Confidence is something I am realizing I have never really had. I would have small bursts of it but it didn’t last long before the thorns would poke through and self doubt would creep back in. Society puts such a pressure on us to look and act a certain way, because if you don’t look like everyone else then what on earth are you even doing with your life? But now at 35 I can truly say, how boring would that be? To have a world of everyone who dresses the same, eats the same, has the same interests. That would be a nightmare.
Now do not get me wrong, if you truly enjoy something and it is not causing harm to yourself or others then yes 👏 go for it! Wear the outfit, dye your hair, go out for that team, sing or play your heart out, try new food, visit all of the museums, libraries, and comic book stores that your heart desires but do it for you, not because you think it is what you should do or because someone you like thinks you should. I have done things I didn’t want to and held myself back from trying new things in fear of what other’s may say or think and it filled my head with so many doubts which caused more self esteem issues.
Then there is the factor of, other people’s very loud opinions and judgments that so many people feel it is their need to constantly share with you wether you ask for it or not. Have you noticed the majority of us will listen to the negative comments from others over the positive? 5 people could give us a compliment and only 1 person gives criticism yet the negative comment is the one that swirls around your mind more. Something I have noticed as well is I get uncomfortable when people compliment me. Like it for real gives me a little spike of anxiety and I do not know if I believe them or not and I feel awkward afterwards.
I started changing little things about myself, thinking, “If I just fixed this or that, then I will be happy with the way I look”. I lost 100lbs, got braces, dyed and cut my hair, changed my wardrobe and guess what? I still could look in the mirror and list 10+ things I didn’t like about myself. I hadn’t lost enough weight, then a medication made me gain a little weight back. My teeth were straight but there was just something about my smile I still didn’t like. I would hyper focus on all of the things I could change on myself. It became second nature, anytime I would look in the mirror I fought the urge to point out my flaws to myself.
Then I started reading and looking into essentially how to be happy in life and how to truly love myself. Everything I was finding seemed easy enough. Change your thoughts, speak kindly to yourself, do things that make you happy, control your emotions by properly letting yourself feel them but not live in them, eat a balanced diet. How hard could it be right?! It didn’t take long to find out how wrong I was. I truly did not realize how negative I spoke of myself and how I allowed others to speak to me until I started to rewrite the script. When I first realized how much negativity was surrounding me it sent me further into a mental health spiral. It almost felt like I had allowed it for too long so it was too late, then I started convincing myself that I was too tired to make the changes. But that too was uncomfortable because, I had seen that path before and I knew where it led.
Back to the books I went to find the key to self love and again I kept finding the same solutions as before. I kept asking myself why it was so hard to make the changes I needed to become who I wanted. Then I realized, it is because that was my comfort level. Never really having confidence in myself it felt weird and unnatural to start speaking kindly to and of myself. I also realized I had surrounded myself with people who did not support growth and definitely was not working on any themselves, because again, that was what was comfortable.
Change is one of the hardest things you can do in life, you literally have to create multiple new habits while changing the mindset you have had up until that point. Everyone I had known or read about who stuck with the changing are happy and healthy people. Sure they still have moments where they end up taking a few steps backwards but they usually use that opportunity to launch themselves into the next chapter. One of my favorite descriptions of change is the one of a caterpillar and a butterfly. In order for a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly, they have to literally cocoon by themselves and turn into mush, allowing everything about them to morph into who they are meant to be. They do not put it off because it is scary or hard work, they do it anyways because that is what their purpose is. We are not meant to stay the same, we are meant to change and grow, to learn from our mistakes. We are meant to be fun, light hearted free spirits who do not fear change or growth we embrace it.
Part of my journey of growing into my goddess form is gaining the confidence to know that I deserve to be happy and free. I deserve to have people in my life who just show up and support without judgment and I also deserve to truly love myself for ME! I am loud, outspoken, indecisive and can get overwhelmed at times and you know what? THAT IS OKAY! I am also silly and fun, I love to dance and sing, I love hard and will be your biggest cheerleader. I will not always get it right but will always strive to apologize when I mess up. I refuse to let the thorns of life hold me back anymore. I am choosing to chop them down like the scene from Sleeping Beauty when the prince is fighting through the giant sticker bushes to rescue Aurora, except I am both the rescuer and the damsel in distress. Life is flying by faster and faster and I want to truly love and enjoy it and in order to do that, I have to truly love and enjoy myself!
I want to end this post with positive affirmations of my own and I challenge you to say them to yourself while adding in some new ones for yourself.
* I am beautiful inside and out
* I love myself enough to grow into my true form
* I am strong and capable
* I am enough
* I am kind to myself
* I am worthy of love
* I am kind and forgiving to myself
Now go out there and slay the day like the goddess and god that you are!! Find the people who lift you up, look in the mirror and remind yourself how truly amazing you are! Do not let fear of failure or other’s opinions hold you back, use those as motivation to push forward into the unknown.
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