How I Built My Confidence And Overcame Depression
Do you remember the first time you self-actualized in the mirror? How old were you? Beyond that, when was the first time you looked in the mirror and felt like something was wrong with you? For me, I think it was around fifth grade - when I had my first crush and the playground was like a chess board with queens, kings…and me…a rather lanky bean pole who was literally a foot taller than everyone else.
I started to take note of what the kings and queens of my grade were wearing and how they were behaving. Shelby had these gorgeous black shoes with a gold buckle while I was wearing converse that were two sizes too big and falling apart. Erica had the newest Bratz doll and I had a headless Barbie (lol). Perhaps those differences wouldn’t have meant anything to me - but like most little girls, I grew up pouring over the tabloids at the grocery store checkout and worshiping the newest Britney Spears music video. I had entered the matrix of comparison … we all had. We had all be trained to pit ourselves against one another as young women, and strive for the level of perfection we saw in the magazines.
The agony of feeling separate from, and ashamed of, myself manifested as clinical depression before the age of 12 and I was put on Zoloft. So much of my early teens feel like a blank spot - I remember only wanting to sleep because the dream world was so much better than real life. My depression followed me into high school, but I decided to get off medication around 16 years old and really face the darkness. I was still screaming for validation - physically harming myself and restricting food; but at least I felt alive instead of utterly numb.
It wasn’t until I moved to NYC for college that I had a major shift in perception and my first ‘awakening’. A friend introduced me to the Law of Attraction, then to EFT, hypnosis, meditation…. All of a sudden I realized that I was creating my own reality and that I actually had a choice about how I wanted to feel! Around that time, I also took plant medicine (mushrooms) for the first time and experienced myself as an organic and divine being all at once. My heart was cracked open and it was like the 4th wall of life had been removed... the veil had thinned... the truth of reality had been revealed. All that was left (that truly mattered to me) was love. Love as an energetic field that I could enter at will.
I realized that there would never be an overnight ‘fix’ for pain and suffering - it would require an everyday practice of entering the field. It would require deliberately raising my vibration every single day, and in that realization, I found a sense of responsibility that felt juicy and intentional. That responsibility would also require making difficult decisions and being very honest about who and what in my life was not in alignment with the frequency of love (I know it sounds a little cringy).
For example, I was scouted as a model during my Junior year of college, and it brought me right back to the childhood me who was wrapped up in comparison and fear. I told myself that it would be good for me - that this was my golden ticket to success! But the world of modeling did not resonate with the frequency I was trying to cultivate and my mind and body were sending me red flags left and right. I developed intense eating disorders (bingeing and purging accompanied by days and days of fasting to lose weight). I wanted to believe I could overcome anything…but what I really needed was softness, and I needed to be valued for my intrinsic worth, not for my body.
From then until now, I have been building my daily practices and religiously studying the subconscious. Now, I do everything on my own terms. I take my own photos and book my own shoots if I want to model! I choose projects that put me in the ‘field’ and align me with the vibration of love. I have completely overcome self-harming behaviors and depression by committing to staying in the field every single day. It’s a conscious choice to choose love over fear and it’s a muscle that needs to be built over time. Of course, I am still triggered by our human experience, but now I know how to handle those triggers. I know how to approach my shadow self with compassion and courage and how to transmute that pain.
Without the spiritual toolbelt that I started to put together in college, I would not be here. I would probably still be suffering from depression and would still be in the depths of eating disorders and low self-worth. And now that I think of it, all of these practices have really been a form of remembering who I really was before society programmed us. My intention now is to share those tools with you so that you can choose to cultivate a vibration of love around yourself at all times.
My toolbelt includes subconscious reprogramming, journaling, EFT, affirmations, guided meditations, rituals, and so much more. I’ve put together a course for you called ‘Radiate Confidence’ to give you access to all of these tools in one place - a roadmap of sorts; and it’s available now.
I love you. Thank you for being here with me. What patterns of low self-worth are you transmuting right now? Let me (us) know in the comments.
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