True to YOU

Sometimes, no matter how long the pep-talk, confidence within a woman is the hardest thing to restore. Confidence is molded and built through people, places, and experiences. The wrong people, the wrong places, and the wrong circumstances in a series of unfortunate events can scar beautiful women like ourselves with negative, self-conscious images of our personalities and appearances; making us feel uneasy as if to have a lack of self security.

The women at Mount Holyoke College, like most women in progressive, intellectually driven, all-girls schools, are some of the most amazing young women you will ever meet. No matter how amazing and wonderful they all are, a lot of them still have many unreasonable insecurities.

The issue with the restoration of confidence is that the lack of self-assurance that has developed through relationships and experiences are way more than a mere friend can simply change. How many of us women have ever asked ourselves if someone was out of our league? Too good for us? Many girls feel this way because they are frightened or shaken by the fact that they will either be turned down or embarrassed by the one who they seek as a lover or a friend.

More times than not, a lover, family member, or friend has already shattered all the confidence this individual had stored. If friends (or “thought to be” friends) have a problem with the way you look, act, talk, carry yourself, how you’re dressed, and how you wear your hair, for example, you may alter your appearance and personality to fit those around you. This alternation can be a good or bad thing. Personally, as a young teenage woman of 14 years old, I was often criticized for my weirdness, individualism, and ways to make myself unique; I ended the friendship that was detrimental to my self-esteem and mental well being which has taught me to be confident to this very day.

After family, friends are the ones who you would like to gain approval from. A girl just wants to hear the positive feedback of someone she both admires and trust. When this is not given to us, we often stick around in these friendships that make us feel inadequate or forces us to be anything but our true selves.

GET OUT! The worst thing to do is to hide your identity: to cover yourself with this unauthentic exterior to please the ones around you. Dropping the wrong and reevaluating the right can be dramatic. Especially in high school and college when friends are basically all you’ve got. Getting over that one person who constantly makes you feel like a total loser is the BEST choice you will ever make. This action is the foundation for your confidence; knowing you are awesome without anyone’s approval! You are beautiful without anyone’s bad attitudes. You are sexy without anyone saying so.

Experience is the best teacher. Gaining respect for yourself and developing a sense of how you would like to be treated after these experiences with friends, will teach you how to become aware of anyone who doesn’t allow you to flourish and be the very best person who you already are.

Stay true to yourself.

Stay confident!

-Iyanna James-Stephenson