Is confidence about your body? Or your mind?
This blog post started out as one thing and morphed into something else so forgive me!
Do you think there is a difference between external confidence (feeling good about what you look like) and internal confidence (feeling good about who you are)?
More often than not, our message from society and from the media, and from advertising, tells us that ‘fixing’ our external ‘flaws’ is the key to feeling confident.
And it is so incredibly easy to fall into this belief, to believe that having a better haircut, or a smaller waistline will magically transform our inner selves. The fact that the cosmetics industry is now one of the largest industries in the world, and is worth nearly £9 billion each year in the UK alone (and as a market is projected to value at about 758.4 billion U.S. dollars by 2025) says a lot about how many of us, quite literally, buy into this.
And I am absolutely not immune to this – the number of skin care products I’ve bought, the barely opened foundations that sit in my drawer, the nail varnishes that end up drying out through lack of use… whilst I’m better now than I used to be, thanks to being vastly more aware, I am no saint.
But I have learned, over time, through hours of reading and research and, yes, digging deep down into my feelings, that confidence and self-worth come from within.
And in fact, for me personally, I find that how I feel about myself creates a ripple effect that impacts all the other areas of my life. And by this I mean, working on a confidence mindset, working on understanding what is important in my life, letting go of old beliefs and stories from my childhood and teenage years – this is what has enabled me to feel comfortable and happy in who I am (and by extension then, what I look like).
That inner work has radiated outwards.
I remember when my children were really young, I’d had three babies in four years, I was emotionally and physically exhausted, and I just felt like I had lost my sense of self. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate being a Mum (I did and I do), I just felt like I wasn’t the same person that I was before children and I didn’t know how to find a way to reconcile my life as it was now.
Initially I thought that if I ‘fixed’ my body, if I could get back to how I looked before, that this would solve my problems. That by looking how I used to, I would feel like I used to.
Only this was not the case.
For a start, I struggled to force my body back into a mould that no longer fit. I ended up with deep resentment of the scars and the skin that lay across my belly, I was cross that my rib cage refused to shrink back to what it had once been, and I felt embarrassed by my boobs which had grown and shrunk repeatedly, and which failed to fully t re-inflate to their pre-child glory, no matter how many chest exercises I performed.
Tears flowed, I tucked myself away, I hid myself under baggy clothing and maternity leggings.
Long story short, it made me feel worse – not better.
I remember my husband (a highly annoying at times, eternal optimist) saying to me; happiness is a choice. And yes, I ranted and raved and felt HUGELY annoyed and angry because absolutely nothing about how I was feeling felt like a choice.
But. I started reading.
Reading blog posts, reading books, reading other people’s stories. I started doing the work that was suggested; I started practicing gratitude every day, I started paying attention to what was well and good and lovely in my life. I started walking in the hills, often whilst listening to motivating podcasts that put a spring in my step.
I took care with what I ate but I stopped restricting myself, I rediscovered my love of food and of cooking. I started following women on social media who inspired me, and who offered me comfort in imperfection. I realised that I wasn’t alone.
Eventually those scars that I so hated, just became ‘me’. A part of me that I value as much as any other part of me.
And, as loath as I am to admit, doing the mindset work did actually change everything – it turned out that I did have to choose happiness, I did have to choose to feel enough, to feel worthy, after all.
There is a famous quote that goes; “she remembered who she was and the game changed”, and I suppose I would tweak this a bit, because it wasn’t so much that I returned to the person I was when I had last felt confident, rather I had discovered a new confidence in who I was now. But, the game had absolutely changed.
And in fact, in so many way, the experiences that we struggle through, the moments of fear and loneliness and loss, so often we do come out of the other side of these with so much greater inner strength. And that inner strength can have huge impacts. Once you learn to love yourself, all the parts of you; the good, the bad, and the wildly chaotic, your inner strength shines. And those daily setbacks, those moments of insecurity, no longer feel like great threats, they feel like the bumps in the road that they are.
When we gain that ability to overcome, when we build that resilience, when that confidence starts to take shape, it is so freeing. It allows us to push past our fears, it allows us to take risks, it allows us to be bold, because we finally understand that failure doesn’t have to affect us.
We know we will get up, dust off, and go again.
And other people’s words, other people’s beliefs, lose their power.
The power is ours now (and it came from within)
And if you are at all interested in working towards your own confidence and health goals with me, please take a look at my coaching programs.
Ali Xx