I am repeating myself but Marcus Messiah Garvey (whom is a freedom fighter, the smartest person I have ever heard of and was fat) said:
“If you haven’t confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started. ”
I had never been the pretty girl or the girl the boys looked at. I can honestly say my husband was the first man to tell me I was beautiful (of course my dad also but he isn’t a boy he is my dad). We met when I was in my late 20s. Now I look back and realize it wasn’t that men didn’t find me attractive it was that I didn’t find myself attractive. I blamed my weight. I blamed all my problems on my weight it became a great excuse.
Also I never liked getting my photo taken and would often delete them from mine and other peoples cameras because I didn’t like the way I looked. It is a joke I played on my mom that I would hide all the framed pictures she had of me. I secretly went into my husbands photo albums and removed all of the pictures of myself. I avoided looking at myself and would openly say I didn’t care and that no one else should either.
Years ago after 3 kids I was visiting my dad and I think that he was in a mood. He asked why I was taking so long to fix my teeth (which I broke off at 10 falling off my bike) he said:
“You know just because you are married doesn’t mean you can be ugly“
Don’t be upset with my dad because he was right. I think about his advise everyday. I rejected vanity by being lazy about my appearance. I was lazy about my appearance because I didn’t have the confidence to be pretty.
Last year I hit bottom really hard. I often found myself unable to leave the house because I couldn’t stop crying. Now I realize that I had robbed myself of my identity, my relationships with people (including my husband), my sex drive (sorry to be graphic) and my desire for life. There were times I would get in the car and just want to drive and never stop. I found myself googling:
“how to get more confidence”
One blog that I read said don’t be lazy about your appearance. If you need to put on some make-up to make you feel better put some make-up on, if you need to lose weight do it lose the weight, dress nice, brush your hair everyday, and look in the mirror every time you can
I never looked in the mirror!
I hated what I saw and I would say that only vain people looked in the mirror. I remember vowing to never look unless I had to. Try brushing your teeth without looking in the mirror. This lead to many incidents of wearing clothes with stains, baby spit-up, food drippings, etc and never knowing until my husband would say “Are you wearing that? It isn’t clean.” or on one trip to the big city a stranger asked what corner I squeegeed on. I WAS apathetic and lazy about how I looked because I didn’t think I should care or want to care.
The advise in those blogs also mentioned look at what you love about yourself. All I saw was fat. I had to work so hard to pick myself up and feel better. I forced myself to look in the mirror everyday. I wanted to feel better. Thanks to the patience, good advise and love of my friends I was able to focus on weight loss instead of hiding from it. I started looking in the mirror with honest eyes and was surprised that I didn’t look as horrible as I thought. The exercising and diet were working and my body was getting smaller. I was accomplishing my goals and growing stronger for it. I often question whether I am a happier person now because of a little make-up and weight loss or whether I get more oxygen to the brain or was it taking time and pride in myself?
It is an ongoing battle I still don’t feel “Trophy Wife” confident but at least I know that it is not my weight that is holding me back but instead a state of mind. If I can overcome my weight than I can over come this too!
I can win this race before I begin.
With love,
The “Plateaued” Housewife
I admire your raw honesty in this post. Thank you for sharing your story!
Diana
This is part of the weightloss quest I am sure of it. I would say 100% of people who want to lose weight have low confidence in themselves. That is why I choose to be a Trophy Wife it is the exact opposite of insecure.Much love
wonderfully honest and totally relatable, I agree that this is the journey we must all make in helping ourselves to boost our own confidence. Truly great to read this post, thank you x
Thanks that means a lot!
Hey, you can feel confident and good about yourself for reasons other that appearance – like feeling proud of the things you do, like doing good, like making people smile. There’s lots of things.
I had to think of how to respond to this. On one hand I think that you are right but on the other hand I want to believe that doing good and making people smile should be selfless. Appearance seems to be the driving force behind successful weight loss. My improved confidence comes from setting goals and achieving them. My reward is being able to look in the mirror confidently. However I just really wish I had something funny to say. Much love
Yes. I suppose that when you get to being selfless, notions of confidence and feelings of pride drop away. Something funny is always good, though. Did you here the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the gorilla who walk into a bar and……
hahahah
Nice reading about you
Thanks for visiting my blog. Be in touch. Browse through the category sections, I feel you may find something of your interest.
Happy New Year !!!!!!! and best wishes for you in 2014 🙂
Thanks and I enjoyed reading about you too! Much love stay positive and stay focused right?
thank you so much dear 🙂
I guess it’s not about trying to be something you’re not but the making the best of what you have and having pride in yourself. Makeup is something I wear to stop people asking me if I’m sick (naturally blonde, naturally pale), but it’s the bare minimum and my hair has a mind of its own no matter what I do.
Thank you you are so right. I realize now that there is nothing wrong with taking pride in your appearance to make yourself feel good. I really learned this in Africa. African women walk by you and smell like spring flowers. Everyone including the men take a lot of care in their appearance but don’t seem vain. They seem to just want to be their best. What is wrong with being your best right?
Simply that you have recognized this is the biggest win. It seems that so many either accept to be ugle or turn to depression. This is such a contrast to the life that the most high has blessed me with and it helps to see a glimpse of the inner turmoil that people I work with go through. None come to mind that have been so plain about it.
Glad to seee the turnaround.
Regards,
Clifford Mitchem
Advocare Distributor
Nutrition + Fitness = Health
For information visit: http://www.AdvoCare.com/13087657
Regards,
Clifford Mitchem
Advocare Distributor
Nutrition + Fitness = Health
For information visit: http://www.AdvoCare.com/13087657
Yes it is true this is the exact opposite of how the Almighty wants us to live and living in the positive you can achieve anything! Much love and blessings
Thanks for visiting my first post. Appreciate it a ton! Reading through this one inspired me. I just started a “get healthier” routine and sometimes it’s hard to relate to the girls at the gym or my friends. I do feel that confidence has so much to do with how well you will achieve your goals. Thanks for sharing this!
It is hard too to see those achievements when you place blame on something like a fat body. It feels good to look good
This is such a powerful post!! WOW!! Thank you for sharing it. It goes along with my post today–the video I did using a quote, “war is upon you whether you would risk it or not.” Ignoring the war against my body, my libido, my confidence, etc. did not change things. It took risking failure in my goals to know I could succeed. There is definitely a war against us women from every direction, trying to pull down our confidence. And it from both sides, focus on appearance, not focusing on appearance . . . either to the extreme. But our Creator made each of us with unique beauty we need to embrace! (And Yay! Marie is friends with us both! I love her blog.)
I agree. The war on women I love that. I feel that so many aspects of our lives discriminate us. I once met with a friend who grew up in the US in the 70’s during the modern “Women’s Liberation” and Gloria Steinam (I probably spelt her name wrong) opened a sect in her California community. She said that once the others found out she had children that she was asked not to return. I ask you what do we feel is the most feminine thing we have? Our uterus comes to mind. At every turn we are faced with not being allowed to be who we want to be and who we were born to be. I have been blessed with having 4 children and I can tell you that although 4 is not many so many people I meet want to let me know that I shouldn’t have any more and I question why don’t we love the children anymore? Is this part of the war on women? We must wear pants and work out of the home and stop marrying and stop having children because we want to be men? Like you mentioned the Almighty Creator made us women unique. I blame history and religion for discriminating women. Why now are we considered the Holy Ghost?
Birthing and raising my four children is paramount as the best part of my life. I have dreams beyond motherhood, but none more important.
I just want to join the others who have already congratulated you on your impressive honesty and openness in this post. Your story is probably an inspiration more people than you know.
Thanks. I hope others find inspiration because that is what we all need in this weight loss quest!
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Thanks to you too!
Pingback: Confidence to be Pretty? | A BENew Journey
Gave you a shout out on my blog today, just kept pondering this post and felt I had to share it with my readers. http://abenewjourney.com/2014/02/13/confidence-to-be-pretty/
Thank you I feel the love. Blessings Rachel
Confidence has a huge impact and can be a life changer. Merci, too, for visiting and following my blog.
Merci et vous. Confindence is a battle for most overweight people I suspect. How is the weather where you live in France?
Sunny, but cool (high 50’s), in the south of France today (Nice), after having a lot of rain in the area. Usually our Mediterranean climate is seasonally mild.