CONFIDENCE!?!?

Hello My Gorgeous Divas, 

I was inspired to write this post after watching a video on confidence by Chasity Garner “The Curvy Girl Guide to Style”. As I watched her video while nodding my head in agreement to her advice on how she achieved and accepted confidence in herself, I started thinking when did I finally gain self-confidence?

In my teenage years, I was somewhat of a popular girl in high school but, I was still considered “the big girl”. I’ve had my moments of being teased but, for the most part I was very confident in myself during my high school years. My confidence started to diminish in my early twenties. I had my first child at the age of 19 just when I was getting ready to start nursing school. I wasn’t with my child’s father. I didn’t have a job. I had no motivation to even start nursing school and I was fresh out of high school. After my daughter was born, I started working and I became so caught up into everyone else’s life I began to forget about me. My weight was out of control and I didn’t like the way I look. It led me to not dress up and not have confidence in myself anymore.

I remember looking at myself and feeling disgusted with the way I looked. Even when I attempted to put on clothes I still didn’t feel good about myself. I am a firm believer that if you don’t feel good on the inside it will show itself in your outer appearance. I was looking for acceptance from my peers, my friends and my family, whom can be the worst critics, But, how could I expect acceptance from them when I couldn’t even accept myself first?

When I turned 30 I said to myself that no matter who doesn’t accept me for who I am today I am beautiful. I started putting myself first. I let go of negative people, negative thoughts & negative energy and released them out of my life including family. I started loving me again.

Building your confidence and self-esteem is daily process. It is not easy when you hear comments about your weight and how “your” weight affects other people’s views of you.  It’s sad but that is the world in which we live in today.

Some days I still wake up and feel like crap but, then I go to my closet, pick out a fly outfit for the day, thank God for giving me life to even pick out a fabulous outfit and boom my confidence is back up.

Now, when people see me in person or my pictures on FB & Instagram they think it’s the clothes but, it’s not. I wear my best accessory with every outfit I put on now and it is CONFIDENCE!!

 By being happy with myself, loving myself and accepting myself cellulite and all, I have grown to be a better mother, a better friend and most definitely a better me.

My advice for women and men who are struggling with building their confidence is…

Love yourself exactly how you look now. If you don’t start now, you may regret it later.

It takes time to build your confidence, it doesn’t happen overnight.

When you do build your confidence up, guard it, protect it and don’t let anyone take it away from you.