What I would tell my younger self about confidence:

I have plenty of time now to reflect and think back and share any wisdom I have gained through the years.

I volunteer at a middle school in Waco twice a week and I meet with 2 separate groups of girls. One week, when I was waiting for my girls, I saw this drawing. I read it, and it broke my heart. A middle school girl thought this about herself. It sucks that this is the world we live in, and that girls everywhere are struggling with confidence. After reading that, I decided I wanted to write about confidence.

From a young age, we look around and compare ourselves to other people. We grow up and catch on to the beauty trends and there are things that girls are supposed to do. The first thing I would tell my younger self is that there is no age where you automatically become filled with confidence. I think I had this misconception in my head that once I turned 14, 16, 18, 20, then I would be confident. But boy was I wrong. Becoming confident is a process and not something that age suddenly makes better.

I remember being in third grade, standing in my uniform, and one of my friends walked by and told me “you’re fat”. And I remember that to this day. I remember looking down at my stomach and realizing I had a “tummy” but I already hated that about myself and then when a friend, points that out, it sticks with you. While I don’t think that anything would take away from the sting of being called fat, I wish I knew that everyone around me was insecure about something. Even the girls that I thought were so pretty, and had the perfect life actually had something they were insecure about too.

As I got older, I found it important to admire other’s beauty without questioning your own. This is easier said than done but something to strive for.

I could sit here and pick and complain at the parts of my body I wish I could change. But, what good does that do? Instead of being ashamed of the way I looked, I just started to own it. Once again, this did not happen overnight, it was a long process filled with lots of people pouring into my life and encouraging me when I was vulnerable. Ultimately, like in other aspects of life, it is so important to surround yourself with people who fill you up and see the best in you, instead of the people who tear you down.

While sometimes the media and world around us pushes the perfect standard women should strive for, there also are positive messages. Like this reminder in the Aerie store.

Ultimately, I am learning day by day to accept who I am. Of course I have insecure moments, but I am trying to constantly remind myself that God gave me this body, and it’s the only one I’ll get. We all are beautiful in our own ways. Own your own beauty.

x o x o ,

Megan