that day I rented a car, as loaner cars from the dealer could only go 100 miles from the shop (and Ashland was further than that!), the regional Subaru rep wasn’t going to cover a rental until they  decided what happened and who would pay for what, and my USAA auto insurance only covered car rental for incidents related to car accidents. My insurance rep did ask if a rodent had chewed through a hose or something. In that case, he said, it would be a covered condition (in addition to accidents). Hmmm. Sorry, no rodent. Just two blown head gaskets. I couldn’t wait for anyone to decide anything as I needed to get back to work,  so my trusty rental Ford Focus and I were introduced. I was afraid to name her lest she have the same reaction as Rocinante. We headed off, anonymously, into the night.

After ten days without Rocinante, I had to drive back down to Chico to drop off my rental car, as apparently the Enterprise rental company in Chico was too small to allow out-of-state drop-offs, and I was now granted a loaner car in Oregon (rental car still not covered…long story…). Rocinante was still in quarantine until the regional Subaru rep was able to examine her, and they hadn’t even started the repair, so I needed someone to come who would drive me back as well. Up for a ride, anyone? Anyone???????

In case you’re wondering, I recently found out Subaru is covering the whole repair as Rocinante was well-fed and cared for by Subaru here in Oregon, and the development of her condition remains a mystery. The things Subaru didn’t cover were finding people to drive back and forth with me to Chico to drop off rental cars and the like, finding people to lend me a car after driving back from Chico since I was on call that night and couldn’t pick up a loaner car until the next morning–but I still needed an emergency vehicle, and taking care of my sleep-deprivation from late nights far from home or while on call here delivering babies as the saga unfolded.

This is where I was reminded once again how misfortune can often open my eyes to the blessings in my life. Friends–people I’d known for years as well as those I’d only spent a few occasions with–rose to the terribly inconvenient situation and stepped up for me. Members of my community went out of their way to lend me their car, cook me a delicious home-made dinner after I arrived late from an 8-hour journey to Chico and back, and even drive with me (half the time by themselves!) on that 8 hour journey…and we weren’t even heading to Yosemite (which usually makes an 8-hour drive worth it). They woke up early to drop me off at the shop,  listened to me, supported me, rallied for me, laughed with me at the ridiculousness of all of it, and strategized the future of Rocinante. My partner, over 700 miles away, regularly kept track of my fiascoes and assured me all would be well. They helped me feel cared for.

To feel like a part of a community is a blessing, and one that has been relatively challenging to cultivate in my life as a part-time vagabond. I seem to be in and out of town with relative frequency (Ashland is the place I’ve lived the longest in my adult life!), and I often wonder what I can give back to people in my community during the often brief times we are able to share.

I’ve had far more serious challenges for which my friends have come forth: two diagnoses of cancer, a renal auto-transplant, my father’s passing to name a few, and I am reminded of the importance of offering true connection to the people in my life, because that is what was invaluable for me during those times. Not just pleasantries, but authentic connection. I think that as I write this, what I mean by connection is that the people we are interacting with feel seen and heard. And that means that we try to have to the wisdom to know what they need to feel that way–not just what we would need to feel that way in a similar moment.

My community grows deeper from shared connections. I have been gone a lot lately, and now that I’ll be around for the next couple of weeks, I am looking forward to helping those around me know what they mean to me…to feel cared for, seen and heard. We all deserve that, because each moment of this life is precious, and each one of us deserves to be uplifted and held by those close to us.

We humans love and live for connection–it’s not the  multiple superficial ones, but quality and authentic connections that truly sustain us. It would be unnecessary for someone we care about to feel taken for granted, so I encourage us all to set the intention to remember a little more often that the little connections matter, and to go out of our way to do something special for those in our lives. You can write a card and drop it off on the porch, make that phone call that seems there is no time for, buy them a copy of that book by the author they always talk about, have tea, send a funny photo, or simply–and perhaps most importantly–tell them authentically and with presence that they are important to you and why, and listen to them when they speak. Like the Tong-len meditations in Tibetan Buddhism, once we do that with the people close to us for which it might flow a little easier, we can then move on to help those with which we have seemingly brief and passing interactions to feel seen. We are all using our life force, in whatever we do and with whomever we are doing it with, and it is equally valuable to all of us. Let’s make it worthwhile!