4 Little Ways to Make the Mental Shift to Confidence

Here on the internet, where EVERYONE seems to have it together, and you just know that you DON'T, it's really hard to be confident.  I mean, genuinely confident, not just faking it.  Let me level with you: I feel like I am ALWAYS faking it.  Always making the appearance that I've got it together, that I know what I'm doing, that I'm pretty, that I'm smart.  You know.

Add to that the fact that I'm a woman, and I chronically beat myself down, assume everything wrong is my fault, feel like a deadweight and a burden and a nuisance.

Add to that my depression, which tangles my mind up into a morass of knots composed of worry, sorrow, the belief that I'm going to lose everything.

BEING CONFIDENT IS HARD
I recently did a survey just to see who follows The Penslayer, why, and what I can do to improve.  Looking at those responses was nerve-wracking.  I was literally feeling sick to my stomach and shaking all over just opening up the results page on my computer.  It was that hard.  So before I even looked at the page, I turned to my notebook and wrote:

"it's just nervousness. nothing to be afraid of.  'not everyone will like you - most people don't even like themselves.' "

It didn't help much, but it helped a little.  It's true that I'm doing the best I can with The Penslayer, and always pursuing new avenues to improve.  It's not easy to ask for feedback, it's not easy to get it, but there is no rational reason to be afraid of it.  That's what I tell myself.

The downside of Pinterest.  |  While I do believe Pinterest is an excellent tool for discovering oneself, I also believe it is full of lies + contradictions. One half of Pinterest is all -

"be the boss girl!""be independent!""#*@!% what people think of you!"
and then the other half is all -
"it's okay to be imperfect!""nobody has it all together!""bed hair don't care!"
And I'M left thinking, what the HELL, PEOPLE.  CHOOSE ONE.  So basically I've come to do the RATIONAL thing and have thrown just about everything Pinterest says out the window over my shoulder with a grain of salt.  Because sometimes Pinterest is really good at giving you a shake to get yourself in order.  But also...not.

THERE'S A MUCH BETTER PLACE TO FIND CONFIDENCE
It's not always as flashy + fun + full of pretty pictures you can save.  It doesn't care about being fun.  It talks a lot about down-to-earth junk that's not even slightly flashy at all ever.  You have to conjure the pictures in your head.  Whaaaat.  Yes, it's old-school.  But it's so much better.  It's GOD'S WORD.

Struggling with depression, especially hormonal depression, is like trying to manually push a dead elephant up Mount Everest.  It's HARD.  You get filthy + tired-sick + the elephant usually ends up crushing you.  Personally, not only do I shove myself head-first into my own mental grave, I get impatient + angry with everything.  Fortunately, Pinterest was one of those things.

I got tired of how stupid and contradictory everything is.  How am I supposed to be a "boss girl" + "hustle" but also "imperfect" + "totally cool with that" at the same time?  I CAN'T.  So I burrowed into bed with my Bible.  It was a relief.  It was a comfort.  It didn't magically take away my hormonal problems, but the comfort of the soul was there.

GRACE FOR GRACE
Facing the prospect of looking at my survey results + swallowing the knowledge that I amount to literally nothing on the internet, I turned aside and wrote 4 things on my sheet of notebook paper:

DISCOUNT FEARit's hormones
DISCOUNT WORRYyour God cares
DISCOUNT WEAKNESShe knows you are dust
NEVER DISCOUNTthe Spirit of the living God who intercedes for you in the blood of Jesus Christ
EVERYTHING I FEEL MAY BE TRUE, but then there is my God.  Why/when/how would I ever find anything worthy enough in myself to cobble together and make something "boss girl" + "independent"?  I am a physically spiritual human being struggling with the effects of the fall in a body wracked by hormonal imbalances, trapped by the finite constraints of ignorance, and too turned about to see my own way out of the fog.

So to whom else would I go?  He has the words of eternal life.
image via pinterest