Do you feel good about yourself?
Do you feel beautiful when you walk into a room,
do you feel confident when you approach that special someone who gives you butterflies?
Or do you hide, behind your hair, your make up, or just in general?
I used to hide a lot, in more ways than one, and after all of my experience with acne….I have a secret to tell you.
Confidence has nothing to do with the way you look.
Ok, now before you get really angry and throw the computer across the room, hear me out 🙂
I know that you struggle so much with your acne, that you feel bad about yourself on a daily basis, that you’re embarrassed by your skin and that you hate that you have this problem when you feel like no one else does.
And believe me, I get it.
But I wanted to tell you a little story today to help you understand what I mean when I say that confidence is an inside job.
So you know how I’m obsessed with my skin, right? (Haha, by now, you most likely understand that my skin is very important to me).
Well, 2 years ago, I had a bad accident that ended with a 1.5 inch scar right above my eyebrow.
Do you know how pissed I could have been? I had cleared my acne after 15 years of struggling, I had basically gotten rid of 95% of my scarring, my face was finally porcelain-esque that I always dreamed of, but now I had a relatively noticeable scar (if I didn’t cover it with make-up) that I would most likely, never be able to get rid of. And guess what?
It was totally ok.
Why? Because I’ve realized after all of my years on this earth… and all of my acne healing, all of my random struggles and challenges that….
Here is what that scar did for me. It reminded me, once again, that I have absolutely no control over the things that happen to me. Literally. This was a total freak accident that I could never have seen coming… and you know what, it could have been worse! I could have lost my eye, the scar could have been right in the middle of my cheek (now it sits right above my eyebrow which is almost, ALMOST, cute hahaha…)
In a weird way, the scar helped me to continue to define my beauty and my confidence from the inside out.
So, me being me, after the whole scar incident happened, I started to make a list one day of all of the things that make me feel powerful and confident- things that I DO have control over…..things that can’t be taken away from me.
I came up with these:
Working out. Years ago, I used to HATE working out. But a few things in my life changed and I really started to understand how powerful working out can actually BE. Now when I work out, I not only GLOW afterwards, but I feel powerful, strong, in charge. Working out makes me feel beautiful.
Reading and Learning. Does this sound weird to you? I hope not, because reading is like… my everything. I think that feeling intelligent is one of the ULTIMATE ways to feel powerful. When you know things about your life, your body, your mind, your circumstances, your money, the world…. you become powerful. This is also why I wrote Bold and Bare, because I want to arm you with acne clearing knowledge. So that you always make choices about your skin from a place of power, strength and knowledge.
Being kind and loving, even when others can’t. Two people in my life did very mean spirited, callous and cruel things to me a while ago at the very worst time. Do you know how angry I could have been? How mean I could have been back? But you know what? Being mean, angry, or “retaliating” back, is also, just not me. The second I give in to anger, I don’t respect myself as much. My nature is love, kindness, positivity, and generosity. And sticking to these loving principles, even in times when I am being treated badly, helps me love and respect myself so much more; it helps me feel powerful and confident.
These things above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my feeling powerful and confident, in spite of how I “look”. I wanted to share them with you so that you could maybe start to brainstorm some inside->out ways that you feel beautiful and confident.
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