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How To Be Confident Comments Off

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 9th Aug -10

The Princess Phase

My daughter, Mara, newly turned 4 years old, is in what you’d call a Princess Phase. It’s kind of strange for me; I don’t remember the same happening in my childhood, probably because I was in a Cowboys-and-Indians Phase from age 4 to age, uh, 11. I guess that precluded the Princess years, for me. (Does Indian Princess count? I mean, Native American Princess?)
That’s why I’m fascinated by her natural Princess tendencies and the way she lets them show. Things like

  • Referring to herself as “The Princess,” complete with 3rd person pronouns, for long stretches of time. “Look at The Princess twirl, Mommy!” *Twirls. “See? See how she twirls?”
  • Wearing her Genuine Cinderella dress for days at a time. Would be weeks if I would let her.
  • Pointing out that she looks just like Cinderella when wearing the Genuine Cinderella dress. You can view the Cinderella button for comparison.
  • Playing “The Princess Game,” which she invented. Here’s how you play: the Princesses go into the sunroom and shut the door. The remaining player stands out in the living room and says, “Princesses coming!” at which point, of course, the Princesses parade through. Fanfare optional. Repeat ad infinitum.

Defining Your Own Beauty

A few days ago we walked up to the church for some music, and I was kind of awestruck as I watched her run back down the hill. Two words: beautiful and free. She is as confident and joyful in her beauty as she is confident and joyful in her freedom to be exactly who she is.

Who says a Princess can’t wear flip flops?
Who says a Princess can’t run like a little deer?
Who says a Princess doesn’t do fancy Princess twirls in the grass?
Who says a Princess can’t make big muscles?

Her beauty is her own. She defines it, she claims it, she accepts it, and she shares it. No pride, no self-consciousness, no shame, no fear.

Ignoring and Conforming = Not Confidence

Compare that with a typical grown woman’s morning routine: It’s the “pick out and try on multiple outfits, wriggle around, strut in front of the mirror, grimace, change, repeat, put on make-up, change outfits again, try on shoes, look in the mirror, grimace, grown, do hair, redo mascara, find jewelry, put on another outfit, change shoes, look in mirror, adjust hair, put on earrings, put on perfume, question outfit, put other shoes back on, change earrings, forget the necklace, fix mascara smear, run out the door” dance.
At the end of it, most of us don’t feel beautiful and we certainly don’t feel free.

The other standard grown woman routine is the “grab a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, rub off the mascara smears from yesterday, whip hair into ponytail, look for matching socks, give up and just find two semi-matching socks, put on tennis shoes, and deliberately avoid the mirror” dance.

At the end of that, beautiful and free are not even part of our vocabulary any more.

What Is Confidence?

Is confidence dressing up, strutting around, working hard to match an image in your mind of how a beautiful woman should look?
Is confidence dressing down, not caring, giving the world a bleary eyed gaze that says “I’ve got too much going on to deal with how I look”?

We women tend to two extremes:

  • We ignore our own beauty, shuffling it up under baggy eyes, stringy hair, outdated clothes. We give up on beauty for a sloppy kind of freedom.
  • Or we conform our beauty, stuffing it into the right kind of outfit, the right kind of make-up, the right kind of hair style. We give up on freedom for a conformed kind of beauty.

We lose either beauty or freedom in each case, sometimes both. When was the last time you felt beautiful? When was the last time you felt free? When was the last time you felt both at the same moment?

Confidence is the soul-deep ability to acknowledge your own beauty and stand in your own freedom. At the same time. It’s not one or the other. It’s not a mediocre version of either.

Reclaiming Confidence

What do we need to do to reclaim confidence?

I’ve never been the Princess type; getting on a fancy dress and matching jewelry would make me feel more uncomfortable than beautiful or free. A particular kind of beauty is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something deeper. I’m talking about being a t-shirt-and-jeans girl if that’s who you really are, but not hiding out in a t-shirt and jeans because you’re afraid to let that shiny, sparkly, dressy girl be herself.

Confidence is defining your own beauty, claiming it, accepting it, and sharing it.

Here’s what I recommend:

  1. Read the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. Here’s a review, or here’s the book on Amazon. Actually, I have a review copy, so maybe I’ll find that and give it away.
  2. Clean out your closet. I’m not a fashion expert, nor a closet organization expert, but I can tell you two simple things that will help. First, throw out anything that doesn’t fit well and feel good. Second, get rid of anything that makes you feel less than beautiful. I’m serious. I’m not saying you have to be formal. I’m saying throw out the huge, baggy, grungy t-shirt and keep the sleek one that fits and feels nice. Throw out the old baggy jeans and keep the pair that make your butt look good. Throw out the dress that looks like something your Grandma would wear and keep the happy springy sun dress that makes you feel like a teenager.
  3. Clean out the clutter in your house. Clutter is dead weight in the space that is the heart of your existence. The prettiest stuff gets ugly when it is clutter. Box it up, ship it out, give it away, make someone’s day. There are plenty of charities and poor folks around who could use your excess. Physical clutter in your home creates an environment that is the opposite of beautiful and free. Not what you’re going for. Go here, here, or here for more help on getting rid of clutter.
  4. Clean out the comparing. Read more about that right here, here, and here.
  5. Build up the things in your life that add real confidence. Over the next week, I challenge you to keep a little log of your days, the events and activities and people and chores and so on. Take five minutes at the end of each day to figure out what made you feel more confident and what tore your confidence down. Of course there are limits and qualifiers here; attitude, emotions, hormones, etc. And you can’t get rid of your husband, say, if you had an argument and he made you feel inadequate. But you can look at what caused the argument and find wisdom there. And you can cut out a lot of things in your life – trips to the mall, lunch dates with that friend who only gossips, playdates with that Mom who has nothing in common with you, obligatory social events, too many school functions, nagging your kids, ignoring your husband. Those things cut down your confidence because they don’t line up with the person you really are. Cut that stuff out. It’s your life. Live it to your best.

How to Love Life Even When Bad Things Happen Comments Off

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 26th Jul -10

The first step is admitting you have a problem. And this is your problem. You have an assumption. A basic, unconscious assumption about life:

Everything is going to be okay.

Not to rain on your parade, but, well, your definition of okay and the reality of what actually happens in your life are not going to line up.
Bad things will happen to you. Sometimes because of you, sometimes because of other people, sometimes just because. No good reason that you can see.

We don’t acknowledge the truth that things aren’t always going to be okay. Instead, we drift along with this mentality of inevitable triumph, regardless of the signs telling us otherwise. And we reinforce this (false) idea in each other.

  • “Don’t worry, everything will work out.”
  • “You’ll figure it out.”
  • “Things will get better.”

There is, however, no guarantee of things working out or getting better or even not getting worse. When you assume that no matter what, it’s all gonna be okay in the end, you remove personal responsibility from the picture. You also remove reality from the picture.

Drop the Okay Lie

The Okay lie: You assume your kids are going to turn out okay… so you don’t take your job as a parent seriously, you let things slide, you don’t deal with bad attitudes when they first appear. The result: your kids end up rebellious, unhappy, and lost and you shake your head and wonder how that happened.

The Okay lie: You assume that if you work hard and don’t mess up too bad, you’ll end up with a good career and stable finances…. so you don’t pay attention to economic problems, industry lay-offs, small business closings, cutbacks, or even the great opportunities (involving risk) that come along. You don’t take charge of your own career/money in a proactive way. The result: you become a victim of economic shifts and don’t know what hit you until you’re 6 months into unemployment.

The Okay lie: [here's one from my personal experience] You assume that your cancer-stricken Mom will make it. She’ll fight it off, the chemo will work, she’ll get better, and she’ll be there in your life the way you expect, and God won’t let her die yet. Life is a right, after all, and God owes us this much. Right? The result: When you lose something that matters this much, you can’t avoid being shaken. But if your core belief is “I deserve an okay life and God better work it out,” then the not-okay stuff will shake you through the center and put your very faith in God into question. I spent a year not sure if I wanted to believe in God again. I finally came to this conclusion (basic, I know, but it took me a while): Life is a gift, not a right. The good things that we receive are blessings, privileges, not automatic rights that we can demand.

Rights vs. Gifts

It goes against Western culture to talk about our inalienable rights not being rights. But the concept is bigger than government-for-the-people; it’s more about created-and-Creator.

“Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’
Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’? Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What have you begotten?’ or to his mother, ‘What have you brought to birth?’
Isaiah 45: 9-10

Now, here’s the good news.

You can’t (and shouldn’t) walk around expecting Death to drop on your head at any moment. You can’t live in fear (well, you can, but it won’t be much of a life).
But when you drop the everything is going to be okay just because belief system, you can handle what does happen much better. Pretty quickly, you’ll see that 99% of life falls into 1 of 2 categories:

  1. Stuff you can control
  2. Stuff you can’t control

For the first category, losing the Okay Lie means you start taking responsibility for what you can control (how you parent, what you do with your money) and doing your best at it. Guaranteed better results with that approach, no matter what the area is.

Riches, Peace, and Freedom

For the second category, losing the Okay Lie means two things:

First, you start receiving every good day, every good things as a gift, a blessing, a privilege. You are thankful. You are grateful. You see how rich your life is, already. [Guess how thankful I am for good health. And for the fact that I have my Dad and sister. And for a mother-in-law and a stepmom who are such loving grandmoms to my kids.]
Second, you start trusting God the way He should be trusted, as Creator, not as giant-Santa-in-the-sky. And with that trust comes peace and freedom. Peace: I don’t have to fight the inevitable truth that I will experience pain. I just have to remember to come to God with my pain. Freedom: I don’t have to be in control of the things that I can’t control. It’s beyond my ability to guarantee a good life for myself and the ones I love. I am free to live, do my best, and trust God with whatever else happens.

Everything is not going to be okay. But that’s okay.

Stupid Things I Obsess Over, Part 1 11

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 25th May -10

Most of my journal entries are boring. Most of them start with the date and then the time and then a report: “doing good today, got up on time” or “we’re getting on track” or “late today, forgot to set the alarm” or “hit snooze 27 times before I got up this morning.”

I flip back through my journal and I think, Hmmm, anyone who could fend off the boredom long enough to actually read these pages would probably walk away thinking this girl is obsessed with only one thing: when she gets up in the morning.

Maybe I am. Let me ‘splain. (No, is too much. Let me sum up. No, let me let Madeleine L’Engle sum up for me.)

“A woman who follows a vocation needs an unusually understanding husband; [CHECK, ALL GOOD THERE.] and even then, a woman’s success can put a real strain on marriage. [I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN I FIND OUT.] And I believe this will be true even when women’s liberation is an accomplished fact. [WHATEVER, I DON'T KNOW.] And the woman who accepts the demands of a call must be able to observe rigorous discipline. [THAT WAS THE IMPORTANT LINE.] If we follow a vocation and choose to have a family, too, there is a constant balancing of priorities. We have to learn to turn away from the typewriter in order to cook dinner. [WE DO? OOPS.] And, yet, we mustn’t lose the train of thought.” (Madeleine L’Engle)

“…and the woman who accepts the demands of a call must be able to observe rigorous discipline.”

I’m a morning person, Joe is not. But I’ve noticed that for both of us, we do much better when we both get up at ungodly hours of morning to do the things which are important to us, which take time, which inspire and encourage us through the rest of our day, which are part of our long-term vision. These are the things, the efforts which most define and identify us at our core, most reward us (at least inwardly), but which it is most difficult to make time to do, daily.

Get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to pursue something iffy (a book, a website, a start-up business, God…) and then work the rest of the day at your real job? Are you crazy?

Well.
Maybe.

Maybe crazy. Definitely most alive and definitely most happy when we are pushing ourselves, pursuing a goal, challenged and working and progressing on something important. Of course, it goes without saying but I’ll say it anyhow: being a Mom is important and Joe’s work at Arco is important.

Yes, obviously, since we devote our days to that, to the exclusion of other pursuits. There’s no question in my head of which is more important, my children or my writing. I don’t have to ponder this. If we were in an either-or situation, it would be bye-bye to writing. But praise Thee, Lord, we are not. I can love, nurture, train, be with my children and still write. It just requires thought, effort, rigorous discipline, and a good dose of craziness to do both.

That’s why I obsess over my mornings. They are the sign: am I making room in my life for what matters? I can’t shove aside my children during the day in order to pursue writing, and I don’t want to. So if I want to do the important work of writing, I have to do it before my other important work begins. (Or after, which might be an option for night-people but not for me, as brain turns to oatmeal after 9 pm.)

So I care. I infringe on night, I cut my sleep short, I drink too much coffee, I hide my alarm, I mumble and mutter and stare and then the caffeine clicks in, I start writing, and I remember why I’m awake.
-

What do you obsess over?

Image of girl obsessing over checkbook courtesy of Betsy with a lot of S’s. Thanks, Betsssssssssssssy.

Modern Homemaking: Which Direction Should I Go? 5

Filed under the home
Written by Annie on 24th May -10

This is a guest post by Marci of Overcoming Busy. Are you interested in writing a guest post? See how here.

When Annie asked me to write this post, I was excited.  Modern Housekeeping – what an interesting topic!  This should be fun to write about.  I feature myself as a Modern Housekeeper with a traditional bent.  However, as I began to collect my thoughts and actually put them down on paper (yes, I still write on paper!), so many thoughts and ideas ran through my head.  Which direction should I go?

Do I write about how I keep a home?  My housekeeping schedules that are set up for a task a day?  The morning and bedtime routines my kids and I have to keep us on task (and so no one forgets to brush their teeth)?

My ideas on what makes a house a home?  Is it love, laughter, good snacks?

Do I write about how I never thought I would be a SAHM and had a grand plan of a successful career before I had children?  How I thought I had to make a difference in the world before I realized I needed to make a difference in my family?

Would readers want to hear about how I home school my daughter so she can be shaped and molded by her parents and carefully chosen others and not her 9 year old peers?

Should I write about how planning my meal each week saves my family and me time, money and stress?

How about disciplining children with love, yet effectively enough to keep them from misbehaving again?  OK.  I don’t know how to pull that off yet, but if you can, let me know!  SOON!!

Do I write about how it is difficult sometimes to balance family life and blogging?

Keeping a home in this day and age is a challenge.  There is so much to consider and to balance.   We are pulled in so many directions and often inaccurately feel we need to be perfect in each area!  For such a modern, convenient society, modern housekeeping is just plain hard!  And apparently so is writing about it!

Today’s 2 Cents Courtesy of…

Marci: encourager, blogger, wife, mom, woman who strives to eliminate the busy and pursue the meaningful. She helps others do the same with her practical wisdom on organizing and simplifying and her regular features like menu plans and an Article Club. I’ve gained from her blog inspiration to change for the better, and practical tips on how to do it. Head on over to Overcoming Busy to learn more about (and from) this gracious woman.

What’s your 2 cents?

{Review} Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge 2

Filed under good reads
Written by Annie on 22nd May -10

I tend to avoid books when they are on the bestseller list; it’s kind of a reverse snobbishness, I guess.

So I avoided Captivating the first time around, despite the fact that I’d read The Sacred Romance (by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis) and loved it, and despite the personal recommendations I received. I can’t, thus, tell you much about how this revised-and-expanded version is better than the original.

But I can tell you that, if you are a woman this is a book worth reading. Not if-you-are-a-woman-and-a-Christian, just: if you are a woman.

Why? Not that the Christian thing doesn’t matter, but that every woman struggles on some level with the issues that the Eldredges talk about. Their philosophy and, yes, their solutions are Biblically based; for non-Christian women, I can understand that might be a turn-off. But I urge you anyway: stride through the Scripture quotations and sit still for the stories and the truths that aren’t tied up in church-speak.

And for Christian women, this book can help you step out of the easy answers so often given via church-speak and deal with the hurts it’s quite possible to hide but impossible to truly forget. The heart of this book is about remembering, about dealing with the lies that tell us to forget-about-it, quit-making-things-such-a-big-deal.

This book helps us to understand why some things are a big deal, and should be, and how we need to look at them and find out what they’re telling us. As we acknowledge, and remember who we really are, we can let go not in self-denial or resentment, but in true freedom. That’s a good read.

Details:

Captivating: Unlocking the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul. By John and Stasi Eldredge. Revised and Expanded. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2010. Purchase or get more information at the Amazon product page.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

I review for BookSneeze

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