Confidence...it's a funny word...

Confidence. It's just a word, right? It receives so much attention. We try to teach it to our children. We assign it so much importance, but yet it seems so hard to attain. When we are kids, we learn that our talents, our brains, our athletic abilities, and the traits that make up our cores should shape our confidence. We learn that we should have confidence despite any flaws or inadequacies that we possess. Why is it then, that once you reach a certain age, all of your confidence flies out the window? Things you used to be so confident in, seem irrelevant, or even worse, have been beaten down so badly that you don't believe them to be true anymore. I have been learning a lot about myself in the past year, and confidence and self-worth have been questioned time and time again. When I was a child, I was a brainy little one, and I was quite confident in that. When I was a child, I was an athletic little one, and I was quite confident in that. When I was a child, I was quite the little flute player, and I was quite confident in that. I was shown through my parents and important people in my life, that my personality and what made up my core, was the most valuable of all. I was able to find worth in these things, and I was shown that these things, more than my physical appearance and ravishing good looks (hehe), made me a valuable person. So how is it, that now at age 28, I feel like I'm fighting every day to find worth in myself and in these things that came so easily to me when I was younger? I don't have the answer. I do know that with a new body comes a new perspective. Turns out I'm learning a lot about myself and I'm having to cope and understand the new me. I get asked often if losing my weight has made me an incredibly confident person...well it must have, right...? Well, not exactly. If I'm supposed to base my confidence on all these intangibles, then changing the outside doesn't necessarily change the inside...but it has. And I'm having to constantly reconcile the two...the new outside with the inside that is struggling to find its identity.
My new goal is to find that confidence again. I'm not exactly sure how. There isn't a cure for this, and there isn't a surefire way to gain confidence...at least not one that I'm aware of. I don't believe I'm alone in this. Somewhere between 2nd grade and now, the confidence just gets beaten down...and it's hard to gain it back. I think that we can all help each other with this. Remind each other that those intangibles, the things God gave us which are unique to each of us, is what should give us that confidence to do well, love well, and live well. That is my hope for myself, and for all of you.
So, to sign off:
Do well, love well, and live well my friends.

Love,
Yenn