“Whispers of Resilience: An ASMRtist’s Journey to Self-Confidence”
Kenneth Udut, 2015, revised 2023 with ChatGPT4 which identified it as a Hero’s Journey.
[Ordinary World] I’ve been told I have a good voice for ASMR. I’ve experimented with it a few times; I’ll make a video here, a video there, occasional vines through the years, but not much focus on it. I know there’s a whole art to it with crinkling and such, scratching, but I think I’ll just speak softly and go with that.
[Call To Adventure] [New] One day, I stumbled upon the topic of self-confidence and started to question why it’s so important to us. I wondered: Self-confidence: why do we lose it? When we’re young, often we have loads of self-confidence. By the age of seven, many kids are just out there; they say what they think, they think what they say, very creative. And then, something happens. I imagine it’s tied up with school. It could also be tied up to natural things that happen in the brain; it’s really hard to know for sure. (But however it comes about, we start losing our confidence or gaining it, depending on how we’re treated and how we respond to that treatment by other people. These other people, of course, include family, so those messages stay with you for a lifetime.)
[Refusal of the Call]
[Meeting the Mentor] [New] In my search for answers, I started to learn from various sources and experts about overcoming self-confidence issues. I realized that: If you’re called something and it doesn’t feel good, what do you do? In my case, being called a nerd or a geek, I learned to embrace those words, to make them my own. “Yes, yes, I am.” Other things were tougher. (If somebody makes fun of how you talk, you fight back somewhat, or you say, “No, I’m not going to talk. I don’t like the humiliation, and maybe they’re right.” The thing is, they’re probably not right, not as much as it seems.)
[Crossing the Threshold] [New] I decided to face my fears and put myself out there, starting with making little videos: I’ve made 11,000 or 12,000 vines, for example, 6 seconds each. Not all of them have me talking, but many do, certainly one half to three quarters. And the first few weeks were tricky because I had to hear my own voice in the way that other people hear it, rather than the way that I hear it inside of my head.
[Tests, Allies, and Enemies] It took a few weeks, maybe 50, maybe a hundred 6.8 second periods of hearing myself, looking at myself, getting a positive response from people, and the occasional negative.
[Approach to the Inmost Cave] [New] As I continued to create content, I started to cherish compliments from people and save them. I learned to give compliments freely and discovered that specific compliments are awesome; that always works.
[The Ordeal] [New] The more I shared my experiences online, the more I realized that self-confidence is a continuous battle. There were times when people tried to bring me down, but I learned to face them: But that is a test; you just have to find a way to fight.
[Reward] And with practice, by choosing a better path for yourself each time an opportunity comes up that might wreck your self-confidence, it grows, and it grows stronger and stronger.
[The Road Back] [New] As I gained more self-confidence, I began to focus on helping others build theirs: And if you help other people build their self-confidence, you find your own self-confidence rising.
[Resurrection] And the force you get from self-confidence is very powerful when you’ve used your ancient hurt to fuel fixing other people and yourself in the process.
[Return with the Elixir] [New] Having gone through my own journey of self-discovery and building self-confidence, I realized the power of sharing my story and experiences with others. I was now in a position to help and inspire others to overcome their struggles with self-confidence: That’s about all I have to say about self-confidence at the moment. I’m surprised I talked for this long. I’ll be even more surprised if you’ve listened to it all.
[New] As I continued to create content and share my journey, I discovered that my experiences resonated with others who faced similar challenges. By opening up and sharing my struggles and triumphs, I not only helped myself but also provided a guiding light for others on their own path to self-confidence. This newfound purpose, in turn, reinforced my self-confidence and encouraged me to keep pushing forward, knowing that I could make a difference in the lives of others.
Heroes Journey with specific examples from text:
[Ordinary World] ASMR interest: ASMR, voice, vines
[Call to Adventure] Questioning self-confidence: self-confidence, lose, young
[Refusal of the Call] (Implied) Struggle with external judgments: treatment, family, peers
[Meeting the Mentor] Embracing labels, seeking knowledge: nerd, geek, experts
[Crossing the Threshold] Making videos: videos, vines, voice
[Tests, Allies, and Enemies] Facing feedback, building confidence: positive, negative, response
[Approach to the Inmost Cave] Giving and receiving compliments: compliments, cherish, specific
[The Ordeal] Fighting self-doubt, facing critics: test, fight, upset
[Reward] Growing self-confidence: confidence, stronger, practice
[The Road Back] Helping others: help, self-confidence, rising
[Resurrection] Healing oneself and others: powerful, ancient, hurt
[Return with the Elixir] Sharing the journey, inspiring others: self-discovery, inspire, struggles