I hate myself! WOW! OUCH! Ya’ll probably think I’m crazy for starting a post this way… but I promised to give ya’ll total honesty, and there is nothing more honest than admitting to the fact that I hate A LOT about myself. My self esteem is non existent. Confidence, HA, what is that? Self love.. yeah right.. how can I love myself when I’m so full of flaws!?
My husband and I have this thing where we ask each other the questions from the Newlywed Game, JUST to see if we could win if we ever went on the show… disregard the fact that we will be celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary in 4 days. It’s so much fun though! It’s amazing that after 7 years together we still have things to learn about one another. This was particularly apparent one night when I asked the question, “What is my best and worst quality?” Obviously, I was waiting to hear something like, “Your best quality? How could I pick just 1? And your worst? Babe, you are perfect, don’t change a thing!” So imagine me picking my jaw up off the floor when he said my worst quality was my LACK OF SELF CONFIDENCE!!!! UMMMM, EXCUSE ME!? DID I JUST HEAR YOU RIGHT? I wanted to go full Madea on him! I wanted to say, “Do you think I just woke up one morning, and decided that today would be a good day to practice a little self hate?” “Do you think I ENJOY being insecure?” “Do you think it makes me feel good to look in the mirror and see nothing but straight up UGLY?” “Do you not know that I would kill to have the confidence to do something as minuscule as wear a pair of shorts out in public?”
Atop all the physical things I struggle with, there is an equal amount of crazy that the good Lord has so graciously given me that add to my lack of self confidence. For instance: I’m extremely OCD. I have more anxiety than all of the people in Tokyo COMBINED. Optimist or pessimist? I bet you can answer that question by now! DING DING DING… However, I prefer to call myself a ‘Realist.’ I’m a worrier. I compare myself to others. I stress eat. I overeat. I get depressed. I feel like I’m failing as a mom. I am a shopaholic. I love when bedtime comes around, because it means I can turn off Clifford, and FINALLY binge watch my own Netflix shows. I could go on for days… the point is, when I reflect upon myself, all I see is the negative.
I was upset when Cody first told me this; but after I thought about it, and I mean REALLY thought about it, I wanted to crawl under a rock.
I developed insecurities early in life… elementary school early! Lets just say, I wasn’t apart of the popular crowd. I was a community league cheerleader until I aged out and began middle school. I had PLENTY of friends between school and cheer-leading, and most of those friends were what you would consider “popular.” It wasn’t until my last year as a cheerleader that I started to feel like an outsider… and from there began my lifelong struggle with insecurities. I’ve always struggled with my weight, and as a cheerleader I always knew I was chubbier than all the other girls. The older I got, the meaner girls became, and the more they treated me like an outcast. I don’t know why I was always the center of the mean girl drama; maybe it was because we all used to be friends, or maybe I was just really that easy to pick on? I honestly; to this day, don’t know.. but I do know that my insecurities and self esteem struggles began much earlier than they should have. I remember coming home from school one day, and as the tears flowed from my eyes like Niagara Falls I told my mom, “They make me so mad, I want to do something bad!” I didn’t know what that ‘something bad’ was at the time, but I was so hurt and I didn’t know how to put that hurt into words. From there it was just a downward spiral. It’s not like I had no friends; in fact, I had the same group of friends all throughout school, but they couldn’t change the way I already felt about myself. The mean girl phase sort of stopped once I got into high school, but then the high school boys entered my life. The boyfriend I had before I met my husband was AWFUL to say the least. I was young and naive and I thought I was in love.. (I kind of want to gag on the words I just wrote).. LOL! Because I THOUGHT he loved me, I gave him every piece of me. Ya’ll, this guy was bad news.. he cheated on me, he used drugs, he talked to me like a dog, he got his kicks from pointing out my imperfections, the list goes on! My self esteem might have suffered because of mean adolescent girls, but it was obliterated by this boy!
It wasn’t until I met my husband that my world was turned upside down. He treated me like pure gold! He has shown me over the last 8 years together what it truly means to love and be loved, and I can honestly say that I am 100% totally in love with every aspect of this man of mine. He drives me freakin’ CRAZY sometimes, but he is the center upon which my world spins, and he deserves a confident wife! He has given his all to me, and he has worked to build me up from the place that some other guy knocked me down to. He could have kicked my butt to the curb when he realized how truly broken I was, but he STAYED! Not only did he stay, but he picked up the pieces and put me back together. I owe it to him (and my little girl) to be the best me I can be, so I am busting my tail to be the confident woman that he and our daughter deserves!
Here are some things I’m working on in order to build my confidence:
- Make a list of the things I love about myself; for instance: I love my eyes. I have the biggest heart. I may not be the best mom, but I sure am a GREAT ONE! I am incredibly self-LESS. My OCD makes me a dang good housekeeper. The list goes on…
- Find something positive for every negative thing I think about myself!
- Show my legs! This may sound stupid, but I am incredibly self conscious of my legs. I hate them, so unless I’ve been at the tanning bed for months, you won’t catch me in shorts. I’m trying to get there though. So, I’ve decided that I’m wearing a dress that shows my legs to dinner for our anniversary tomorrow night. BABY STEPS, right?
- Read & re-read Psalm 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” And Song of Solomon 4:7 “You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.”
You see, we are all children of God and that makes each and every one of us miraculous! God saw fit to make us JUST the way we are, and we have got to embrace it. Every time I pick out something I hate about myself, I might as well be telling God he failed when he made me; and GOD DOES NOT FAIL! He doesn’t make mistakes! He put you and I here for a purpose, and he thinks we are BEAUTIFUL and FLAWLESS! I don’t know about you, but that statement empowers me.
I’m not writing this because I’ve got it all figured out. Truth is, I don’t have anything figured out. I still wake up every morning with insecurities, but I am working toward a better, stronger, more confident me. And if by some chance me sharing my story helps another girl overcome her similar struggles, then I am doing EXACTLY what I’ve set out to do! As women, there is already so much against us without us becoming our own worst enemy. I want to encourage you to LOVE YOURSELF and embrace every single thing that makes you YOU!
I want to leave you with the quote at the bottom of this page, simply because I love it and there is so much truth to it. “Self confidence is a super power.” AMEN SISTER! I don’t know about you, but I find myself in AWE of confident women. Whether she be short, tall, a size 0, a size 18, blonde, brunette; all I see when I look at a confident woman is her confidence! No matter what she looks like, she radiates with beauty because SHE knows her worth and NO ONE can tell her otherwise. I LOVE IT! I want to be that woman.. I want to have that super power.. and I want my life to be nothing short of MAGICAL!
Until next time, my lovelies.
xoxo Carrie
The Daily Carrie 