self doubt introduction

In common language, when we talk about someone having a big ego, we mean somebody who seems to think very highly of themself. I am great: a sort of Muhammad Ali approach to the self. But this feeling of being great is only one expression of the ego, one side of a coin. And the other side is exactly the opposite; a feeling that there’s something deeply wrong in myself. A great doubt about oneself. And this deep self doubt is very much the stuff of the ego. In forthcoming episodes we will look at some of the different manifestations or aspects of this self doubt, but here, to introduce the whole area of self doubt, I will make a few general comments.

If somewhere deep in our unconscious we feel there is something bad or wrong about ourself, then that creates other layers in the mind that try to compensate. Sometimes the negative feeling about oneself may be directly expressed and shown to the world. So if I’m feeling inferior it may come out directly. I might always be holding other people in very high esteem, very obviously to myself and to other people.

But more often such negative self doubt manifests outwardly with the opposite, with a compensatory layer in our psychology. So if I’m feeling inferior, I may begin to act in superior ways, talking down to people unnecessarily. Or perhaps I might seek positions of power. I might want to become a politician or an army general, so that I can begin to feel superior. But this won’t help. The feeling of inferiority which underlies such compensatory behaviour will not go away just because of the compensation. Unfortunately the two will not cancel each other out. Instead, they will exist as a division within one’s own psychology, a fragmentation of the mind with one part battling it out with the other. A never-ending anguish of the soul. And this is not just true of a feeling of inferiority, but of any of the manifestations of self doubt.

So regardless of which flavour of self doubt we have within us, we need to find the awareness of what is happening in our own mind: in our behaviour towards others, in the things we feel we have to hide, in the ways we pretend and play games with other people, putting on more and more masks, trying to compensate for something, something which we ourself may no longer be aware of.

For these self doubts are often buried deep in the unconscious, and so to unearth them, we need a tremendous awareness. We need to carefully watch our own motivations and try and get in touch once more with these unconscious feelings about ourself. They are beliefs, deeply held beliefs that have been there for years, decades, perhaps since early childhood, perhaps since the moment we were born. But whatever their source, wherever they originated in our life, they are ultimately groundless. 

We are what we are. This is what existence has created in us. It is what existence wished for us to be. And so, this self doubt is also a great doubt of god. And another way of dissolving self doubt is to begin to trust in the whole process of existence. With that trust, all doubt is deeply eroded. Doubts about the outer world and doubts about one’s self.

Enough for now.