Confidence
This week’s Her Growth Collective is all about confidence. I have written a lot about my journey of healing and growth in 2020 and realize there was another common theme weaving its way through my words; confidence in myself and my choices.
When I have been hurt in the past, my coping mechanism has been to verbally process my pain and seek insight, advice, and affirmation from trusted friends and mentors; however, 2020 forced me to look within and keep my pain and healing mostly private. When you are navigating through a difficult time, stress, anxiety, fear, and doubt are often your travel companions.
Courage is built when we feel the fear and do it anyway. Confidence is built when we walk through the fears and doubts and keep showing up, even when we don’t want to. If we wait until we feel confident to make hard choices, unpack our pain, or put ourselves out there, we will be waiting a long time. However, when we keep showing up, even when it’s hard, even when it’s painful, we build our resilience and in turn, our confidence.
It was hard for me to feel confident when there was so much uncertainty, both within my head and in my world. My prior coping mechanisms had me wanting my feelings to be validated, my choices to be affirmed, and people to see how hard I was working.
What I have learned about true healing is that it has nothing to do with anyone else. No matter what anyone does or says, or doesn’t do or say, it has no effect on our true healing. Apologies and acknowledgements may help mend a wound, but it is only through our own hard work that we can truly heal. Here’s the good news, it is through that hard work that we begin to feel truly confident in ourselves and our choices. The hard work is worth it. I promise.
Although humor and naïveté lit the spark to Flushing It Out, it is the confidence in myself and my growth and healing that keeps my passion alive. I honestly think it was my unbroken heart that gave me the confidence to walk so boldly into this arena. I had never experienced my own pit of despair but had the desire to spread this message. Had I known the depths of pain that would be waiting for me in 2020, I would have been tempted to close myself off and not put anything out into the world. However, I believe it has been this platform and the people I have connected with that have helped build my confidence through one of the hardest seasons of my life and turn that desire to spread the message into the passion it is now.
If you are going through a difficult time, you will find that your confidence is there waiting for you, growing each time you show up to do the hard thing. You are worthy of showing up for yourself.
This post is written in partnership with #HerGrowthCollective, encouraging women to walk the path of self-development together.
