This morning during a conversation with a buddy, the idea of confidence came up, quite indirectly. He asked me a question and the only answer I could offer was because I lacked confidence. I’m working on it, I have worked on it. It just seems to elude me in certain situations, especially when it comes to men. I certainly lack confidence when it comes to approaching, engaging and interacting with men. I do not understand them, I don’t speak their language, and I carry a lot of baggage from probably hundreds of lives that men loaded me down with, maybe men who burned me, metaphorically or maybe literally.
I remember a time in my life, junior high and high school, when a friend told me I was cocky and confident and so sure of myself. It was an illusion, though. I was so insecure and so in my head, so unsure, riddled with anxiety and fear. I was intuitive and empathetic and I was in tune to all of the feelings of everyone else that were constantly coming at me. I didn’t know how to shield myself then. I also didn’t know how to govern my own feelings and emotions, let alone decipher and analyze the feelings and emotions of others. So I armored up and acted out of my true nature, I was defensive and aggressive, I layered all of these protective mechanisms and somehow that was misread as confident.
Perhaps that is how my own ideas and perceptions of confidence became so misshapen. I saw confidence as this this badassery, bitchy, boss-babe sort of feel. Confidence to this point has seemed armored up and aggressive with a kind of fight mentality, and a little arrogance.
Sometimes people think because I can eloquently speak in front of groups that I’m confident, but that’s just putting on a hat, that is just playing a role. I taught diabetic classes, just don the diabetes educator cap for that one. I led nursing inservices in front of other healthcare professionals, that’s just another cap to slap on. I teach yoga classes and meditation sessions, just wear my yogi hat. But I actually have some imposter syndrome, I have worked through it, but it still rears its head at me here and there. Imposter syndrome is a behavioral health phenomenon that causes people to doubt their own skills, intellect or accomplishments, even when they have evidence of their successes. It’s a fear of being exposed as a fraud, sort of. Confidence is a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities. It’s a sense of security, this quiet inner knowledge of your own capability.
A few months ago, I did this very informal Facebook poll. I asked a bunch of male FB friends one question. What is the sexiest thing about a woman that is non-physical? Two guys struggled and kept giving physical answers, eyes, smile, and I had to try to reel them in to the parameters of the poll, but overwhelmingly without much hesitation, the majority of these men said “confidence.” So that has led me to really examine what confidence looks like on a woman. Who are the women in my life whom I see as confident?
I think the women I was seeing as confident though, had that cocky nature that I used to have, with this underlying sense of insecurity that they are overcompensating for. So what then does it really look like? Cue the A-ha moment of clarity that my buddy helped me walk into!
That brand of confidence will never fit me. It isn’t who I am. I’ve tried it, even recently. I’ve tried to be assertive and run wildly out of my comfort zone. I’ve tried. It didn’t fit. It was the wrong size, the wrong style, the wrong cut. It didn’t flatter me. It wasn’t tailored for me. So maybe I’ve just been trying too hard or maybe I was trying too hard to make something fit me that was just never going to work for me. Shazam.
Maybe for me it’s not badassery. Maybe my confidence style isn’t badass bitch, in your face, super assertive, cocky, ready to defend and fight.
I’m not a badass. I’m not a boss girl. I can be assertive when I need to be but my true nature is not a badass bitch. I’m a September Libra. I’m a lover. My suit of armor is gone. Not forever, it’s in a closet or a trunk somewhere. I doffed my armor and allowed my vulnerability to be my outfit, sometimes it feels like I’m walking around in my birthday suit. I still have boundaries and I still don’t put it all out there, but my flavor of confidence is never going to be badassery. It’s softer, but soft does’t sound confident does it? Vulnerable doesn’t sound confident. Badass, armored up and gritty sounds confident, ironically armor and grit were my word of the year and wing word a few years ago. I thought maybe if I could embody those words then I could create confidence, but those words were really more about protecting myself from being hurt again, they were about retreating to heal, they weren’t about stepping into my authentic, confident self.
So after this conversation today, it occurred to me, what would my flavor of confidence look like? It has to allow me to rise into that sense of security and certainty about my value and worth, but at the same time it has to serve my true nature. It has to still allow my true essence to show through. It got me thinking more about grit.
Grit is the substance that forms a pearl. Some type of irritant enters the situation and as a defense mechanism this strong, gooey substance is released in layers, like armor, and then it transforms this irritant into a pearl, through it’s natural process of perseverance and protection. Alchemy is so sexy.
Pearls are sensitive to extremes and authentic pearls will dissolve in vinegar. Despite being soft though, pearls are resistant to stress and strain and can withstand immense external pressure without breaking. They are naturally formed without any polishing, cutting or altering and have organic and gentle curves. Pearls are formed through layers of growth and resilience.
You can’t use the same cleaner for a pearl that you can use on a diamond. Confidence for some looks like a big ole two carat flash light, in your face brightness, no mistaking its presence. I don’t have a two carat in your face kind of presence.
I’m more of a glow. I’m a radiant, pearly, iridescent soft glow. You can’t deny the glow, but you also don’t have to shield your eyes from it. It’s the kind of radiance that is more like an ember, glowing and hot, smoldering, mesmerizing, sort of a dancing like glow. It’s soft but still has a grit to it. It can still burn, but if you give it space and just allow it to be, it can provide a really lovely kind of warmth that you just want to be close to. I need to allow my authentic self to gift to the world, this soft, lovely warm glow of pure love energy. I must let it flow and radiate and glow from me.
I need to try that brand of confidence on. I need to step into this style of confidence that fits and flatters me, that IS me. The type of confidence that still allows me to be authentically embodied in my truest self. I’m not a two carat kind of confidence, I’ve wanted to be before and that’s what I thought I had to be, even though it never felt like it fit.
The glow of a pearl happens when light penetrates the surface, travels to the interior, the heart and soul of the pearl, and then bounces back to the viewer. The glow of a pearl is from within, from those innermost layers where the perseverance and resilience started.
I’m a slow burn, warm glow. I know what I know. I know what I’ve got. I know what I bring to the table. And I know who I want around me at that table. I don’t have to be loud about it. I just have to be myself. I just have to stay on course to my true north which is LOVE. My mission is all about love, opening hearts and minds through love. If I can just live my life purpose and allow my warmth and my glow to be a catalytic form of alchemy that has the ability to transform pain into love, if I can do that, just let my love glow, just confidently let my heart and soul and genuine warmth emanate from me with this ember-like soft glow, well then maybe I’m more of a badass then I’ve ever given myself credit for.
Comments