Finding Confidence

The past 2 weeks I've been doing a lot of reflecting and discussing with my husband about some really emotional things about my past. I'm sure everyone has been through what I have, but this is my story.

First off, middle school sucks. Bad. The teasing, bullying, and drama that goes on is...well let's say, life alerting. For some people, like me, the teasing and bullying is so bad that is shapes people into who they become. I don't remember much about myself before these years in middle school, but after these years and into high school, I became very, very, extremely insecure. I was teased a lot, called mean names, and that shaped me and what I thought about myself. I thought I truly was a bitch, since these girls called me it several times. It hurt me. I thought I was a show off and tried to be better than everyone else. I hated my freckles, I hated my teeth (rat teeth as they were called) and I didn't try very hard when it came to sports. And then high school started. I got over my issues with sports because I had AMAZING coaches who saw how good I could be and they pushed me. But everything else...just got worse.

Girls are MEAN. That's that. They are caddy and jealous and will say some very mean things to make them feel better about themselves. Because of this, I became very worrisome about what girls thought of me, how I looked, how I dressed. I carried this way of life on past school. Even still today, at 27 years old. Something that all started at the age of 12. 15 years ago. Sad. Sad that I let this affect me for so long. But I never really pinpointed the reasons for this until recently.

4 years ago I was at my breaking point. I often thought of death and how life for my husband and kids would be so much better without me here. I was done. No reason to push on. But one night I had a very amazing experience that helped me to realize that I am needed. It was then that I started on my journey to getting out of depression. For 2 years, I prayed and pleaded daily to be able to find something that will make me happy. That's when I started running. With in 4 months, I lost close to 50lbs. I started getting told that I was too skinny, I lost the weight too fast. I had good genetics to have lost the weight that fast...but I was also told positive things. But because I was so used to letting the negative rule my life, I gained some weight back on. I discredited all my hard work and blamed good genetics on my weight loss. I wasn't good enough to have done this on my own.

These past 2 weeks I have been trying to learn to love myself for who I am today. Not who I want to be. But right now. This moment, to love myself. I've also been trying to let go of my past. I mean, it's silly, something that happened 15 years ago, has changed my whole life. I'm extremely jealous and judge mental towards women, I have only had 2-3 real close girl friends that I hang out with in the last 7 years. This past of mine, has made me bitter towards females. And I realized with in these last 2 weeks, how, quite frankly, silly this all was. Again, I had no idea all my issues were from these years in school. Just so happened to have come up in conversation with my husband and solving my problems.

Another HUGE part is Facebook. Oh how I HATE Facebook. People are so freaking mean on there. During the time I lost my weight, I deactivated my account. I was 100% completely happy and proud of myself. It felt amazing. After running my first marathon, 6 months after getting off Facebook, I got back on. I missed talking with my "friends". I stayed for about a year and then I realized I had been in and out of depression again and very much caught up on worrying what people thought of me. (I don't want to go into too much details, but honestly, it makes me sick just thinking about how mean people are on social media. I haven't had any issues with instagram, but holy cow, it is incredibly sad how brutal and rude and jealous people get. The part that kills me is how these people voice their opinions. Wow.) I honestly felt like I did in high school all over again. So, I ditched it.

So anyway...today...I've had some more time to realize some things. One, I have created my own fear of having confidence in myself and in what I do. I look back at these girls from school and think to myself, they are girls with "confidence". For 15 years I have thought this. So to me, having confidence makes you mean and, well quite frankly, a bitch. I DID NOT want to be that. I want people to like me. So if I am "confident", how could people like me? Second thing I'm realizing, because of insecurities, I don't take compliments well. I don't give myself credit for any of my accomplishments. Those 50lbs that I lost was only because of good genetics. Those 8 marathons I ran in 16 months was nothing special to talk about. The fact that I got a scholarship to play volleyball in college meant nothing. "It was just a junior college," I'd tell myself. There are so many things that I have discredited myself from.

Things kind of got put into perspective today. I was challenged a week ago during bootcamp, when everyone was doing toe touches on a step, my instructor told me to do a box jump and jump to the third step. I did that, no problem. Then after a few more jumps, he challenged me to go to the fourth step. I laughed and said, "yeah right, I can't do that." I attempted just to prove him wrong, but I was actually pretty close. Bootcamp ended and I couldn't stop thinking about those steps. I am a very, very competitive person. A lot of people say that about themselves, but I think I'm at a level that's unhealthy. I can't even play recreational sports because I get too competitive. Even in bootcamp, if we are doing timed things (sprints, push ups...) I have to be first. I'm in no way rude about it. I just have to push myself that hard to be satisfied. Like I said, probably not healthy...but it actually does make me push myself very hard and get to where I want faster. Anyway, back to the steps. I attempted a few more times as the days past, but kept failing. On Sunday, there was a very amazing lesson at church about letting go of the past and be forgiving. The lesson was a little deeper than that, but to spare all the details, I pretty much cried the whole lesson. (I'm a big cry baby just FYI) Throughout the week I have been learning to let go of things. But my biggest thing now is having confidence. I always looked at women who I thought had "confidence" and I didn't want to be like that. They were rude, inconsiderate, and thought they were better than everyone else. But what I realized this week was that I was looking at the wrong people for examples. That made a huge difference in my perspective. So this morning, after bootcamp, I attempted to jump the steps. I attempted several times but the lack of confidence was there. So I stopped, focused all my energy on positive thoughts and jumped with all my might. And what do you know, I cleared all 4 steps! It was a huge moment for me. One I'll never forget.

I can now say that the reason I went on to play volleyball, so what if it's at a junior college, was because I had talent and I was good.

I can now say that I lost those 50lbs in such a short time was because I busted my butt and earned everything on my own.

I can now say that I was able to run all those marathons because of pure determination and hard work.

I have earned all that I've gained. Nothing was given to me. Good genetics or not, I bust my butt day in and day out to get to where I want. And you can do the same. Don't let anything hold you back. Ever. It's hard to live like that. I'm proof, unfortunately, of that. Stop comparing yourself to those you socialize with. Who cares if you run a 10 minute mile and not a 6. Who cares if you can only run 3 miles and not 100 miles. Work your tail off and if you really desire to do these things, your passion and drive will get you there. I am also proof of that.