What Women Can Learn About Confidence from Women’s History

My teacher, Lama Tsultrim Allione, gave an insightful keynote talk at the Women of Wisdom Summit on the topic of women’s confidence. The full title of her talk was Confidence, Self-Worth, and Self-Compassion on the Path. Her words are far more brilliant than what will follow from me.

After the summit, I took a moment to sit with her wise words on confidence. I allowed whatever needed to percolate in me. And then I sat again. And again. 

Lama said, “Your confidence is knowing your awakeness, your natural wisdom.” but she didn’t shy away from the roadblocks. She also said, “…the incredible capacity of women but also the incredible lack of self-esteem and confidence that we can have within patriarchal culture and structures.” 

What unfolded in me was a pattern, a solution, and the big elephant in the room. I write this musing on women’s confidence in this little corner of the world in case it is of any help. 

The Pattern

Knowing who you are 
Knowing where you come from 
Knowing what you are capable of 

When this pattern emerges, the effect is what we identify as confidence. Sometimes you will hear someone say, “She is radiating with confidence”. These qualities of confidence can look and feel like self-assurance, belief in our abilities, a firm trust, or a feeling of truth. 

This pattern also has a surface level and a deeper level. In Buddhist studies, it is known as relative truth and absolute truth. I am going to stay with the surface level (relative truth). 

Knowing who you are

This identity can be as simple as what is listed on a driver’s license: birthdate, name, sex, height, weight, eye color, hair color, and an image. But sisters, we can go deeper than that because we know that none of those things are what makes us, us. Any woman who has been on a diet or went to a hair salon can tell you that who we are is not a reflection of our outward (and ever-changing) identity. Visual cues are not a full representation of who we are. For example, I have pink hair in the spring and red hair in the fall – but I am the same person.

Knowing who you are is looking beyond the physical. It is not about what you look like, what material objects you own, or what fandom you subscribe to. Let’s try a quick mental exercise: Take a moment to point to what is you. Point to what you are. 

If you pointed to your body or another object, ask yourself, would you still be remembered if that body or object was gone? Would someone still be able to talk about you if that thing no longer existed in physical form? 

Who we are is beyond our physical form. Who we are is represented in our actions and how we make people feel when they are around us. We are – what we say, what we do, and what others say about us. Everything else is in constant change and motion. Our thoughts are like clouds, here one minute and evaporated the next. Our best-laid plans that never got done are like a wave that crested out and returned to the ocean. 

If you really want to know who you are, ask yourself what did your face look like before your parents were born? 

Knowing where you came from

The second part of the confidence pattern is knowing where you came from. Put simply, it is the ground you are rooted to. Do you have ancestral roots in farms, villages, cities, nations, countries, and waters near and far? Where are your people from? What land did they traverse for you to stand where you stand today? 

This starts with asking Grandma and can continue to in paper trails and ancestry website sites. Knowing the stories of what your people went through so you exist is pivotal to confidence. When you discover how many people had to live and die so that you exist – it is grounding. When you awaken to the feeling that you are here, not by accident or random chance but because the strongest of your ancestors survived, you stand a little taller, which radiates as confidence.

You do not have to like the choices your ancestors made or were forced to make. They were not your path. But they created the causes and conditions for your existence; they were just strong enough to give you life. What you do with that life is up to you. 

The Buddha talked about how we walk on the ground of our ancestry. The Earth below us is made up of animal, plant, and human remains. We must walk mindfully and lovingly on the ground of our ancestors. 

Knowing what you are capable of

The third part of the confidence pattern is knowing what you are capable of. Imagine yourself as a track and field runner. You have spent a year practicing the 100-meter. Your best time is 10.64 seconds. Then you see that the record holder for the fastest woman is Sha’Carri Richardson who ran the same race in 10.65 seconds. You are capable of being faster than Sha’Carri because you have done it before. This is what can give you an element of confidence should you go head-to-head with Sha’Carri, but you still have to run your best race. 

The rub is we only know what we are capable of when we do it. Are you capable of an athletic feat, a creative adventure, or tearing down the walls of the patriarchy? You will never know until you do it. Wisdom combined with action is what changes the world. 

The solution

Knowing who you are + Knowing where you came from + Knowing what you are capable of = Confidence.

That’s great, right?!

So how do I do that again? 

See the qualities in others. 

We cannot identify confidence in ourselves until we see it in others. This is why, in Buddhism, there are 21 Taras, each with a different quality we can embody to be a better person. This is why Gal’s Guide has a women’s history lending library, and a podcast, and Galentines, and clubs, and events. 

Women need to see various confidence qualities in other women. There is not one way to be confident. There is not one way to be a woman. We each have a slightly different vibration we put out into the world. Seeing and feeling into others’ vibrations helps us find harmonious connections.

Seeing confident women awakes the confident pattern in you. Being around confident women makes you feel more confident. It stays longer and feels authentic based on the pattern work you’ve already done. However, there are other factors…

The Big Elephant in the Room

• Our history is kept from us 
• Women are sold a lie 
• Entitlement confused as confidence 
• Confidence is weaponized against us 
• Fake it until you make it

You can call that elephant the patriarchy, or culture, or samsara, or a roadblock. The fact is there are obstacles for women to be confident.  

Our history is kept from us

If the solution for women to feel and appear more confident is to see more examples of women being confident, how do we do that when our history has been kept from us? 

Generations (including the generation in elementary school right now) don’t learn about many women of history. I speak with my own experience in school, but also as an educator who goes into schools, and as a library director who interacts with my patrons at a women’s-focused library. Women and girls aren’t taught the multitude of ways that women have made the world better. Women don’t know of the women who invented the valuable connections around them. Did you know that Gladys West invented GPS? Hedy Lamarr invented WiFi? Ada Lovelace invented computer programming? 

Is it intentional that women’s wisdom has been limited from the world? Is it just that the gatekeepers of cultures have been white-men for centuries? Why is it that women aren’t encouraged to find the wisdom that has been passed on?

There is wisdom in our history, however, girls are still taught in school that wisdom, or being smart, is something to be hidden. 

Women are sold a lie

Women are also sold a lie of how we can buy into confidence. The word itself is a packaged commodity by a snake oil salesman. The untrue idea is that confidence comes when you have certain things, travel to certain places, or when you have enough of a certain number of social media followers. Capitalism makes the most money by making people feel worthless and then convincing them if they buy a certain thing, they will feel better.

Entitlement confused as confidence 

People who appear to be confident sometimes are actually acting on a sense of entitlement. Thinking that you have a right, inherently deserve, or are privileged to certain things is a slippery slope to bullying. Bullying is not confidence. Bullying comes from an underlying fear that is then manifested onto others to make them feel small. Entitlement is grasping and hoarding onto things with a fear that they will be taken. Confidence is radiated to others. 

Confidence is weaponized against us 

The Harvard Business Review interviewed men and women about the impact of confidence in their careers. The project found that women thought their lack of confidence held them back at work. Men did not think confidence was a factor in their work, however, men did think it was a factor in why their female colleagues were not succeeding. Their research found that “confidence is not just gendered — it’s weaponized against women.” 

When women don’t reach their goals, it’s often blamed on a lack of confidence. If women accomplish their goals and show extroversion or even aggression – they are told to hold back, get smaller, and then once again are labeled as not having enough confidence. 

Current examples would be Taylor Swift and Beyonce. Both are at the pinnacle of their career, extremely talented, show artistic vulnerability, are magnetizing, appear confident on stage… and are destroyed in the media on a daily basis. Their motives and actions are questioned and ridiculed. Two women, known worldwide, whose confidence is weaponized. This negativity spreads a large message, you can buy their albums and buy tickets to their shows, but don’t ever try to be as confident as them, or we will destroy you.

Fake it until you make it

The saying, “Fake it until you make it” only works with the right intention. I’ve put this saying into practice in various ways in my life and career. For me, faking anything only works for a small amount of time. Pretending that I am Joan Jett on stage performing to a sold-out crowd, singing along to “I Love Rock n’ Roll” will make me feel amazing for about 3 minutes. Then I’ll remember that I don’t know how to play guitar and I’m not a great singer. But if I needed to get myself out of a shame spiral, pretending to be Joan helped clear the air. 

Neil Gaiman said in a Keynote at the University of the Arts in 2012, “Be wise, because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.” If the intention of faking is just so you can get on the stage to share your wisdom – do that! If you’re pretending to be not scared of sending in a submission to a writing contest, pretend away so you can hit that submit button. 

But like Taylor Swift sang in Snow on the Beach “it’s fine to fake it till you make it/ till you do/ till it’s true.” Don’t let yourself continue to be a fake. If you fake it too long, you’re just fake. Fakeness doesn’t help anyone, including you.

Fakeness is not confidence, it is a tool, a shortcut, a momentary solution.

What to do with the Elephant

While I was in one of my many meditation sessions with this thought project on confidence, there was a bee. I was sitting outside, my gaze on the sky, allowing my thoughts to come and go like clouds. I was mindful to not grab onto any one idea and force it to work. It was a wonderful spring morning, the birds were flying about, the squirrels were busy, and there was a bee checking me out. I had been still and motionless for some time when the bee buzzed in my ear. I didn’t swat at it. I didn’t quickly jerk away. I just casually moved my head away from the bee, and it went away. 

No anger was necessary. No harm occurred. I turned away, not engaged, and showed the bee that I was not a landing perch or a flower to pollinate. I then turned my head back to continue my meditation.  

When it comes to the elephant in the room, whether you identify it as patriarchal structures or just a roadblock to confidence, think of these steps. 

1. Recognize there is a block
2. Understand that the block serves a purpose to some, but not to you 
3. Be mindful of how that block can scare others
4. Turn away, without hatred, and continue your path

It is as though you reach a Road Closed sign on your journey from point A to B. Yes, the closed-road detour might take more time, but getting mad at the sign and a road closure will not open the road. Recognize the closure of the road. Realize that it is probably closed for a reason (many times for your own safety). Be aware of other upset drivers on the detour. And then follow the route to circumnavigate to get back on the path. 

Confidence radiates most strongly when we show in our actions and words that we can navigate the roadblocks of life without hatred. 

I wish you happiness on the path.