The impulse when doubt arises is to chase confidence — to affirm, to push through, to convince yourself you’ve got this. But as Joe demonstrates in a coaching session with a 25-year mental health professional, the pursuit of confidence is the running from doubt, and that running is what creates the stuckness.
“I have to be confident is running from the doubt. We all doubt. None of us move with 100% confidence. The question is how much can you welcome the doubt.”
When the participant is invited to feel her doubt fully and then open her heart to it, something remarkable happens — her body moves with the emotion rather than bracing against it. She describes the resulting state as very close to how she feels when dancing, which is the only time she feels truly free. The struggle we associate with doubt is actually the reaction to the doubt, not the doubt itself.
The practice is simple but counterintuitive: when the head spin of doubt begins, instead of reaching for certainty or somatic regulation, open the heart to the doubt. Love it. This transforms doubt from a cage into a doorway — the same energy that was keeping her stuck becomes the energy of grounded, embodied presence.
Related Concepts
- Welcoming fear over conquering it
- Opening heart to what you resist
- Doubt is leaving your heart
- Avoidance is the stuckness not the feeling
- Intensifying a feeling moves you through it rather than trapping you
- Doubt as emotional protection
- Craving is the pushing away
- Clarity comes after feeling the emotion not before