Building Your Self-Worth

Confidence isn't something we are born with, but more so a skill we develop, that ebbs and flows throughout life. Through self-compassion, boundary setting, and more, we’re able to shift from comparison and perfectionism to a place of self-acceptance and empowerment. Whether you’re on the journey to rediscover your self-worth or looking to nurture it further, I hope you enjoy what I have to say on this subject. We'll end today's episode with your wonderful submissions & thoughts on balancing self worth through life's challenges.

All the love xx 

Thank you so much for listening!

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Transcript

Hi, Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Unrelatable podcast :)) I am so happy you are here. Thank you for all of the feedback on my last few episodes. I have really appreciated it.

I know it's hard sometimes when someone goes through something. I don't know. Something something that comes to mind is when Maddie Murphy, who hosts the bad broadcast, if you are from Utah, you have heard of it. I remember when she had her baby and people started complaining that her content was super focused around her being a mom and her talking about all of her new experiences as a mother. And that really stood out to me because what she said was, well, yeah, of course, this is who I am now.

This is the experience that I've been going through. And so I feel like it is kind of similar for me as to where right now the lens that I'm looking through everything is divorce coded. And so hopefully that doesn't get annoying for you. I don't know. If it does, I guess we can chat another time, but everything in my life right now is affected directly because of that.

And, I mean, I mean, it goes without saying, like I've said in the past few episodes, my entire life has changed and nothing will ever be the same. And this is a huge monumental part of my life. Getting divorced changes everything, and I am moving forward with my social media in those terms of, yeah, I'm not I'm not sitting here saying I'm gonna make it my entire personality, but it kind of is my entire life. And so yeah. Anyways, I feel like I just had to say that real quick.

But today's topic, I really wanted to talk about confidence and self love because I did have a question. It was asking how you remain confident through hard times. And so I thought I would more take it and generalize it for just having confidence in life and building self love in life because life is just hard generally. Everybody has so many unique experiences that they go through, And it doesn't matter how dramatic or nondramatic it is. It's still your hard, and it can still affect the way that you go throughout life and the way that your confidence feels at times and maybe what your self worth is at.

And so, yeah, I will be sharing your guys' submissions about times that your confidence or self love has been challenged and how you overcame it or change the narrative for yourself. And then I'll share some of my experiences along the way. But first, we're going to talk about, you know, what is self love, really understanding it and reclaiming it, and how external in external influences really shapes our self love and self image and kind of the natural evolution that it takes as we develop. And then we'll continue on to taking control of that and being responsible for it and reclaiming our self love to build our confidence. And then, of course, we will have those submissions that you guys submitted.

So if that sounds like something you're interested in today, well, then I welcome you back to another episode of the Unrelatable podcast. Self love is obviously something that we're not born with. In my opinion. I think that being critical of ourselves is something that we don't do when we're young. I think that's definitely learned, and low self confidence is definitely learned.

But I think that self love is a journey of sorts, and it's not something that you ever really come to. I don't think that that there's really a destination to it. I was listening to an episode by Emma Chamberlain, and she was talking about this. It's really just something that ebbs and flows. You're gonna feel good some days.

You're not gonna feel good other days. But if you're starting from ground 0, how do we go about that? I mean, confidence, self love, it's the foundation for how we treat ourselves and also, ding, ding, ding, the standards that we set for other people. So you can kind of look around at your friends, family, relationships, and think, okay. Does this do these people treat me well?

Do these people represent back to me how I feel about myself, or are they more negative? Because as you know, we end up becoming like the like the 5 people that we spend the most time with or whatever that whatever that quote is. And so the standards that we set for others really, really is affected by that. And so as babies and young kids, we prioritize our needs instinctively, and hopefully your parents do this, but it isn't the same as self love. It's rooted in survival and connection to our caregivers.

But as we get older, however, self love becomes a lot more complex. And it does become more and more shaped by the people around us and the experiences around us. This is something really random, but I'm remembering it at this point. When I was in 5th grade, I was so excited to get highlights in my hair. I don't know why.

I don't know why as a 5th grader, I really wanted those. I thought it was gonna change my life and that everyone at school would like me because I didn't have a lot of friends in 5th grade. And I went and got my hair highlighted. I was super excited. Well, I show up to school and the first thing someone says, of course, it's a boy, and he calls me grandma because I guess my highlights were ashy.

Don't so he called me grandma and was, like, laughing at me. And I just remember being like, no. I'm not a grandma. These are cute. And that was actually a time where I was not affected by this guy and what he said about my hair because I was stoked about my highlights, and that's all that matters.

So, yeah, there's a fun little positive story of how that went. Oh, 5th graders. They're so crazy. Okay. So moving on to, you know, how external influences can really shape our self love from a young age just begins, and they start shaping our self perception.

The words and actions of family, of friends, teachers. Teachers are such a monumental force in our lives. Oh my gosh. Did you guys ever have teachers that hated children? Mine was in 3rd grade, and her name was missus Keller.

We called her missus Keller. She hated kids. And in my mind, I was always just like, what are you doing? And I I wanted her to like me so bad. Kind of a theme I have is, trying to get people that don't like me to like me.

And I really wanted her to like me, and so she held this reading contest. And you betcha you betcha that I was up there trying to read the most books because I wanted recognition from her. And but she was mean. She would I remember one time she flipped over a kid's desk. That was the year that hurricane Katrina hit too.

Sorry. Hurricanes are on my mind right now because of the LA fires and how tragic all of that is. I will be talking about that more, though, in my weekly Friday recap this weekend. But yeah. So, anyways, a whole bunch of random things said there, but there's going going to be a lot of positive influences in our life, people that are really encouraging and give you genuine praise.

And I found that a lot in my church groups. I found that a lot of my young women's leaders were, for the most part, really, really positive, and these individuals can be really nurturing. And when we have nurturing relationships, these really do build a strong sense of worth because they are confirming the value that you have in this world, which is invaluable. Every everybody is important, and then we have negative influences. So on the flip side, we have criticism, rejection, bullying, and neglect, and these can really create cracks in that foundation, making us question our value.

And I do believe it starts so young, and then little tiny things can chip away at those cracks until, suddenly, you're looking for those cracks to be filled by people that are not the kind of people that you would have maybe picked if you had worked through that and friends that might bring you down or maybe don't reflect who you want to be in your life, but you just don't think that you deserve any better, so you end up sticking around. But as we graduate high school and get into early adulthood, we go to college, well, these societal expectations and peer pressure, these things are so amplified so amplified. And then you bring in social media comparisons and the need for approval, and all of these things add up to create this hyperawareness almost of our perceived flaws that just continues to chip away at self love and confidence. You know, you wonder, okay. Well, why why don't I live in Hawaii like all of these cute cute, college girls and cute moms, and why don't I why don't I have the most long, beautiful, natural beach waves that all that all of these girls have?

And I don't know if these examples are even really aligning with you, but you can kind of just apply this to anything that you typically compare yourselves to other people with, whether it is something like your body or your hair or if it's something else like traveling or finances and stuff like that. Another really interesting thing that we end up doing as kids is trying to find where we belong, obviously, in friend groups. And I think this is why it can be difficult for some kids to make friends in elementary, middle, or high school, or all of the above because of the way that you do not relate to other people and the way that it can sometimes be hard to fit in or feel heard or seen. I really appreciated being around kids who had parents that were together and families that were a living room family. If you listened to my last episode, you you know what that means.

And I really eventually kind of felt like I didn't belong with those friends anymore. Like, they were almost like, they almost didn't understand me and who I was. And, eventually, I ended up being surrounded by friends and by people whose homes were broken similar to mine. And it really ended up validating how I felt in that moment. And I don't know.

I feel like you can really find a sense of community and belonging in those spaces as long as, you know, the people that you're with are still really good people, which they were. And so I don't know. It's just really interesting the different ways that we end up finding support and community. But yeah. So let's talk about the natural evolution of self love as you will.

So the first is our self awareness develops. So we begin to recognize our individuality, which includes, you know, our strengths, our weaknesses, and our quirks. And to me, quirks is something that you can that you can look at as either something quirky and fun and something that makes you really unique, or you can look at it as a flaw. We have that choice to label something flawed. We really do.

Because at the end of the day, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that is our responsibility is to find ourselves beautiful and special in our own way. I have this birthmark, and it's under my left eye. It's like a little I don't even know what shape it is, but it starts from my bottom eyelid and it goes down maybe an inch. And it's about, I don't know, half an inch wide. And whenever I wouldn't wear makeup in high school, people would say, oh, Hannah.

Like, you got some foundation you forgot to, like, blend in right here. Or, oh, hey. You have something on your face. And I'd be like, yeah. That's my birthmark.

And it never it never offended me. It was never a problem, but I was a little bit insecure about it back in middle school. And it was something that I did cover up because nobody else that I saw had birthmarks on their face. And I definitely had to learn to like it and to love it, and sometimes they don't even see it. In fact, as I'm talking about this right now, I'm thinking maybe I should go to the bathroom and and look in the mirror and check to see if it's still there because I I haven't acknowledged it in what feels like years.

And that was a conscious decision not to call that a flaw. It's just a quirk or whatever or just something that makes me different in in that way, and it's, like, not a big deal. You know what I'm saying? But having the self awareness of that is the key to building self love, and it doesn't happen automatically. It requires that effort to embrace who you are, quirks and all.

And if you call them flaws, then and you and you might continue seeing it as a flaw, then embracing that as well and really learning that, hey, this isn't changing and this is the way that I am. I really, really, really like the trend on social media where people show their natural noses. And nose is this is the first thing that I can think of. They show their natural nose, and, typically, it's a beautiful large nose. And then they say how they wanted to change it to fit into more of the traditional beauty standards that are placed upon us.

But then they say, then I wouldn't look like my mom or my grandpa or my grandma or my niece. And they show all these videos of them with their mom, and their mom has that beautiful nose or their grandma, their grandma has it, or their grandpa, or their nieces and their nephews, and it's just really something beautiful. I I don't know. I find that meaning really beautiful. And the embracing of that, I think, is really cool.

And that's not to say I'm against all plastic surgery. As you know, that's just kind of the example that came to mind. But number 2 in the natural evolution of self love is the impact that comparison and self doubt can have on us. Obviously, as I mentioned before, our adolescence and young adulthood stages, that is when that's when our feelings can become really magnified with our insecurities. For myself, my experiences with academia, so my GPA, that was a really big struggle for me for a multitude of reasons, but that was really difficult.

And it did feel unfair a lot of the time because I would feel like I would study and work just as hard as other people in my classes, and I would never ever, ever, ever, ever have a good result. And whatever sees sees good degrees. We're still we're still working. But other experiences, like maybe you have a career misstep where you make a decision for your career and it ends up being terrible. That's something that can really put a magnifying glass on on yourself internally, even though externally, usually, people are not actually paying attention.

Right? And then experiences with with relationship challenges, whether it's friends or your partner or your family. This can make our self love feel really fragile. You know, whether you are dumped yourself or betrayed or maybe you are not being included as much, these things are really hard and it is really easy to lose sight of your self worth when you're constantly measuring yourself against other people. And so then we have opportunities to change this and for growth.

Because all of these things together, we can just call them life's challenges or, you know, tricky points in life. Though they can be painful, they always hold the greatest potential for us to grow. And overcoming these times, they teach us resilience and self compassion. Self compassion is really big, and it's something you have to allow yourself to have. I know.

So it sounds crazy. Self compassion, you have to do it yourself. Oh my goodness. I just feel like a lot of times it's easy to label ourselves as dumb or stupid, all of these things, and it's so unhelpful. It is so unhelpful to be your biggest hater.

It's it's so unhelpful. And if you're at that point right now where you're struggling to take care of yourself, you're struggling to love yourself, one of the biggest tips that I had found previously was to essentially treat your body and your health like somebody gave this to you to take care of? Like it's your grandmother or your little sister or little brother or whatever. What would you do for them each morning when they open their eyes? Would you force them to stay in bed and sleep an extra 5 hours just because?

Would you make them skip meals if you don't work out? Or would you make them? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what other examples are.

There there's lots of examples out there. But I have found that really helpful is if you cannot find that self compassion, then treating yourself as if you're coming from the outside and you have you've been gifted this person to take care of the way that you would take care of them, begin to do that and look outside of yourself if if you need to. Because that is going to be the only thing that helps you develop that self compassion, especially if you're coming from a place with a lot of shame, which is which was essentially the topic of of my last episode was moving through shame, and I feel like I don't know. I guess this is kind of naturally the next the next step is having that self compassion for yourself because it will help you rebuild your self love to be stronger than it was before. Okay.

Next, we have the shift towards authenticity or the shift into really feeling like yourself again or being yourself, acting the way that you feel resembles your your soul. Wow. This is really corny. Sorry. I think my entire podcast has turned into one large Pinterest quote, and it is what it is.

Okay. So a lot of us are in our mid to late twenties and as well as our thirties. And then, of course, love you love you guys. My my early twenties babies, love you. Thank you for being here.

But I feel that when you hit your late twenties, you know, your mid to late twenties or your early thirties, oh my goodness, you really start to care less about external validation. And at least I found myself focusing more on aligning my values and living authentically. Having this shift, it takes so long. It really does. Because I almost feel like when you're 18 and you're trying to decide what career you wanna go into, there's so many factors you take into account.

Well, number 1, how much money do I wanna make? Number 2, what do I enjoy? Number 3, what's it going to say to the outside world? What is it going to show? What is it going to reflect?

And maybe you didn't have that need or desire, but I definitely did. When I was like, I don't know, in 8th grade, I wanted to be a a plastic surgeon. I know. Pretty pretty typical pretty typical hugely exaggerated dreams for an 8th grader, and it definitely shifted more into, like, personal training and then a whole bunch of other a whole bunch of other things. But I think that, eventually, the importance of other people's, praising of achievements or other people's what is the word?

I I can't think of the word. Acceptance of you and your achievements really you really stop caring. Because when you come home every weekend when you're in college or you go to a holiday, what is everyone asking you? How's school? How is it going?

What's your career choice? Okay. Finances. That's really smart. You are going to make a lot of money.

Or you're going into the medical field really smart. You're gonna have health care. Oh, you're going into teaching. Wonderful. You're going to do such amazing things for a younger generation.

I don't know. You get what I'm saying. Right? And so sometimes it can be really hard when you have all these outside outside people giving you input on your decisions, and you can almost get stuck in that. And you're riding the train, and, eventually, you gotta get off the train because you realize you jumped on their train.

You jumped on their train of their opinions, and it's going to take you a little bit to get back and to get on the right train. But the sooner you jump off, the quicker you will be able to reroute. And I have tried so many things, so many things and for many different reasons, and I'm really glad I'm really glad that I have tried a lot of different avenues. At the end of the day, I do kinda wish I did graduate from college just because, well, now I'm getting divorced, and it would be nice to have a degree. Jeez.

My mom was right. My mom was right when I was in high school, and she said, yeah. Go to college so you have a degree to back you up in case you ever, for some reason, lose your husband or get divorced. And I was always like, well, I'm not even gonna get married in the first place. So how am I gonna get divorced?

Well, here we are 11 years later. Oh my goodness. So, yeah, anyways, this shift in our late in our late twenties of we've done the things. We have written the expectations, or maybe you haven't. Maybe you knew what you wanted from a very young age, and you've tried the careers, and you've either continued studying in the fields that you're interested in and are excelling in that, or you have switched your career once or twice.

And you began living it authentically for for yourself and obviously taking into account your family's needs and whatnot when you have when you have kiddos. But I just think that we we end up shifting into this deeper, unconditional self love for ourselves. One that isn't as tied to achievements. One that isn't as tied to appearances and the opinions of others. Because when you try that and you do it, you realize, okay, wait a second.

It doesn't matter how much recognition I'm getting here. I'm coming home unfulfilled. And that's when you have the chance to jump off the train and take a different route. And when you love and accept yourself, you end up becoming less afraid of failure and judgment because your worth isn't tied to these external outcomes, this external validation. And I believe that when you have that inner security within yourself, that is what allows confidence to grow.

Not to say you don't get to develop confidence until your late twenties or thirties. For some reason, that's just I feel like typically the route that I hear a lot of people go. And I've heard it from a lot of people, especially now since I am turning 28 this year. I do know a lot more people in their thirties, and everyone says it's the best it's the best time of their life because they are so so over living life for others. And you you just really do live life more authentically, and I can already feel that shift.

And, yeah, I feel like it's something that's always always ever changing. But yeah. Okay. What's next? I lost my I lost my my notes here.

Okay. So taking control of our self love again. The good news is is that if you are at any point right now and you're like, okay. Well, I can't wait till my late late twenties or early thirties to feel confident or to feel self love, or maybe you are in that time and you still don't feel it. Well, listen up.

This is a skill that we can reclaim and strengthen at any point in our lives. And there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 steps. K. I'm gonna go through it quickly because we still have these submissions to read through. So the first one is to recognize your external influences.

So taking inventory of the relationships, environments, and habits that affect how you feel about yourself. Because surrounding yourself with positivity and limiting exposure to sources of unnecessary negativity is the number one best way to start feeling better about yourself and your life. If you have constant negativity around you all the time, Well, first of all, if they're negative about themselves, it ends up almost translating to you because you can then begin to critique yourself. It's kind of like with moms. You know, you don't wanna be standing in front of your kids talking about okay.

I'm not here giving you advice, but you don't wanna be standing in front of your kids talking negatively about your own body. Even though you're not talking negatively about your daughter's body, she's gone she's gonna look in the mirror and think, well, my mom is the most perfect special angel being on this earth, and she's here to protect me. So if she doesn't like herself, then why should why should I like myself? And then, you know, there goes down the rabbit hole of of that, and that's sad. So we can move away move away from that.

But recognizing your external influences and kind of taking note of that, of course, there's so many things we can't control. Like, if your boss is super negative or if you have a negative coworker, some of these things, you know, going to going to a a coffee shop you frequent often and someone's just really grouchy. I don't know. There's things that we can't control with family and whatnot, but we can control how we allow it to affect us. I'm still learning that, though, so I can't give you any I can't give you any tips because I'm ultra sensitive.

So, yeah, be right back with that one. But the second way to reclaim and strengthen our self love is to practice self compassion. We already talked about this, but treat yourself the way that you'd be treating your best friend. Acknowledge your efforts, forgive your mistakes, and celebrate your wins. Doing this includes this is number 3, but it's kind of included in this, positive self talk.

It's really hard to replace self critical thoughts with affirmations, but doing it is really important because it will help you rewire your brain and those neural pathways that are typically negative because it's natural. It's effortless really to be to be negative when that's the only thing you've been practicing. So replacing these critical thoughts with affirmations like, I am capable or I do deserve good things. It's not just about self love, but it really does boost your confidence as well even if you don't believe it. And these types of things you can do by writing in your journal.

I don't really like to say it in the mirror. Remember how that used to be a thing where you stand in front of the mirror and say your affirmations? A little bit little bit corny for me. I can't do it, but there's lots of different ways to practice that. Another way is to listen to affirmations on YouTube or something.

That's something I really enjoy doing when I do ketamine sessions. When I do ketamine sessions, it sounds like I do them all the time. Back when I did basically my treatment, which is 2 sessions a week for 3 to 4 weeks, I would listen to affirmations before each session because I wanted to get into the right headspace. And that's really, really helpful. Okay.

So the next one is to celebrate your progress because self love means acknowledging your wins. It does, no matter how small. And the more that you celebrate these, the more confident you'll end up feeling in your ability to keep going. In fact, maybe I shouldn't share this. Maybe this is too corny.

I'm pulling out my phone so I can open up this note. But when I first started this journey of getting divorced, I had to write down I created a note that said solo living, and I wrote down my intentions. I wrote down what I needed to do. So, for example, I needed to get my own credit card, and I needed to get full coverage auto insurance. I needed to set up my this sounds like super basic stuff.

I have set up my I have set up utilities before. But, essentially, what I did is I wrote down a list of everything that I was accomplishing because it felt so heavy and, like, there was so much. Even down to, you know, getting a storage unit and signing up for that and getting renter's insurance and all of these things, it helped me so much to have a checklist and to be able to check it off and see what I had done. Oh, look. I found another note, and it's called accomplishments on my own.

Jeez. Tears. So, yeah, I have I have on here applied and approved for an Amex gold card, autopay for my Amex gold. See, these are these might seem redundant, but it's like I need to be sitting here acknowledging my wins no matter how teeny, teeny tiny they are. Another one on here is, like, auto pay for my mortgage, make investments of this much a month into retirement.

There's lots of things on here that I that I've yet to do, but there's even one that says order and put up my own bed. Because I had never gone from the point of buying my furniture to setting it all up all on my own. I mean, I'd always had help because why not? Right? When you're living with somebody else, they wanna help you, and you guys are a team and whatnot.

So even just the smallest things is basically is basically what I'm coming down to. So the next one, the next thing that you can do to take control of your self love to build confidence is to set boundaries. And so when you recognize your external influences, you can learn where you need to set your boundaries. Protecting your energy by saying no to things in people that typically drain you is really important. And it's not selfish.

It's an act of self love, actually. And I talked about this a lot in my first episode of the year about setting boundaries. But setting boundaries is something you do also on yourself and for yourself. Obviously, you've got to communicate what those are to people if you haven't been implementing any previously to this. Come on, crew.

Come on. We're snuggling on the couch. Come on. Come on. Yeah.

That's a good boy. Come on. Up. I've been recording my podcast. Up.

Come on. On the couch as of late because I'm doing video. Oh, hello. And I have him up here snuggling with me. So as soon as I get video, you guys will you guys will see.

Well, I mean, I do have video. I just need to edit and post them. So, yeah, anyways, with boundaries, it's something that we hold for ourselves. It's not someone else's responsibility to hold that for us. It is their responsibility, though, to kind of know how to treat you as a person, in my opinion.

And, obviously, you can speak to people and redraw your boundaries and the ways that you wanna be treated, especially with family, if that's a relationship you don't want to let go of. I think that that's something that can be really beneficial for relationships. Well, hello, crew. Are you gonna give the microphone a kiss? Okay.

So the next one is to focus on your growth and not perfection. We are never going to love every single thing about ourselves, in my opinion. I think everything ebbs and flows, like what I said in the beginning. And being able to accept where you are while striving for for more love with yourself, I think, is is the best thing that you can do. Because if you're constantly trying to be perfect and always feeling like you are a project, listen, I know as well as you do that life is about growing.

Life is about growing and progressing and not staying the same, and we all want that. Right? But sometimes in this world, we can become extremely hyper focused on it as to where it becomes the only thing that we ever really think about, the only thing that we do, and the only books that we read. And it can be really freeing to accept where you are and to just focus on the small things and to not constantly be diving head first into self help books, but to allow yourself to enjoy a novel every every now and then. Or for myself, like, the last hundred books that I've read have not been self help books.

They've been novels because I got kind of burned out from that. So the next one is to embrace failure. Being able to reframe our failures as feedback from the universe, from our boss, from relationships, it's really important to be able to embrace it as feedback. One of my favorite quotes that I recently stumbled upon the other day goes, don't call me lucky. I've failed more times than you've tried.

And even though I'm not finding myself lucky in any certain area right now, I more feel like a failure. I just have to remember that this failure is going to be something of the past, and it is getting me to a point to where I will eventually succeed in one way or another. And I really feel like it's important to to accept the fact that we will be failing and failing isn't permanent unless we quit. And I just really like that. I really like that quote.

I thought it was cool. Okay. The last one is to align yourself with your values because confidence and self love thrives when you are living a life that feels true to who you are, no matter what other people may think or feel about that. And so reflect on what matters the most to you and let your actions reflect those priorities. Okay.

Let's jump into submissions. I'm really excited about this. K. The very first one says, I always thought that once I had the right job, the right relationship, or the right body, I would finally feel confident. But the more that I tried to fix myself, the less confident I became.

I realized that confidence is about accepting myself, flaws, and all. It's a shift in mindset, not an end goal. Now I try to be gentle with myself and recognize that I'm enough as I am. Wow. I feel like that's perfect it perfectly concludes everything that we just said, and I wish that it was just a right job.

I wish that if we just found the most perfect job for us, that everything for the rest of our lives would be simple and easy and and whatnot. Same with the right relationship. Same with, you know, the quote, unquote right body that once you hit your best look ever or whatever whatever you wanna call it, that that means that you're confident and happy. But I can tell you firsthand that that's not that's not the case, and that's not what happens. There's always other things to to affect that if you don't have that strong base set up.

Okay. Next submission. My confidence used to come from doing everything perfectly. I was obsessed with keeping up with everybody around me and constantly comparing myself. But when I had my baby, everything shifted.

My body wasn't the same. My life wasn't the same, and I struggled to find balance. I remember looking at myself in the mirror one day, crying because I felt like I'd lost the woman I used to be. But slowly I realized that the new version of me is just as beautiful, just as worthy, and just as strong as the one that I thought I lost. It's a work in progress and I'm learning to love the new me every day.

Well, that is beautiful. I hear that often where people feel that they lose who they used to be. While, you know, that may be true and, you know, you have a past version and a new version, like she said, it is just as beautiful, just as worthy, and actually stronger. Much, much, much stronger, especially going through something like that. That's something that, oh my goodness, your strength is now level 10,000.

Okay. Next submission. When I was a kid, I was always told I wasn't smart enough. Those words stuck with me for years. It wasn't until I started taking night classes in my late twenties that I proved to myself that I could learn anything if I tried.

Earning my degree wasn't just about education. It was about reclaiming my confidence and proving to myself that I am capable of more than I ever believed. Is this my sign to go back to school and to get a degree? No. Just kidding.

I am really proud of you, especially going in your late twenties, especially going to night classes. Like, you're working through school and putting yourself through school and going in the evening times. I don't know. I feel like there there's a really good way to build your confidence, and that's by doing hard things. And I didn't really touch on that in this episode, but I've talked about that before that your that having discipline in certain areas, that's what builds your confidence.

You're not gonna feel confident going to the gym the very first day because you've had no discipline in it, because you haven't done it before and you're new. Lots and lots of different reasons, but it is through going consistently that you do build confidence in in that skill in that way. And so, yeah, proud of you. Okay. This next one says, becoming a mom has tested every ounce of my confidence.

At first, I felt overwhelmed by the constant pressure to be the perfect mother, making sure my kids were always happy, healthy, and well behaved. But as time went on, I realized I was burning out trying to meet unrealistic expectations. One day, I took a step back and remembered what I needed. Time for myself, space to breathe, and to forgive myself when things didn't go as planned. Gradually, I learned that being a good mom didn't mean sacrificing myself.

It meant nurturing myself so that I could show up better for my kids. Self loving confidence for me started with giving myself grace and recognizing that I'm doing the best I can and that's enough. Doing the best you can, truly the best you can at any given point, especially when you're struggling, that's all that's all you can do. And giving yourself grace and recognizing that, like you said like you said, that's enough. I'm literally just repeating your last your last sentence, but it was so good.

I'm gonna I'm gonna repeat it again. Confidence and self love for me started with giving myself grace and recognizing that I'm doing the best I can, and that's enough. Listen. We go through so many things in life that we didn't expect and so many feelings and thoughts and experiences, and we have no idea what we're doing. Let me know if you know what you're doing.

We have no idea what we're doing most of the time. And so, of course, of course, it's gonna be a struggle. Of course, it's gonna be a new thing. Of course, you're going to have to redirect yourself and learn new skills and new habits, and that's the beauty of living in life. And, yeah, I I really like that submission.

I think that that's really relatable for a lot of people. This next one says, I've always wanted to have a, quote, unquote, solution to my struggles with self doubt, but I'm realizing now that there's no quick fix. Confidence isn't something you just get. It's something that grows over time through small actions and by being kinder to yourself. I still have moments where I question myself, but I'm learning that those moments don't define me.

The journey of self acceptance is the real path to confidence. Oh my goodness. I love that. Self acceptance and letting go of the shame, of course, as we talked about last week is so, so, so important for our confidence to grow. Okay.

Next submission. The hardest part about confidence for me has always been comparison. I'm constantly measuring myself against others, whether it's about appearances, success, or measuring happiness. But I've started to challenge myself to stop looking at other people's lives and to focus on my own. It's not always easy, but it's freeing to know that my journey doesn't need to look like anyone else's.

Mhmm. Can can I get an amen all around? Big, big, big lesson I'm learning right now. Everyone's journeys are so different, but that's what makes makes it all beautiful. Right?

Okay. This next one, we have another wonderful submission by a mom, and she says, after giving birth, I struggled with accepting the changes in my body. My stretch marks, extra weight, and sagging skin were constant reminders of how much my body had changed. And I felt so disconnected from the woman that I used to be. It took me years to realize that my body has done something incredible.

It had carried, nurtured, and brought life into this world. One day I looked in the mirror and decided to stop seeing my body as something I okay. Starting over. One day I decided to stop seeing my body as something to fix and started seeing it as something to be proud of. I began to focus on the strength of my body, not its appearance.

Slowly, I stopped comparing myself to pre pregnancy standards and embraced a new version of me. Confidence started to come when I started loving my body for what it had done, not what it looked like. And now I wear my stretch marks like a badge of honor instead of something to hide. It's been a journey, but I'm finally at a place where I'm grateful for the changes and not ashamed of them. Wow.

I really, really like this one. This is something that we can all take away from that focusing on the strength of your body and not its appearance is the value of that is so much more is so much greater. And being able to do that is so important, but it is learned, and it is something you have to practice. Okay. This next one, also sorry if you can just crew is snoring really loudly.

Do you want me to show you? Here, let me show you for a sec. Okay. He didn't do it because he saw me move move the mic next to his nose. Okay.

This next one says, I grew up in a household where emotions were not talked about. I always felt like I had to bottle things up. In my early twenties, I started therapy and it changed my life. Learning to express my feelings without feeling fear or shame was the first step in building self love. Confidence came naturally once they stopped apologizing for who I am.

Another good one. And I can't even add on to it because you guys are just yeah. This is this is so good. I am really impressed actually about the fact that you started therapy in your early twenties because I feel like it takes most of us a lot longer a lot longer to do that. For myself, I was like, I don't know, 26 when I first began the journey of finding a good therapist.

It is that one is a journey for sure. Okay. My confidence hit rock bottom after losing my job. I spent weeks feeling worthless until my best friend said something that really stuck with me. You're not your job title.

Yep. Seems obvious. But that's when I realized I've been tying my self worth to my career. I started exploring hobbies I loved, like cooking and hiking, and reminded myself that I'm more than what I do for a paycheck. Yes.

This is what this is what I've been saying. I said this in the in one of my last episodes. I always I always say that. Sorry. That's super annoying.

Okay. I'm never gonna say that again. But I did. I did say it in one of my last episodes about success, I think. And the fact that a lot of times we're looking to have our job be the most important thing.

And when I say that, I mean, yeah, tying yourself worth to your career. Like, oh my goodness. If you don't have a job that you love, then you're working the wrong job. Sometimes the sometimes the job is just a freaking job, and that's that's what it is. Sometimes that's what it is.

I mean, work is in our life, and, yeah, it's nice to absolutely love your job, but it's better to love love life. It really is. And if that means that you have a job that's like, yeah, it's it's medium. You don't feel super strongly one way or the other, but you explore hobbies outside of it and you live a life outside of work. I think that's where the most importance should be placed.

Okay. This next one says, I struggled with imposter syndrome when I got my very first big promotion at work. I felt like everybody around me was smarter, more qualified, and much more deserving than I was. I decided to start doing a wins journal where I'd write down every compliment, accomplishment, and or wait, where I'd write down every compliment or accomplishment, no matter how small. Reading it back reminds me of what I'm capable of, and it's helped me silence that voice that says I don't belong.

Again, with the journaling, I know it's getting a bit repetitive at this point, but I think it's so smart, and it really does build your self worth. If I don't see something, it doesn't exist a lot of the time. And so having things written down, having that proof on paper or in your notes app, that makes such a big difference. Okay. This next one says, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 left, and then I'll let you guys go.

After a bad breakup, I realized that I've been looking to relationships to validate me. I decided to take 6 months to focus entirely on myself. During this time, I tried new hobbies, traveled alone, and spent time figuring out what I really want out of my life. By the end of those 6 months, I felt like a completely different person, stronger, happier, and more confident in my ability to stand on my own. Lucky there.

Something that miss girl right here can apply to myself. Wonderful. No. This is actually perfect. And I think that it's so important to learn to be okay being alone.

I am proud of you, especially traveling alone. That's a big deal. So good good work. Good work, girlfriend or guy friend or whoever you are. I'm proud of you.

This next one says, growing up, I was always told that I was too sensitive. I spent years trying to toughen up. It wasn't until my late twenties that I realized my sensitivity is actually one of my biggest strengths. I started embracing it, using it to one of my biggest strengths. I started embracing it, using it to connect with others and advocating for myself.

Owning who I am, flaws and all, is one of the most empowering things that I have been doing to help my confidence grow. Okay. We gotta stop telling people, places, things that they're too sensitive. I might have shared this before, but when I was a kid, I was told by one of my guardians that first of all, I was crying. Okay?

I was like I I guess I was always crying because they were sick of it. And they looked at me, and they said that I was going to die from a heart attack one day if I kept crying. AKA, don't be as sensitive was was really the message behind that because I was crying over hurt feelings or something like that. And, yeah, let's not do that. Let's not do that because being sensitive and empathetic is something that is really important.

But as I've talked about, having too much empathy as to where you lose yourself in it, definitely there's definitely a line. And but I think sensitivity is really important, and it really goes to show that you care about not just other people, but that you're in tune with your own needs, which I think is really important. Okay. We have 3 left. When I moved to a new city, I didn't know a single person, and I was terrified of being alone.

I decided to challenge myself to go out by myself once a week, whether it was to a coffee shop, a museum, or a park. At first, I felt awkward and out of place. But over time, I really started to enjoy my own company. Those solo outings taught me that I don't need anyone else's approval or, excuse me, approval or company to feel happy and confident. Again, I think that being happy being alone, being comfortable being alone, being comfortable sitting with yourself is so important.

It really is. Next one. In my early twenties, I used to compare myself to my friends constantly. What they look like, what clothes they wore, how much money their parents gave them in school, what they were able to achieve, who they were dating. It made me feel small and unworthy.

One day, I decided to unfollow everyone on social media who made me feel less than. I filled my feed with positivity and in inspiration instead. It might sound simple or dumb, but curating what I consume online has completely changed how I see myself. This is not dumb at all. In fact, I love, love, love this advice.

I've done this myself where, you know, you just unfollow. If you look at someone's account and you end up spending a lot of time on it and you kind of walk away thinking, why why why don't I have that? Or why can't I be that? Or you feel a little bit down, unfollow them. Or if it's a close friend, just mute everything, mute their stories, their posts, all of that jazz just because it's avoidable.

It is avoidable. And in my opinion, we are responsible for the way that we feel when we see other people's pages. If we're being filled with a ton of jealousy, okay, take that for what it is. Maybe think about it and why you're feeling that way and unfollow that person or mute them because we don't need any any more reasons to feel less than. And social media is obviously a highlight reel.

Again, I think it's our responsibility to be honest with ourselves about that and to not expect everybody to cater to our expectations of, hey. I wanna see your good days and your bad days. Guess what? Nobody has to nobody has to do that. Okay?

So a lot of people do, which I think is wonderful, but I've talked about this before in my episode about social media. It was one of my very first ones. I'm so sorry. I know I said that. I would never say that again, but I don't think I'll be able to do that.

But I one of my accounts, I just like to post my travels because it makes me feel, like, really calm and sentimental, and they're really good memories. And that's just my prerogative. And if that ends up making anyone feel some type of way, then please unfollow. I I just I I think that at the end of the day, it's our responsibility. I unfollowed all of the Utah, Hawaii moms so long ago, except for my friends.

I have a few friends over there, and I just I unfollowed them because I was like, this makes me feel so jealous. I'm so I'm actually so jealous that you get to swim every single day in the ocean and that you're feet away from an acai shop at any time of the day, no matter where you are, I just had to unfollow. And that was just my own that that's my own responsibility. So, yeah, I think curating what you consume online is is really key to being able to move out of any jealousy that you might have for other people or comparison. Alright.

So this is the last one. After my divorce yeah. Ending with this one. After my divorce, I felt like my entire identity had been shattered. I didn't know who I was outside of that relationship.

To rebuild, I started journaling every morning about what I love about myself and what I want my life to look like. It did feel really awkward and forced at first, but over time, it became the most grounding part of my day. Now I look back at those journal entries and see how far I've come. Can you guess why I ended on on that one? No.

That's not my own submission, believe it or not. But I really like this because as I've mentioned several times today, journaling is really helpful. And I started keeping my own journal of my own feelings a little I think about a year ago, and it is actually crazy helpful. It really is. It's helpful in allowing you to remember how you feel day to day because a lot of times we can forget.

It allows you to see your growth and how far you've come and lots and lots of different ways. Maybe I'll share those share those much later down the line of the ways, the things I was feeling and the I don't know. I guess, for example, just feeling, like, lost in life and not knowing what to do. And, look, took a big step, and now I'm here. And I'm still lost, and I don't know what to do.

But I know that I'm heading in the right direction. You know what I mean? So, yeah, thank you for sharing and for being really vulnerable. If you want to have your story or your submission highlighted on a future episode, the link is in my bio. Thank you for listening to today's today's episode about self love.

It really is the comp the foundation of confidence. And when we do nurture it, we give ourselves permission to take risks, to face challenges, and to embrace our individuality. Because if we don't have confidence when you are walking around consumed with shame or with fear, you don't take risks. You don't know where to go. You can't face challenges, and you don't wanna be authentic to yourself.

You hide. And so being able to nurture that will give you that permission to take those take those next steps. So no matter where you are in your personal journey, just know that it's never too late to take control of how you see and treat yourself. Okay. Just in case no one has told you this today, you are enough exactly as you are right now.

I just really felt like saying this because, yeah, we're talking about confidence, and I just want you to know that confidence isn't about becoming somebody else, but more so uncovering the version of you that already exists. And it's okay to take small steps. It's okay to feel uncertain and to have setbacks. And what matters is that we just keep showing up for ourselves because every little effort that we make ends up building the foundation of self love, of confidence. And we're capable of a lot more than we realize.

You're capable of a lot more than you realize, and the world needs your unique voice and energy. So I hope you can give yourself some grace, and remember that you've got this. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Unrelatable podcast. I had a very wonderful time reading your guys' submissions today. And, yes, thank you for being so vulnerable and willing to share, and I will talk to you guys on the next episode.

Byeeeeee! xoxo