The journey of self discovery is arguably the epitome of life itself. Being truly confident in yourself can truly open the door to a whole new world. Let me start off by saying that being confident is not rooted in hubris or being better than any other person. Confidence isn’t even rooted in your physical appearance, it is about genuinely loving yourself, accepting who you are (flaws and all), and acknowledging that there are things that you can and cannot change about yourself. When I think back over my life, I can recall two very integral moments that have helped to form my self-awareness and ultimately my self-confidence.

The second moment, yes I started with the second moment, was in high school when I read the Serenity Prayer for the first time. I had the privilege of attending an all-girls, Catholic, Liberal Arts, private school. The most memorable part about my entire high school experience can be summed up by the Serenity Prayer… it is as follows…

These are some of the most powerful words that I have ever read and it speaks volumes to the consciousness required to truly love oneself. This prayer helped to define my journey of growth during my adolescent years and the people who helped to empower and evoke that growth within me. If I sat here and explained all of the beautiful details, it will basically be another blog post, so I’ll leave it at that.

The first moment that helped to shape the love that I have for myself, is actually a series of moments. As I’ve mentioned before, I am a dancer...but I still had horrible posture. I developed a slumped stature due to my blossoming bosom (LOL, I’ve always wanted to use that phrase). In less poetic wording, I have big boobs. I would hunch over to try and hide my big boobs, but why hide the genuine shape of my body? I wasn’t thinking that way back then, but my mother was. She told me on a routine basis, “sit with your shoulders back” and sometimes even a short “sit up”. I knew that they both meant the same thing, I needed to stop hunching over. Up until I read the Serenity Prayer, I just assumed this was a weird form of punishment. At this point, rotating my shoulders backwards to their intended position, physically hurt me. This physical pain not only caused me to reflect on the fact that I needed to stretch more, but it also caused me to reflect on why I was hunched over in the first place.

I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, I did not love myself, I did not believe that who I was, was enough. It’s weird though, when I didn’t sit with my shoulders back, I was a wall flower, but when I sat with my shoulders back, I got mixed reviews. For some reason, in today’s society we’ve placed emphasis on the confidence of women. We critique advertisements for depicting women in an unrealistic fashion that causes damage to their self image but we haven’t done much for men. I used to hear that romantic interests (men, women, whoever) love self-confidence and can spot it from a mile away. If that is true, can we also spot a lack of self-confidence from a mile away? And is that linked to something as simple as sitting with your shoulders back? 

This is genuinely a question, leave your thoughts below in the comment section...

Peace, Love, Soul, Emerithing and more...

Em