Episode 063 - Doubting the Doubter

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

In the last episode, we took a look at our mind’s built-in propensity for doubt, which is critical to the healthy functioning of our intelligence. Without it, we simply could not progress.

Used in the right amount, for the right reasons, at the right time and in the right way, doubt can produce incredibly positive results. For example, doubt is at the very root of the scientific method, which has been largely responsible for most of the extraordinary advancements that we’ve made over the last four hundred years.

This method, based on logic first began in 1610, when Galileo doubted the Church’s position that the sun revolved around the earth. He got in serious trouble for it, but after refining his telescope, it was obvious to him that his position was true, despite the superstitious, inaccurate religious dogmas of the day.

So, that’s an example of the positive use of doubt. But it’s important to remember that it can also be truly a double-edged sword, and on the negative side, it can be utterly catastrophic. Unbridled doubt bonded to negative feelings like anger, guilt and fear can drive us to act against our own best interests, doing and saying irrational things that we would never do if we were in our right mind.

Now we’re going take the idea of doubt a step deeper by examining self-doubt, which can be one of the most insidious inner challenges we ever have to face. The dictionary defines self-doubt as a simple lack of faith in one’s self, a basic loss of self-confidence, which may not sound like much at first, but it’s a poisonous seed that can viciously grow like wildfire.

An easy way to examine it is to break it down into three basic parts; let’s look at some of the harm that self-doubt can do, followed by a brief summary of its root causes. And then, we’ll go into a couple of simple ways to grow beyond it.

So, what kind of harm can self-doubt do to us? First of all, on a personal level, it can cause significant damage to our self-esteem, which hinders our creativity as well as our productivity, bringing on a mountain of regret and self-pity. Over time, it begins to block our overall inner growth, especially in the key areas of emotional, psychological, and spiritual wellness. All of this leads to a general weakening of our will, which can cause major problems in every single area of our lives.

As you continually encounter loss of faith in yourself, it can become hard to do anything to the best of your ability. In fact, it can become hard to do anything at all. Eventually, you don’t even want to try anymore.

The causes of this condition are relatively well-known. One of the major contributing factors is the way our mind was formed during our childhood, which established the basis of our overall self-image. Along with that, past negative experiences that we’ve had, including major mistakes we have made over the years are two other extremely significant factors.

While there are many more, they all lead to the one basic bottom line of self-doubt, which is plain, old-fashioned fear of failure. Self-doubt and fear of failure go to together like fire and gasoline – a perfect combination if your goal is to destroy everything in sight.

And then there’s one final factor to consider that makes it all much more destructive, and that is our propensity to compare ourselves to others, which is something we do all the time. We’ve inherited this stubbornly annoying trait from our society and for the most part, it does us absolutely no good.

Of course, regardless of all this, many people do achieve success. But that’s not the end of the game because at that point, you may have to deal with another form of self-doubt called the Imposter Syndrome.

It’s almost a subconscious feeling that no matter what you have achieved, you still feel that you don’t really deserve it. On a very deep level, you believe you’re a fraud. You’re not as good as you seem. Maybe you just got lucky and success came to you in spite of your inadequacies.

And with this insidious little seed planted in your mind, you run around hiding your fear that one day people will realize that you’re an imposter, and everything will quickly fall apart. This syndrome is just self-doubt, in a sophisticated disguise that’s hard to spot.

Now the good news is that while all of this can present us with a wide variety of problems, it can also help open the door to a higher realm of being. Wisdom traditions from around the world all teach that to truly grow into higher awareness, you have to be at peace with two fundamental factors concerning our human existence. They may seem off-putting at first, but once you begin to grasp them, they can become quite liberating.

The first factor is that we are all mortal. We are all going to die at some point and on the deepest level, we all know it. And no one has any guarantee about their lifespan. The end can come at any time and we have no control over it whatsoever. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is.

The second factor is that even though we probably don’t realize it, we are always operating on incomplete information. Experts tell us that we can never have access to the complete and total picture of anything regarding our life at any time. And unlike our mortality, which we all know comes with the territory, most of us don’t have a clue about this. And it’s because of a very fundamental reason - we just don’t know what we don’t know. And we can’t know it until we find it out.

So in light of all this, no matter how logical our plans may be, they are all essentially just our best guess. And a lot of times, we’re functioning on assumptions that are no longer valid.

One extreme example of this is the position I was in at 8 pm on Friday night December 3, 1965. I was driving to pick up my girlfriend. We were going to a big party where all of my eleventh-grade friends would be. It was sure to be a great night and I had the whole thing planned out. But at that moment, something critical had happened, but I hadn’t heard about it yet.

About a half an hour earlier, my father had dropped dead from a massive heart attack and I was just about to get the news. So at that particular moment, my plans were based on information that was no longer valid, but I didn’t know that I didn’t know. Of course, it turned out to be a very different night from what I had planned. Turned out to be a very different life, as well.

So, with this knowledge that we are mortal and always operating on incomplete information, and that these two conditions can never change, it’s no wonder that we encounter self-doubt in all of its varying forms. So, the next logical question is, what are we going to do about it?

Well, again going back to the world’s wisdom traditions, the first thing we need to do is just accept it. Realistically speaking, we have no other choice. And this acceptance leads us to a remarkably powerful inner state called true humility, which in turn, leads to true wisdom. Amazingly, for some reason your heart starts to lightens up a little and eventually, you rise up to meet your challenges once again.

With this in mind, let me share with you two quick stories which I have found to be quite illuminating. The first one is about a dear old friend of mine named Tim Gallwey. If the name sounds familiar it’s probably because he is the author of the “Inner Game of Tennis,” which is still the most popular sports psychology book of all time. And Tim is still widely regarded as the father of sports psychology.

This very brief story is about how the Inner Game came to be. Tim was the captain of the Harvard tennis team and at a big match, he went to rush the net and blew the point by hitting the ball into it. It was a self-inflicted wound, and on his way back to make the next serve, he was screaming at himself. “You stupid idiot. How could you have blown that shot? What the hell is the matter with you? Come on man, get it together. You had that point and you blew it!”

At that moment he got hit with an epiphany. “Who’s talking to who?” he asked himself. “This is all going on within my own mind. I’m me. Why does it sound like there’s two of me in there. Why am I saying you blew it, when I’m the you I’m talking to.” This enlightening moment launched his exploration into the world of the inner game, as he developed the idea of Self One and Self-Two, the thinker and the doer.

I met Tim a few years later, as we had both gotten involved with a form of meditation that was being taught by Prem Rawat, an internationally accepted authority on inner growth.

Tim was getting quite a bit of inspiration from this teacher, and he told me that he felt that Prem was the most creatively intelligent person he had ever met. I found that to be pretty impressive because Prem happened to be only fourteen years old at the time, and Tim was about the most intelligent and talented person I had ever met. So, here was this genius captain of the Harvard tennis team absorbing deep life lessons from a fourteen-year-old Indian teacher. I’ll talk a little more about Prem in a later episode.

Anyway, for our purposes here, it’s important to understand that there is an inner critic within our own mind which seems to have taken up permanent residency there, and self-doubt isn’t its only stock in trade. It’s responsible for the constant stream of negative garbage that goes on in our minds, day-in, day-out, twenty-four seven. Anyway, that’s is the way it is for me. If you have it any better with your inner critic, more power to you..

Now, here’s the second brief story to consider and it also comes from the world of sports. I was watching an interview with one of the greatest modern golfers of all time. He had won over a hundred tournaments including several majors and had been inducted into the Hall of Fame, so this guy was no joke.

Anyway, this great golfer said that every single time he stands over the ball and prepares to swing, the same thought pops into his head, “I can’t do this,” he says to himself. Then he takes a breath and hits the shot anyway. And most of the time the results are tremendous.

Then he said that after a while, a second thought started coming into his mind before hit the ball. He would think, “I can’t do this.” And then he would instantly think, “Oh yeah? Just watch me.”

So, these two stories deliver a profound message to me. From Tim’s, we learn that we have this inner critic within, and self-doubt just happens to be one of the dark cards it plays. But we have a more trustworthy voice in there as well.

And from the golfer’s story we learn that the inner critic is probably never going to go away. I mean, here was one of the greatest golfers in the world thinking the same thought every single time he gets ready to hit the ball, “I can’t do this.”

But that voice doesn’t have to have the last say. Immediately, the next thought arises, “Oh yeah, just watch me.” And he hits the ball. He challenges the challenger and goes on to win tournament after tournament. And remember, this is a pro, so he’s winning millions of dollars as well.

Personally, I get a lot out of this. With the inner critic and the voice of self-doubt, I’m not overly troubled by the fact that it always seems to be there. And I’m not worrying too much about whatever it has to say. Trying to engage with it always seems to take me down a pretty dark rabbit hole.

So, there’s a road ahead of me that is filled with opportunity as well as with challenges. I’m sure it’s that way for each one of us. Maybe we think thoughts like - I can never let go of my anger and fear. I can never get beyond the terrible guilt I have for everything I’ve done so wrong. I can’t evolve beyond all this and merge into my greater self. I can’t realize my greater potential as a human being and I’ll never fulfill my best destiny.

But maybe it’s time to start doubting the doubter and maybe it’s time to begin trusting the trustworthy. And when the inner critic says, “I can’t do this,” maybe we should just roll up our sleeves, put our foot down and say, “Oh yeah? Just watch me.!”

So this is a good place to end this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open and let's get together in the next one.