Back in April, I wrote about confidence naming—the therapy thread where Tim described the idea of an activating phrase. He asked me to name my “confident stance.”
The idea: if you can name the version of yourself who owns the room, you can step into that version when it matters. I wrote about several phrases I already use:
- “head up chest out” from Kevin at the gym,
- “working on it” from unfocused pool laps,
- “push against the current” from the resistance pool,
- “driving fast and taking chances” reclaimed for joy,
- “I’m going” from yellow traffic lights that demand calling Dibs.
The actual ask Tim made was for a universal phrase. Not several context-specific ones. A single verbal switch that could unlock the whole confident persona no matter the situation. I ended my April post by saying:
“Which one, if any, is the universal? Still looking and deciding.”
The discussion went dormant. Tim and I never brought confidence naming back up in session—the daily system he and I use for homework only allowed him to receive the abridged version of the post, not the full backstories.
This week I think I found something important. It isn’t a phrase. It’s a song. Numerous lines that can be used as personalized phrases that help to invoke confidence. This week on Patreon, Jared Halley shared a sneak preview from his upcoming album of original songs. On a constant loop, I’ve been listening to “Still I Stand.”
[Chorus]
Still I stand
On this broken ground
Through the silence
I found my sound
No chains can hold
No walls confine
Still I stand
This fight is mine
Every song carries two backstories at once: the songwriter’s and the listener’s. Both live in the lyrics simultaneously. When a song like Still I Stand offers the perfect line, or lines, I find a new confidence naming. “This Fight is Mine” is just one, the best.
The verses bring you up to speed on the heavy nights, dragging days, weight carried nowhere. The song paints depression without saying the word. Then a flicker: faint and small. Not blinding, not certain. Just a spark. The pre-chorus makes the deal explicit: echoes that fade, scars that stay, strength born from pain. There’s no “and then you’re healed” in this song. The scars stay. That’s part of why the song means so much to me.
One thing songs do that life doesn’t: they compress time. In the lyric, two lines are one line apart
Nowhere to go
But I saw a flicker
In life, the distance between those two states can be as much as months, or even years. The song delivers the arc in seconds; the actual passage from one to the other takes fortitude.
When I listen to Still I Stand, I am not the singer. The person in the song has already lived through all or part of something and is ready to claim the fight, is right there, still standing.
I’ve accomplished plenty. Yet my broken ground still shifts under my feet most days. I don’t know yet what sound might be mine. I can’t claim the no-chains part and have it be true right now. Only true someday, maybe.
What I can do is borrow. I can play the song, and for the length of it, I can inhabit the stance the singer has reached. The confidence is ready in the music. But loaned, not owned. When the song ends, I go back to my regular self. (Or, I happily play it again.)
Maybe the universal confidence naming doesn’t have to be just a phrase. A song can provide what is needed—press play, and the confidence is already there. I don’t have to force the feeling. The song brings it out.
I have all my phrases. Head up chest out still works when I’m walking somewhere. Working on it still works when the pool of tasks is unfocused. But when I need the entire confident persona, I now have a place to go. The whole point of a confidence naming is that it’s a tool to use repeatedly. Not one and done.
“This fight is mine” carries a lot for a four-word phrase.
There’s a whole genre of movie moments where a character claims a fight and demands everyone else step back. LOTR: Aragorn stepping forward at the Black Gate; Frodo insisting on carrying the ring alone. Harry Potter vs. Voldemort: “Neither can live while the other survives.” Every boxing movie ever made—”let me handle this.” Every Western showdown. Braveheart, Gladiator.
The pattern isn’t just about ownership. It’s about earning the right—or wanting the privilege of the hard thing. The hero doesn’t want to share it. Sidekicks want to help; the hero waves them off. Not because help isn’t wanted—because this one is mine to face.
The hero, in that moment, is always the one—even when others are present. Being “alone” here isn’t about the number of people nearby; it’s about who has to face the thing. Sometimes chosen alone, sometimes forced. In the movies, that isolation is earned—the hero has demanded it. In life it can feel more like this is what I got left, so I claim it as mine. Same words, different origin story. Chosen alone and arrived at alone aren’t the same, but the song fits both.
And not every fight fits this pattern. Some fights are the kind you claim with pride and stance and voice. Other fights—my future, my aging body, my relationship to time—those aren’t about fighting at all. Those are about accepting. And “this fight is mine” is the wrong language for those times. When the opponent is your own resistance to a reality that already is, the movie-hero framing doesn’t help. The work of acceptance is dissolving the resistance, not doubling down on it. Some fights only I can fight; some things I have to stop fighting.
There’s another reading of the chorus I can’t unhear. The silence is the trigger—it means no one is here. And the freedom lines—no chains holding, no walls confining—read differently against that silence. This isn’t only liberation. When you’re alone—both bad and good—you’re in charge. No one holding you. No one sheltering you. The freedom and the isolation are the same fact. Finding my sound becomes about making progress through the chains and walls, not around them. And then still standing—this fight mine, as in nobody else’s, nobody helping.
I keep having to do so much alone. Depression is one of those walls. So are the voices—sometimes actual people, sometimes only my own head. Same internal walls either way. They need no help from external ones.
There’s a difference between “I hate this” and “this fight is mine.” Both are honest responses to hardship. One is protest—legitimate. One is claiming—also legitimate. One doesn’t replace the other, and pretending you can always be in the second one would be dishonest. You can’t give the same fight all the time. It’s easy to stand on the hill or enjoy the broken ground when mood or life lets you be full of courage. On the days those resources aren’t there, “I hate this” is the true answer.
On the in-between days there’s something smaller. Not fighting the fight well. Not winning. Just refusing to hand it off. Standing up when I’d rather stay down. Playing the song.
The song sings the fully-claimed version. My job on any given day is whatever version I can muster. And the standing isn’t a one-time thing.
Still I stand.
This fight is mine.
Both have been added to the collection of confidence naming.
Look for Jared…
Related Posts
Background Stories About Confidence Naming—the April post, with the full origin stories for each of the phrases mentioned above.
He Wrote Back—the earlier post about Jared writing back after “Rescue Me.”
