Confidence

Confidence isn’t walking into a room believing everyone will like you. It isn’t assuming people will approve of your choices or admire your personality. Confidence is walking in already knowing whose approval matters most. It is knowing that your worth has already been settled, and that while rejection may sting, it cannot define you. It is trusting that you will be all right even if someone leaves unconvinced, unimpressed or unconcerned.

That freedom changes everything. Instead of performing, you become present. Instead of managing perceptions, you become available for genuine relationships. Instead of trying to control how others experience you, you are finally able to know and understand them. There is so much freedom in moving through the world firmly believing that you are the beloved of your creator.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that this kind of confidence is first learned — or hindered — at home. Healthy families are not families in which everyone thinks alike, votes alike, parents alike, worships with identical devotions, or enjoys the same hobbies. They are families in which love is sturdy enough to survive differentiation. They allow each person to become himself or herself fully without fearing that authenticity will cost them belonging.

Children begin by learning confidence from their parents. They discover, little by little, that they can make mistakes, express opinions, develop interests and even disagree without forfeiting love. As they mature, that borrowed confidence gradually becomes their own. Eventually, they stop asking permission to be who God created them to be because they have never believed that love had to be earned.

Of course, no family does this perfectly. Every family has expectations, blind spots and moments when love feels conditional. Every one of us has probably learned to edit ourselves somewhere along the way. The question is whether our family culture invites people to return to themselves or rewards them for abandoning themselves.

Do our children, our spouses and our siblings feel they must continually audition for acceptance? Is agreement prized more highly than honesty? Do people hesitate to share difficult news because they fear disappointment more than they trust love? Are family gatherings places where personalities hide, shrink or shapeshift to keep the peace? If so, the problem is not merely individual insecurity. It may be a culture that has unintentionally taught people that belonging is contingent upon performance.

The Gospel points us toward something far better. Before Jesus called his disciples to change their lives, he called them by name. Before they accomplished anything remarkable, he loved them. Our deepest confidence is never self-confidence. It is confidence born of knowing we are beloved by God.

Families are meant to echo that reality. Imagine the freedom of a home where each person knows, “You don’t have to audition here.” You can change your mind. You can discover new gifts. You can confess failure. You can grow in ways that surprise the rest of us. You can become more fully yourself without worrying that love is hanging in the balance.

Ironically, this kind of security does not weaken families. It strengthens them. People who know they are loved unconditionally are far less likely to manipulate, hide or perform. They can disagree without panicking. They can differentiate without drifting away. They can offer others the same generous freedom they themselves have received.

Perhaps confidence begins long before we walk into a room full of strangers. Perhaps it begins around an ordinary family table, where we slowly learn that love is not a prize to be won but a gift already given. And from that secure place, we are finally free to stop auditioning — and simply become the people God created us to be.

Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.