This past week I was having a conversation with a friend about self-confidence. In our sharing, we found comfort and validation in the fact that it has not always come easy to either one of us. Later on in the week, I had a similar conversation with another friend. This made we wonder, what is it that is keeping these obviously successful beautiful women (defined as such on our own terms) from being comfortable enough to shine or even to acknowledge that they are freaking amazing! The inner sociologist in me absolutely loves to explore a question such as this and I kept thinking about it all week. The spirit junkie in me is determined to find a way to help people see and be ok with owning how very awesome they are! Let's face it, I would also like to be ok with feeling that awesome and not feeling like I should hold it in.
This is an issue that has always deeply affected me. As someone who has always tried to attain success (which was not always defined in my own terms) and who lives by values that are of value to those close to me and society as a whole, I feel that I should be ok with feeling proud and confident. However, to this day, I still feel a niggle of discomfort when someone praises me (who isn't anyone of my amazing mothers).
An idea came to me during one of those conversations. Though we may have a predisposition in our nature to be "shy", I certainly was not one of those people. So why then, do I have such a hard time feeling confident and feel the need to have external validations of my success or simply of who I am and what I'm doing? One of the reasons is because we are socialized this way!! It doesn't much matter which institutions in our culture you became a part of, the messages were abundant that we don't want anyone to get too confident. To get a job, pass an interview, do well in school, speak in public - to do any of these things you need to be confident. But just, don't be too confident.
Not only are we bombarded with media messages that we are not quite measuring up, but we literally are told things like "don't get too big for your britches" or asked "who do you think you are?". I have even heard these words come out of my own mouth to my children and almost choked on them. Not that I'm striving for perfect parenting (that ship sailed long ago and I now realize that it would be quite unattainable if I even wanted to claim that prize), but I'm trying to do the best I can with them so that they don't grow up feeling like they need to be smaller than they actually are. I want them to have confidence and courage to live life fully and follow their dreams. I don't want them to feel that they need to crush them before they've even gotten started because "who do they thing they are" for reaching for the such heights?
One of the compliments that I've gotten in the past that I've never been comfortable with is when someone points out how successful I've become after having such a shitty upbringing. Let's get this out there. I love my biological mom more than anything in this world. In 1993, I lost her to her battle with alcoholism. I grew up in terrible conditions until my Aunt Linda (one of the beautiful women who I now consider a mom) took me in and gave me the care I needed. I was 13 and she was only 26. I went off to university and got a BA with a sociology major, having graduated high school with a scholarship to support my first year, a very nice GPA when I left university and joined the military as an Air Navigator. I was told, with all of that taken into consideration, I should be very proud of how I've turned out. I was then told by peers that I was using my story to garnish sympathy and get attention. What was the message? No matter how well you do in life, don't outwardly show how proud you are. Be humble. Do amazing things. Get acknowledgement from others for them, but never appear to actually want or be trying to get attention. But don't show any of your flaws or a lack of self-confidence. Because that is bad too. Well, I'm at a point in my life where I say bullshit to all of that. It's not an overnight process but I'm done with pretending to be someone I'm not and I'm done with trying to make the crap seem better than it is or the great things seem smaller than they are.
There are a thousand books that you could read that contain wisdom which will help you reclaim the confidence that may have been buried under all of those layers of shame. You know I always love a good book recommendation and the first one I ever read that helped me see how crazy all of this was is The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. Really any book by her will light a fire in your tummy but this one is my fav. If you haven't seen her Ted Talk on Vulnerability then that is a must watch. Seriously, you should even stop what you're doing right now (ok, after you've finished reading this post) and watch it. You will LOVE it!
Another thing that has helped me peel back the layers of this issue has been Yoga. In the silence and sometimes frustration of each and every pose, I am faced head on with my own demons. There is a voice that says who do you think you are? and another voice that says you're too old to head down this path now or you look nothing like those girls and women on instagram. What do I do about this voice? I breathe and tell that voice that I don't have to be them, I just have to be the best version of me that I can be. I'm hoping that one day that voice will get quieter and the voice that whispers - YOU ARE FREAKING DOING IT and YOU ARE FREAKING AWESOME will get louder and louder. One step at a time I am getting braver and uncovering the courage to be exactly who I want to be.
So I challenge you my beautifully fierce serenity seekers - to take a moment to acknowledge how amazing YOU are! Get out there (at an appropriate distance from others, because you know... that big C is still out there) and shine that light because you were made as one incredible being you deserve to feel like the badass you are!
Until next time,
xo
Kat
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