Last week I had an experience where I did an experiment to test my beliefs in real life and learned something interesting.
I was asked to give a short talk about an essay I wrote about meditation to a crowd of smart and driven people.
I was anxious that I am not qualified enough to speak about this because I’m not a monk with many years of meditation experience, nor a researcher in the field. I was talking to a friend about it and she was surprised I was feeling this way - she said she knew how much effort I’ve put in the essay and how I’ve been studying my experience for years.
I decided to go to the event and share my worry with a few other people there and see what happens. I asked two people and they both said they did not feel like I was not qualified and one even said that maybe it’s better that I’m a beginner because I can share a more relatable perspective!
I wanted to share it because it was a powerful example of how opening myself to questioning my beliefs really helped to get myself out of a negative self-talk hole.