Self Confidence & Body Image: Week 4

At the start of June, I set myself the challenge of working to improve my self-confidence and body image. The plan was to do some research, get some advice from other people who've been in a similar situation, try the ideas out and see if I can find something that works for me.

It took a lot of guts for me to post the first post in this series. I considered deleting it numerous times before it went live, but I'm glad I went through with it.

This month has taught me that the key to self-confidence is learning to love yourself.

Credit

That's not an easy thing to do. It often requires a big change in mindset (or in my case it did anyway). You have to move your focus away from your weaknesses and onto your strengths, accept your flaws, trust yourself and your decisions, and remember that the only opinion of you that matters, is your own. What other people think is irrelevant.

The same as numbers are irrelevant. I'm an accountant so I spend quite a lot of my life looking at numbers, calculating numbers, analysing numbers. I like numbers, but they're not good to run your life by.

I used to weigh myself every day, and found that my mornings used to start off quite negative as I was very rarely happy with what I saw. So, I banned myself from going on the scales this month. It took a while to get rid of the urge to just jump on and check, but when I started to notice the changes in my body I felt happier. Like I could tell my hard work was paying off, without actually seeing a change in the number.

I did jump on the scales this morning, out of curiosity, and I was disappointed to see it had gone down by less than a lb in the past four weeks. I know my body has changed, and I was expecting to see a big drop in the numbers. But it wasn't there.

I've had time to process what the scales told me, and I'm beginning to feel less annoyed and quite pleased about it. Because it made me realise that confidence doesn't come from a number, it comes from how you feel.

Yes I have a goal weight I'd love to achieve, and yes that goal weight is in numerical form. But there's no guarantee that when I reach that I'll be happy. So, going forward, I'm still going to weigh myself, but only once a month and I'm going to start taking more notice of my NSVs (non-scale victories). If I get to a weight where I'm happy, I like the way I look, I'll ignore the number on the scales and just try and keep myself at that body state.

The past four weeks have definitely been a journey, but I know I haven't completely overcome my lack of self confidence. I still have a long way to go. But there have been instances where I could see progress in my journey.

I made a decision, and didn't regret it

I've said it a few times, I am rubbish at making decisions. Particularly when they are big, important and affect other people. This month I had a big decision to make at work, and I tormented myself over it for a good few days. Then I woke up one morning, a decision set in my mind, and I felt happy. It's been a couple of weeks now since that moment, and I haven't looked back and regretted it. I've found out other things since then that if I knew at the time might have changed my decision, but I'm happy with what I made and I know it will work out right in the end.

I stood at the front of a room full of people, and didn't get embarrassed

Large groups and crowds of people have always made me nervous. Standing up in front of them and knowing they're watching me is even worse. But this night I embraced it. They were just people. Other women from my professional sitting in the same room as me wanting to learn about colours. They weren't there to judge me, make fun of me, or anything like that. They were there to learn, same as I was, about what (in theory) suits them. I was stood at the front of that room getting a mini 1/1 consolation in what I wanted to learn. I embraced it, took it all on board and didn't once thing about what the people sat around the rest of the tables thought. It felt good.

I bought a bikini, tried it on, and decided I'm keeping it

I've never worn a bikini on holiday. Partially because I don't normally go anywhere hot enough to wear a bikini, but largely because I always felt too fat to wear one. The last couple of years I have always said that I wanted to wear a bikini on holiday, and I've bought a few but always ended up returning them because I always felt like I looked horrible in them. This year, that changed. I bought a bikini, tried it on and actually thought "this looks alright". I took a picture and sent it to my boyfriend, just to show someone that I had a bikini and I liked it. But then I did my usual and picked out the flaw in it. "My tummy is definitely my worst feature" was what I said, then I stopped and told myself off. Told myself I shouldn't be doing that, I shouldn't pick out my negative bits, I should pick out my positive bits. So I did. "My boobs look pretty good in that bikini top" and "My legs look pretty toned and good too". I felt better instantly in myself for doing that, and I'm actually looking forward to wearing my bikini this summer holiday.

I've learnt a lot this month, and I feel a lot happier in myself because of it.

I'm proud of my journey and what I've achieved. 

This post marks the end of my Self Confidence & Body Image challenge for June. I won't be posting weekly about what I've learned or achieved, but I don't want to start July and just put this all behind me. It's a subject I've enjoyed exploring, and I want to continue exploring. I want to keep trying new ideas, speaking to new people and sharing their stories about their journeys. I want to inspire someone else to try this, to help someone else out there who's struggling. I've started a Pinterest board where I'll link some inspirational quotes/links on the subject, and I'm going to try and post something once a month on the topic.

If you'd like to do a guest post on the topic, share any ideas or help in any way drop me a message. I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks to everyone who's helped me this month. Thanks to everyone on twitter, the authors of the books and articles I've read. Thanks to my good friend Hollie for sharing her story on how dance helped her.

Sarah x

Song Sunday - Flashlight

Flashlight

by Jessie J

Whilst I wasn't overly impressed with Pitch Perfect 2, I did love this song from their soundtrack. It's such a beautiful song, but I feel that it's let down by the video. The ending is good, I just don't think that the clips taken from the film are the best and don't really fit. The song is beautiful though, and Jessie J sounds amazing in it.

Guest Post: Hollie - Pole dancing and burlesque, a journey in confidence and body image

Hey everyone! Today I have a very special guest post from a friend of mine, Hollie. She's here today to share her story on how pole dancing and burlesque helped her with her confidence and body image. Hope you all enjoy!

Credit to: Faceiro Photography

Think Hermione from Harry Potter or Sandy at the start of Grease and you get the idea of what I was like before pole and burlesque entered my life. I was (and still am to an extent) a nerdy introvert, but now I'm happy enough to strut my stuff on stage and am a lot more outgoing. So how did the transformation start??

I started pole dancing just before entering my final year as an undergraduate at Northumbria University in 2011. This was as a result of agreeing with friends that we wanted to try some form of dance and pole seemed like fun. We all signed up and went along to our first class. I was hooked straight away and have regularly attended lessons ever since, going to different studios as and when I have moved to study. These days I'm a qualified instructor regularly teaching in Nottingham.

What influenced me to start burlesque was my love of the film 'Burlesque' and the performer Dita Von Teese. The film and performer made me interested in the art form so I ended up going to see a show in Newcastle when I was studying for my undergraduate degree. I also went along to a workshop which was interesting, but I was never brave enough to regularly go to classes until last year. I moved to Nottingham in 2013 to study for a PhD and thanks to new friends I ended up doing a pole performance as part of a burlesque showcase for 'The Scarlet Ribbon School Of Burlesque' in 2014. That was the push I needed to start regularly attending burlesque lessons; all thanks to meeting the lovely ladies at the showcase and them making me realise that yes I can do this!

Credit To: Hollie Harvey

Pole and burlesque are lots of fun and strangely addictive. Pole because of the adrenaline factor in learning new moves and burlesque because you can be whoever you want to be and the act of taking items of clothing off onstage is very daring even if it is only gloves that you remove.

Both pole and burlesque have a real sense of community and it is like joining a family rather than just making friends, which is one of the major benefits you gain a support network of strong ladies (and men). Another benefit is fitness, they are a real workout, in pole you are often holding your own weight and in burlesque running through routines really builds stamina. I have dropped 3 dress sizes in 4 years of pole dancing and gained a whole load of muscle as well as flexibility which helps with the dancing in Burlesque.

Pole has helped my confidence as well as body image by making me appreciate what my body is capable of. When I first started pole I was learning new things every week, it still amazes me that one week I can do something I couldn't last week! Gaining that strength and control is so empowering.
Burlesque makes you focus on how you move your body and what looks flattering. You get to see yourself in the best light possible which makes you feel sexy and really feminine which for me was a real confidence boost as well.

Another way that both pole and burlesque helped with my body image was realizing that we come in all shapes and sizes, and guess what...they all deserve to be celebrated!! In burlesque this is particularly highlighted as it really celebrates the female form. Everyone has something they don't like about themselves but what is more important is that everyone has something they do like. I think that unless you do a form of dance you can miss out on developing a real appreciation of what real women look like. The image in society a lot is based on magazines; this is something that is really difficult to explain.

Credit to: Vapour Trail Photography

Both pole and burlesque have helped improve my confidence so much because they encouraged me to be more outgoing and stop being as shy as I was. Performing added a whole other level of confidence. Having the courage to get up on stage and overcome those nerves made me realize I can do more than I thought possible. It has been so long since I did my first pole performance now I can't remember exactly what that was like, but I do know that I am still petrified every time before the music starts. Competing was again different as it brings another level of pressure with being judged and marked on what you do.

The first pole competition I did was in March 2014 and I was entered in the advanced category (no pressure there then!) this made me focus and actually improved my confidence as it made me realise how far I had come and what I was capable of. My first burlesque performance was in December 2014; again the nerves were really bad but the adrenaline and sudden confidence as I became someone else for those few minutes was the most amazing thing.

Since becoming a pole dance instructor in October last year my confidence has soared. One of my biggest fears as an introvert is standing up in front of a crowd and talking so leading a class for the first time was petrifying but I did it and now I'm totally in control (I'd like to think) and confident up there these days.

So that is my story and ongoing journey to improved self-confidence and body image :)

Many thanks to all the pole and aerial studios I have trained in based in Newcastle, Durham and Nottingham (there are far too many to mention)

A massive thank you to 'The Scarlet Ribbon School Of Burlesque'

xxxxxx