🥵 Welcome to my hell week with perimenopause
I'm teaching you anxiety-squelching, confidence-boosting tools the same week:
I broke down sobbing after a breakup with a pleasure partner (Not crying anymore. Now I'm just proud I made the right decision for me.)
I yelled and cursed on the phone from menopause rage (Don't worry, it wasn't to the ex and I quickly apologized.)
I spent an entire day couch-locked, hardly moving between the fridge and the bathroom, binge-watching mind-numbing Korean insult comedy on YouTube for about 10 hours because that was the most tolerable distraction from all the rage, grief, and exhaustion.
I'm sharing this with you to show confidence isn't a permission slip out of the messy, heartbreaking, and at times terribly annoying experience of being HUMAN.
(Don't let the hormone-deprived brain convince you that being menopausal makes you any less human, any less worthy, any less confident in deciding what's right and wrong for you.)
After a few days of allowing for all the rage, grief, and exhaustion, I feel MORE confident in who I am. I feel more clear and rooted in the love and trust I have for myself.
(After availing myself of awesome menopause resources like Alloy, menopause.org, and Bonafide,I feel even more relieved and optimistic about the future.)
So often, we think confidence is about never feeling an ounce of doubt or confusion. We think confidence is about doing it "right" the first time and every time to the delight and validation of everyone.
That sort of perfectionist fantasy, I'm always quick to point out to my clients, is the surefire way to ERODE your confidence, not build it.
In my experience, genuine confidence grows when you're
Willing to trust yourself to have the nervous-system-activating, but values-affirming difficult conversation... like owning that you've conveniently ignored several big, red flags in a relationship (my example) or clearly and unequivocally delivering the tough medicine of establishing a spending limit as the head of Finance at a cash-strapped startup (my client's example)
And willing to take messy, less-than-perfect action, while allowing for the full spectrum of human emotion, from bliss to white-hot rage.
So here's the silver lining: Confidence isn't about bypassing the messiness of life (or "every nonprofit," a client said to me today); it's about navigating through it with self-compassion and self-respect.
Confidence grows when we learn to trust ourselves, even when life or the recent reorg feels chaotic.
So, whether you're dealing with menopause or a cash-strapped startup or a chaotic post-restructure workplace, know that you are capable, worthy, and enough -- just as you are.
Come as you are and watch the replay of Confidence Lab, available right over HERE on Youtube.
