Some days I feel good about myself. Some days I don’t. Regardless of how I view myself, I have always had horrible self-talk. I’ve said awful things to myself thinking it will motivate me in some way. Turns out it doesn’t. The last 3 months I’ve had a lot of time to sit with myself. And I discovered a lot I didn’t like, but I always strived to love every part of me, even the parts that needed work. But it was hard to know how to love parts of yourself you’re not proud of. The truth is when you have a lot of time by yourself, a lot of qualities come out that might not be pretty…mostly because you’re overthinking everything. This has been me ever since quarantine started. I lacked confidence and continually put myself down because I wasn’t reaching the standard I wanted to be at. I was able to point out things I didn’t like, but had no energy or plan to better myself. I believed the lie that I was stuck where I was, and that I would never be able to see myself as pretty enough, thin enough, athletic enough, or pleasing enough.
To give a tangible example that might seem stupid but I’m sure has run through every girl’s mind—I really wanted a toned stomach/6 pack. As a professional athlete, I assumed it wouldn’t be hard to achieve, and always felt good when my stomach was flat. However, the only time I ever saw progress with this was when I would skip meals and cut calories. For someone who burns 1000-1500 calories a training session, this is really bad. Refueling is so important for body recovery and well-being, but I cared more about what I thought an athlete “should” look like. When I started skipping meals and doing 30 minutes of abs each day, I started to see progress. However, I was always tired. I had no energy to get up and do things, but that also meant I didn’t have energy to eat, which is what I wanted. I think this continual thinking led down a dangerous path that brought me to hating my body and what I looked like. Although I knew my body was healthy, it never seemed to be healthy enough. And it wasn’t because I was comparing myself to other people, although I did sometimes, I was more so comparing myself to what I thought the standard of a healthy athlete looked like. What’s crazy is these thoughts preceded me going pro. The fall of my senior year in college, I ate around one full meal a day--mind you this was during soccer season. I was so stressed out with my life and what was going on that I stopped eating, I stopped being social, and I shut everyone out. The sickening part is that I knew what I was doing and was okay with it. I knew it was wrong, so why was I content living this way? It’s because I didn’t see myself and my value the way God sees it.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror I stare for a while, not in vain, but because I look for flaws. And when you go searching for flaws with no confidence, you’ll always find them. So, when I went searching for beauty, I couldn’t seem to find it. This was because I didn’t view myself through the lens of Jesus, and I feel like that is my whole point of this post.
Apart from confidence in your outward appearance, when you don’t have confidence in who you are as a human being, you start second guessing everything you do and why you do it—things that are minuscule which no one else notices, but you do, because all of the sudden you care so much. You hate that you do it, but you can’t seem to stop. You begin to apologize for everything you do for no reason.
This is exactly how I felt for the last three or so months. I think it was rooted in a deep desire to please everyone. I never wanted to leave a conversation feeling like I failed someone in some way. This caused me to overthink before I spoke as well as replay conversations over and over in my head, ruminating on them as if I had always said something wrong. It became exhausting for me to live like that. I spent all my free time regretting things I did or didn’t say.
I kept trying to please people, and thus kept disappointing people. That’s why it’s tough to be a people pleaser. Regardless of how kind, loving, or giving you are, someone won’t be pleased. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Is God pleased?”
I made my standard something other than Christ, and when Christ isn’t who you are trying to model your life after, you never get to where you were meant to go. You might grow a little, but only Jesus can embody everything we should desire to be. We weren’t made to live to any other standard. We were made to be unapologetically ourselves, eventually to fulfillment of what God intended all along.
On April 6, I hit a wall. This is what I journaled:
“How can I love myself fully while I’m always in the edification process? I want to love myself so that I can love my neighbors as myself. But there are some things I can’t stand about myself. So how do I do it? I want to be fully me, but it seems that when I am it’s too obnoxious or too loud or too this or that. Am I just supposed to scale back who I am? How do I change who I am while still being me?”
I started asking myself, “Does my inability to love myself come from an inability to grasp how much God loves me?” The truth is if you don’t know the Father, you can’t know yourself. If you don’t recognize His unfathomable grace and love poured out for you, it’s hard to see yourself as valuable.
I called a mentor and close friend of mine, seeking help and wisdom. What she said changed my entire perspective. I told her multiple ways in which I lacked confidence, both with my personality as well as my physical appearance. These few things were weighing me down and all I focused on. She simply said, "Claim the parts that you are still confident in." I wasn't confident in certain areas, and that's all I was looking at. But there are so many aspects to who I am as a human being, and I can choose to focus on the areas I AM confident in and let those shine the Light. After she said that I wrote down the areas I was still confident in, and the next few days I pressed into those. It was a complete 180 shift in my spirit. The devil wants us to focus on what we don't have, what we struggle with, etc., but if we can shift our perspective to things we do have confidence in (which is also laid out to us in scripture, aka- WE HAVE VICTORY) then we have overcome!
Something else that gives me confidence is this -- when God looks at us, He sees us for all we are, but He’s looking at us through the lens of Jesus. Jesus came and died for us; He made all that was wrong within us right. The cross cured us of an eternity separated from Him. So, when God sees us, He looks through the cross, through the death of Jesus, and into our hearts that were made right and worthy. It’s not that God is unaware of our brokenness and sin, but because of His love for us, He chooses to see the best in us, and our best version is the one made righteous through the cross. This is exactly how I have to see myself. I have to look at myself through the lens of Jesus. I can’t look at what I don’t have or the shortcomings I think I possess. I have to look at who I’m meant to be. The self that is fully justified and whole. The self that is one with Jesus. My heavenly self. There’s nothing wrong with looking how far we’ve come or how things have shaped us in the past, and that is the beauty of becoming more like Christ, it’ll span across our entire lifetime, no matter how long that is.
So yes, I struggled with my inner and outer beauty, and still do at times. I had a low confidence and talked to myself poorly, and still do at times. At the end of the day, I need to understand specifically how God sees me. I have to ask myself, “Why does God see me as beautifully and wonderfully made?” It’s because of the love He lavishes on me. It’s because of the lens through which He sees me.
We need to give ourselves the same grace that God gives us. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me I need to be nicer to myself. We have to recognize that we are worthy of the grace we’re given. The cross makes that possible, because before we weren’t. You are completely wrapped and covered in His grace. You won’t reach all the goals and dreams and standards you have set, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is shaming yourself for not doing so. You are better than that, and that was never God’s intention.
I hope you have found something new about yourself during this crazy time. I hope you’ve fallen more in love with who you are as an imperfect human being. I hope you know just how beautiful you are. Know that no one else defines your beauty. No magazine, no billboard, no instagram post. The Bible has the final say, and it says you are more precious than rubies, that God rejoices over you, and you are His beloved.
We all should be trying to better ourselves and reach our fullest potential. Jesus didn’t die on the cross for us to live into who we’re not or what we’re not or why we’re not. He died for all we are to become. We are righteous; we are spotless; and that’s how He sees us. If anything, that should give us confidence to sustain us for a lifetime. Keep drawing your confidence from the well of love of the Father, and I promise you He’ll sustain you.