Hello everyBODY!! I hope you all have had a great couple of weeks! Sorry I have been M.I.A. I have been out fighting crime... and celebrating some awesome milestones in my family! I love all the responses I am getting from viewers, so please keep the comments coming. I have gotten some pretty rad topics to talk about, but the topic that kept coming up was confidence. I got questions on how to become confident in oneself and your body, and questions on how to help others feel confident. So this week is about finding your confidence and helping other find theirs.
It’s funny because even as a child I was seen as an outgoing confident person. Adults would always tell me when I was younger that they admired confidence and how sure of myself at such a young age. I always thought that confidence and how loud you are were linked, and that it was just a polite way of them telling me that I was super loud. The truth was , that I was probably one of the most self-conscience kids on the blacktop. By the age of five, I already hated my body, and how I was different than all the other kids. The truth is that the I put up a wall of "confidence" so other kids could not hurt me with their words or actions. As I got older none of that changed, but if you ask anyone I went to school with they would have said that I was super confident and had no body image issues. In fact, I lead a body image group in a program at our school called Freshman Skills day. This program was a peer to peer experience were upperclassmen taught and gave advice to freshman. I loved leading the team! I found myself being able to help others achieve confidence in themselves, but I could not gain any myself. While I was teaching others about embracing yourself and loving who you are I was tearing myself apart in the bathroom about how fat my thighs were. But while I was preaching about having a balanced diet, I was starving myself till dinner, and then taking about seven laxatives to make sure I did not take in too many calories.
First time ever in my 25 years of living I was finally comfortable wearing
swim suit and damn it felt great!
The self-hate went on for years, it is a vicious cycle . It seems that as soon as you start feeling good about yourself your stinking thinking reminds you ‘Oh wait you are worthless and ugly. So let's not get too confident there!’ I did not gain true self-confidence until I was 22, and now that I am confident my life is so pleasant. I find myself having so much more joy in living!
So here are some things that I did to help me gain true self-confident and why it is important.
1) Look at yourself butt naked in the mirror- Okay I know this sounds weird, but trust me it helps. I stood in the mirror naked and looked at my body and realized, ‘hey I can not be too hard on myself because my body is doing its job. I am standing here breathing . I felt like this helped me because it put things into perspective for me. It made me realized that my body is an incredible thing and I need to respect it by loving it.
2) While you are butt naked in the mirror looking at your body, say at least one good thing about yourself every day- Too many times we just pick ourselves apart and only point out "flaws". When we talk about our features that we admire we are seen as a vein. Well, screw that !! I say talk and boast about your whole body and realize that those flaws do not need to be negative, but just make us all individually unique and beautiful.
3)Do things out of your comfort zone- Okay so I am going to be honest, I held myself back from so many things in my life because I was fat. That had a huge effect on my confidence because I did not feel that I could do anything. Once again I said screw that! I wear tube tops and run, and guess what... I am fat ! Whether you are tall, skinny, fat, or differently abled do things that society tells us we cannot do. Even if you do not complete the task at hand, you made an effort and that is AWESOME. I feel that when you get out of your comfort zone you grow as a person, and through that you realize what you and your body can actually do.
Show some skin... but make sure to use sunscreen!!
4)Be You- At the end of the day, you need to make yourself happy and live to please you. Being myself and not trying to please others is where I gained a lot of my true confidence.
5) Do not be so hard on yourself- It is fine to make a mistake, not go to the gym, or eat junk food. You learn from mistakes that you make and we all need days where we just lay around and eat junk food. Trust me you will live and see another day! Do not let stinking thinking sneak in and put you down.
These are steps that I took to gain my confidence. I hope they help you because finding my true confidence is the best thing I have ever done. The love that I have for myself has helped me become a better and happier person.
If you are reading this and wondering how can I help someone else find their confidence , here is how.
1) Be patient- It is a long process for some people to become confident in themselves and that is okay.
2) Thoughtful compliments- Telling someone they are beautiful or look good is fine, but you need to go deeper than that to let them know there is more than just looks. These traits are more important than just looks. For example, complement them on their personalities and non-physical traits like, "you are so caring and kind" or "you are so smart".
“Just remember confidence isn't walking into a room with your nose in the air, and thinking you are better than everyone else. It is walking into a room and not having to compare yourself to everyone else, it's walking into a room and not having to compare yourself to anyone else in the first place”. (anonymous)
Love ,
Sam
Twitter and Instagram: Theladyrey
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Email: kalechipsandfathips@gmail.com
I love you! Ive known you for so long and have always admired your ability to see the good in anything and everything!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. I hear what your saying, but you have always had something special in you. You were presented with a challenge when you were in 2nd grade, you handled that challenge better than most adults would ! You may have had body image issues, but you have always been Courageous !! You have always "remembered who you are "
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. I hear what your saying, but you have always had something special in you. You were presented with a challenge when you were in 2nd grade, you handled that challenge better than most adults would ! You may have had body image issues, but you have always been Courageous !! You have always "remembered who you are "
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. I hear what your saying, but you have always had something special in you. You were presented with a challenge when you were in 2nd grade, you handled that challenge better than most adults would ! You may have had body image issues, but you have always been Courageous !! You have always "remembered who you are "
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. I hear what your saying, but you have always had something special in you. You were presented with a challenge when you were in 2nd grade, you handled that challenge better than most adults would ! You may have had body image issues, but you have always been Courageous !! You have always "remembered who you are "
ReplyDelete