confidence – She Be Fierce

So you think you’re ugly? Most of us do at some point in our lives and it seems age doesn’t really matter when you feel this way which is why I was guided to this video. A video which reminded me how I felt as a girl and adolescent. I could never take a compliment, could never look someone in the eye when they paid me one, didn’t believe them when they told me I was pretty and would always reply by saying, “No I’m not”.

The struggles of a Greek girl were real though! The mono-brow I wasn’t allowed to pluck and a hairy top lip, ginger in appearance after my cousins introduced me to bleaching; what a stunner!

The struggle still goes on but it is a little different. When a medical problem challenges you by changing the way you look even slightly, you have to find once more, the confidence to say ‘thank you’ after a compliment which you know deep inside to be honest and true.

I recently became the proud owner of a wonky eye, this is what I call it because I have to turn every hurdle into a joke and find that self-deprecation is my only medicine. It’s a coping mechanism which my friends and family know all too well. Luckily, I know my worth, wonky eye or no wonky eye I can still see out of it which is all that really matters and I am well past worrying about what others see when they look at me. What other people think of me is their business, not mine.

How do you make the best out of an uncomfortable situation? How do you jump out from your cosy bed in the morning without hitting the snooze button more than once? How do we get rid of the ‘acceptable’ form of bullying that is The Jeremy Kyle Show and others like it from polluting the TV airwaves with mind-numbing stories that have nothing to do with us? It’s true that we don’t have to watch, but really, when did friends and family ripping each other to pieces become modern-day entertainment? Are you entertained? I know I’m not!

You’ve probably guessed by the introduction to my latest blog post that I’ve been thinking about the age we are living in, this age of acceptance and being thankful for everything we have including the stuff that resembles a dark cloud hovering over us. I also ask myself, “Did I find this grey mess that follows me everywhere or did it find me?” The idea of attraction bothers me and I believe it is misguiding people into believing that everything is their fault when actually, in my opinion, there are others who completely avoid taking any responsibility because we are cunningly duped and cajoled into laying the blame at our own door.

It’s not easy remaining positive as we look for ways to empower each other but it is essential if we want a moment of peace in the present and hope for what’s around the corner. A lifetime of balance is a little harder to achieve and there will be those, who, with only reasons known to themselves, intent on weaving their tangled web of negativity around our once free space. So recently I’ve been telling myself to be thankful but giving thanks to the things that cause me untold grief and agony doesn’t feel right or good for me. Do these negatives that stick in my throat like a boiled sweet help me to move on? If like me, you find the mistreatment of others incomprehensible, it takes longer to cough up the sticky alien and spit it out.

It goes without saying that I am thankful for my family, my health and the friends who no matter how far or busy they are I can feel by my side; I know who they are now. The thing however, which I am most thankful for is my ability and right to choose. I choose not to be thankful for the people and situations which make me feel worthless, I choose not to be within a whisker of negative forces, weakening and gradually squashing my confidence, I choose not to be grateful for the nonsense that keeps me awake at night for the wrong reasons; I choose sleep. I choose not to watch daytime TV.

The more I think, observe and mull it all over the more I notice that the imbalance of many lives today is caused by accepting everything without question; a convincing theory that makes us better people??! Believe that and you’ll believe anything.