I am saying that confidence comes from being able to navigate the world with skills you have learned and not from dwelling on your history (alone or with a therapist) long after you already understand it.
Your emotions are too powerful to control and you can't change the past. Literally the only thing you can control is your behavior. What you personally, actually physically do.
If you take that control and focus it on being competent; you will gain confidence. You will trust yourself.
Meditation and therapy are good for introspection and knowing yourself. I have had a ton of breakthroughs of self understanding with both of those. But it's the times that I took action that made an actual tangible difference in my life.
I am a competent singer (for instance). That did not come easy. I spent hundreds of hours at karaoke sitting there my heart pounding waiting to get called up in front of people I didn't know. I have been boo'd. I have been on a stage when someone yelled YOU SUCK when my new girlfriend was there.
I kept going back and now, at the beginning of the night when everyone is far too sober to sing, I sing 4-5 songs. I have absolute confidence that if there is a microphone somewhere I will walk up to it and sing. Without music or prompting. I love music and that was my driver, but it was the focus of my behavior that lead me to being competent at singing. When I was single I'd ask attractive women to go up and sing with me. It bonds you to sing with someone, it feels great. I am not a great singer, but I'm more than good enough for karaoke, which is all I care about.
Replace singing with communication, coding, negotiating, driving, cooking, debating, talking to women, bidding on jobs, leading developers, writing, etc.
I will say, it is emotionally very difficult and painful, but leads to the most rapid results.
Two major things happened to me from massive amounts of repetition: 1) I lost my fear and could be my authentic self (which is maybe what confidence is) 2) I really started to understand what 'good' and 'bad' were within the context of whatever I was trying to improve.
I would add, if you decide to do something like this, make sure to take care of yourself. Facing your fears like this, especially if you're doing it aggressively, is stressful. Make sure to exercise or do something else that allows you to blow off emotional steam.
1. The very definition of confidence is exposing your true self to the world and being OK with how it is received. 2. Knowing what good/bad are. Yes, that helped you become confident. You began to have better 'taste' and you had the confidence to know AND admit which side of it you fell on.
can you share more about this? material you have read and steps you have taken that helped you with your dating life and more specifically with being more confidence.
What I found is that the repetition allows you to reframe the situation. I started to no longer 'get my hopes up' or really anticipate the date, so that I wouldn't have an agenda coming into it. Instead it was much more casual: just get to know them and see if there's a good vibe or connection.
I want to point out that this is different than trying to sleep with a bunch of women. I was really going for connection, and if you go on a lot of dates you start being able to tell pretty quickly if there's a connection.
I really do think there's something to essentially 'brute forcing' your way to getting better at something. Make it so your primary goal is learning and getting better, and, remarkably, you will.
Figure out how to make people laugh, which starts with enjoying laughing yourself. Get very good at pointing out that things are funny and having a good laugh. Laugh at yourself.
That will go a long way in dating.
This mastery will give you confidence.
Edit: it also helps to have a hobby. Pro tip: media consumption is not a hobby. It’s just passive entertainment.
I spent lots of time in front of therapists as well. What I got for it was an education in how I got to be who I am today. My recommendation is to save your money, watch School of Life videos (https://www.theschooloflife.com/) and you can figure out why you are you. The short answer is; your upbringing, because it's very hard to change that internal original programming.
The goal of therapy is 'know yourself'. So when you do eventually do 'know yourself' therapy is not going to be much help; you have achieved the goal of therapy.
(Side note: If you have had recent or unresolved trauma then 'yourself' has changed, go back to therapy to locate the new you.)
Although I do not like the term AT ALL, it sounds like you know who you are; you are a person with 'low self esteem'. I too, had "Low self esteem" as the therapists put it. What they didn't say is "Ok here's what you do with that".
Here is what I heard: "Go volunteer. Give back. Help others.".
Bullshit. That is misguided advice. You end up acting charitable and feeling used.
Or I hear "Go out, meet people."
Also, bad advice. I'm struggling and you are asking me to put social interactions on top of that too? No.
A Zen Buddhist monk once told me something that I think is applicable to you. "You can not directly control your emotions, they are too powerful, all you can control is your behavior. Control your behavior long enough your emotions will change."
That goes directly inline with the advice I'm about to give you, which is simply this:
Be competent.
Focus your energy on directing your behavior on being absolutely competent in one single area of your life and get mastery over it; absolute competence.
Once you feel like you have changed and have gained sufficient competency, move to the next thing. Build yourself up brick by brick by your actions and behavior.
It is much, much harder than just sitting talking to a therapist, but an order of magnitude more effective.