The 3 C's - Conviction, Confidence, Congruence

Tune in as I shed some light on the 3 C's and what this means in terms of childhood development, teens, and well into adulthood.  How can fostering and maintaining the 3 C's positively impact emotional self - regulation, decrease anxiety, improve moods, make decisive business / personal decisions, and foster / maintain unconditional self - love.

Also, tune in to learn about more about your host, why I do what I do, my roots, and what makes me tick.  

Transcript

#2  

Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed the intro with a little blues rendition of Satisfaction.  Welcome to the Congruency Corner where the heart, brain and body align to live in harmony with ourselves.  I’m your host, Chandra – As a lifelong teacher in my field of expertise and as a lifelong student; I teach what I learn and I practice what I teach.  This is episode #2 ~ the 3 C’s; Conviction, confidence, congruence.  With Conviction we can aluminate confidence, with confidence and conviction we can foster congruence.  

During this podcast the focus is on childhood development, the teenage years, well into adulthood no matter what your profession is.  

So let’s break it down.  What does it really mean to have conviction?  First, a little insight before I explain…As a writer and an author, I’m a bit of a word smith. Words matter a ton when it comes to expressive / receptive communication.  Which is why in every podcast, I will break it down and simplify.  I come by this honestly and would like to take a moment to acknowledge the woman who first sparked my interest in writing.  I believe that people we meet along our journey at different times play an integral part in our development depending what we choose to take from those moments.  For this - inspiration goes to my 11th grade English teacher at Maplewood HS located in in a small town in NW Pa. To paint the picture, I was raised in the country on a dirt road with no cable astonishing to my children how I ever survived without cable and wifi!– and we actually took hunter safety / hunting licensing exams in 6th grade that were mandatory for everyone.  Seriously, we didn’t have classes for a week; it was all about hunter safety courses.  Something my kids think is unbelievable and unheard of in their culture.  It’s been 28 years since, I sat at a desk in Mrs. Levens classroom, but if you are still around and listening to this podcast or your family members catch this one!  Thank you, Mrs. Levin’s – you were certainly tough and there were many times my papers looked like they were bleeding with all the red ink for corrections, but I am forever thankful.   Any other Maplewood Alum who’s listening can certainly relate to this.  Also, a quick shout out to all you other teachers out there taking the time to inspire, ignite, and set the course for all of your students.  You may never fully know the magnitude and impact that you have in the present moments, but its happening.  

Getting back on course, starting with Conviction – The actual literal Webster definition of Conviction is a firmly held belief or opinion.  Where does that come from? To have conviction is to have faith / to have trust in our beliefs.  To have instinctual awareness that we believe something is either right or wrong.  It’s a feeling and as we know our feelings are derived from the heart – center and our brain makes sense of those feelings based on perceptions, memories, and experiences, but it is our gut that holds onto the conviction of our selves.  Hence, the saying “trusts your gut”.  “Your gut instinct is your inner compass”. Sayings that most of us have heard before and can relate to.  Words have deeper meanings as well as sayings.  

The gut does more than house our intestinal tract.  From a psychological, humanistic, perspective our gut is the seat of our self – confidence, our fear center, our indecisions, and our decisiveness.  Although, when we hone into our instinct, trust our gut, and are really certain of something w/o letting our cognitive mind try to second guess our gut. We are housing more conviction for what we believe in.  

How is this first shaped?  During the toddler years!  Sometimes the most challenging years as parents.  I loved this stage of life.  The curiosity, watching them figures things out.  It’s also when they learn to trust their instincts with trial and error and gentle guidance from adults and letting them derive their own answers.  Explorative parenting rather than helicopter parenting.  They learn to trust themselves in knowing right from wrong. They learn to trust their instincts and to their true self identify. This also fosters unconditional self-love. I will get too that a bit later in this episode so please remain tuned.  This all-fosters conviction – For instance, children are really good at this innately, but often times somewhere during development, their instincts, their convictions, and gut feelings are discredited by adult role models often times unbeknownst by the adult.  And at no fault of the adult because it’s often done out of good intentions and love; however, considering one of Jean Piaget’s stages of development, this conviction of themselves is formulated during the preoperational stage of development which is from age 2 to 7.  During this stage children tend to consider their own viewpoint, formulate opinions, but it is also difficult for them to understand another person’s point of view; therefore, at this stage it is really is all about them and how they view things which is internally fostering their conviction of what they believe in.  This stage is really a rite of passage.  Now, even though it starts then it continues over their developmental years and well into adulthood, but it is built upon with more certainly and more trust for themselves as they mature and pass through all the developmental stages of their life from elementary age well into the teenage years.  The 3rd and 4th graders of today are being seen to have an increase in overall anxiety and difficulty with emotional self – regulation b/c they were the kindergarten and 1st graders during the height of covid so many of them missed out on the real-world experiences with forming conviction of themselves.  They still can, but they are making up for lost time.  This is also equally important for the teens of today because it is all about maintaining conviction in themselves and abilities as they are navigating peer influences, academic / sports related responsibilities, expectations, and pressures; as well as hormonal fluctuations.  

The 2nd C – Confidence – When we have conviction in our beliefs and who we are and trust ourselves, Confidence is right there waiting to bloom.  The literal definition of confidence is a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities; to have trust in something or ourselves.  Again, Trust seems to be of importance as we trust ourselves with conviction, we have confidence in our self and our abilities.  This is confidence in a realistic perspective rather than an ego driven perspective. To have confidence is to feel it internally; it’s housing the intrinsic which is internal value for us rather than the extrinsic which is the external values.  How is a healthy dose of confidence fostered in children?  

1) C – Conviction

2) Internally knowing their worth – This goes along with not overly praising kids for good and embellishing the good.  Ask them how they think they did at a sporting event, academically, performance, etc.  This turns the reflection inward to be able to access their own abilities in a realistic manner; acknowledge what they felt was good, how can they improve if needed.  Praise is great, but it’s a balance – too much can impede confidence and give an inflated self – esteem that they are not able to realistically live up to creating anxiety because they will never feel like it’s enough.  Too much praise can inflate the ego sense of self which is never fully satisfied.  Therefore, it acts like a bottomless pit – never fully being able to be filled up.  

3) Sincerity / honesty – kids ask questions because they want honest answers.  To be honest and sincere in all regards with age-appropriate explanation.  This also boosts confidence.  It boosts confidence because they have confidence in their parents, mentors, caretakers that they will be honest, and this forms trust.  At an early age when children form genuine trust with others, they can also internalize that trust, boosting their self-confidence, and further fostering conviction thus building trust in themselves.  

3) The 3rd C – Congruence – The literal definition of Congruence is when feelings and actions are aligned; agreement or harmony; compatibility.  So, if we have conviction in our self and our abilities and have confidence in a realistic supportive sense, this allows confidence in trusting how we feel and conviction in how we feel, what thoughts align with our feelings, and conviction in our gut instincts?  Therefore, when our feelings, thoughts, and actions with following our gut instincts are working in congruence, we are existing in an aligned state.  

Why is this important?

With all the work I’ve done in the past, continue to do with others, with my own children and how I live my own life; fostering and maintaining the 3 C’s improves moods by organically providing dopamine / oxytocin release from the heart, gut, and brain, anxiety decreases and becomes much more manageable, improves the ability to emotionally self-regulate, improves relationships as we align with what feels “right” in terms of relationships’ with others, improves business sense when making big or small decisions, improves the ability to resolve conflicts, and fosters unconditional self-love.   When we have unconditional self – love, conviction, confidence, and congruence are maintained and when we foster conviction, confidence, and congruence unconditional self – love it fostered and maintained – So it’s really a cyclical process as everything comes full circle.  

As it’s full circle, the recipe for aligning to one’s true self no matter what you do in your life is living the principles of the 3 C’s, conviction, confidence, and congruence.

Thank you for tuning in; please subscribe and join me next time as we continue this journey together.   

You can visit my websites for more info on who I am and what I do.  Mindfuladaptations.com for services relating to individual / family sessions and thecogruencycorner.com for the services provided with schools, groups, clubs, and sports teams, as well as current and future publications. 

I leave you with this quote:

As we plant the seeds, nurture, and shape ourselves along the way for optimal growth, we may need to bend our branches a bit and twist and turn, but by colonizing our roots we will flourish along the way as we align with our truest nature.