Accept your limitations. And then amplify your strengths. (I couldn’t leave my house for a really long time. That was limiting, yo. I amped up everything I could do that was within my reach. I finally got round to writing my book.)

Be real. They say you can be whoever you want to be. Nope. You can’t. You can only be who you are. Having said that…

Challenge yourself to be most dynamic version of yourself and you’ll do it. Challenge yourself to be an entirely different person and you’ll fail miserably.

Don’t apologize for who you are, they say. I say, don’t apologize for who you aren’t either.

Escape from the world for a while. You won’t find who you are when you’re constantly around others. Who are you when you’re alone, in your sweats, munching happily on your go-to snack? That’s you. Now put on pants, go out and be that person.

Face yo’self. Face your fears, your denials, and your cognitive distortions. You’ll only be comfortable in you, when you can see ALL OF YOU.

Gag the bullying critic that lives inside of your head. Unleash the kind-hearted critic instead.

Humor. Learn to laugh at yourself. It’s the first step to forgiveness. Forgiveness is the first step to acceptance. Acceptance is the first step to liking yourself.

If you can’t be comfortable with whom you are because you don’t know who you are, it’s cool. Go see a counselor or a therapist even if you don’t really NEED to. They slam you with such focused questions that the answers will appear.

Just relax. Don’t force it. You’ll get there.

Know yourself. What makes you jump out of bed in the morning? What makes you hide under the covers? What makes you slam the door? Can you correctly identify those feelings? You’re half way to knowing yourself already.

Lead your party of one. You’re the boss, the shepherd, the coach, the CEO, the manager, the editor-in-chief and the president of YOU. Lead on, sunshine, lead on.

Match…yourself. Match your inner with your outer. Match your abilities with your goals. Match your worth with your values.

No-one is perfectly comfortable all of the time. When we’re uncomfortable, we know that something isn’t working. It’s the thing that pushes us to be more, to surpass our current version and reach the next rung of ourselves.

Own it. Be proud of who you are. Are you a good sister but a terrible adder-upper? Own that. Do you curate awesome content but can’t write it yourself? Own that. Are you so sensitive that you can tell that someone else has a toothache by that one distinct frown on their forehead, but forget birthdays all the time? Own that too.

People -all people- are all things some of the time. To be comfy in your own skin you have to understand that. You’ll make mistakes, you’ll be rude, and you’ll be insensitive, forgetful, hateful, judgmental, and even delusional. That’s when you gotta take responsibility for who you are. Are you prone to being mean when you’re angry? Own up to it, APOLOGIZE and work on it. Do you go AWOL when you’re sad? Own up to it, APOLOGIZE and work on it. Do you interrupt people when you’re FULL OF ALL THE EXCITEMENT? Own up to it, APOLOGIZE and work on it.

Quit comparing yourself to others. I’m serious. Stop basing your value, your worth, your identity, your entire existence on a 140-character window of another person’s life.

Relax. It’ll probs take a life-time to really know who you are because we’re always a little different today than we were yesterday. Aim to be who are right now.

Step away from taking that 100th personality test. It’s only validating what you already know. Rather work on liking what you already know.

Turn 30 years old. Suddenly you’re all: “Oh, this is who I am. I love her and sometimes I hate her. Cool.” and then you go on with your day.

Unblock your existential block. You know who you are. You know how to be who you are because it’s the most natural thing you can do. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest this simple equation.

Know yourself + like yourself = being comfy in your own skin

Value your own worth based on what YOU can do at YOUR pace. My brother thinks that I should be able to run a 5K five times a week, no problem. I think sticking to an exercise schedule, no matter the kilometers I clock, is far more worthwhile. I don’t let his value system deter me from feeling proud of my accomplishments. Now that’s super comfy.

When you ask yourself, “Who am I?” and your head goes blank, here’s your cheat sheet. The answer is, “I am who I am.” (But, don’t say that with a shrug after you’ve hurt someone. That’s just obnoxious. Also, never use that as an excuse not to follow your dreams, that’s just defeatist.)

Xerox this twenty times and stick it on your fridge, your dashboard, your pin board, your bathroom mirror.

Fact: “1/3 of people will love you, 1/3 of people will hate you, 1/3 of people will be indifferent to you.”

Ask yourself: Am I included in the 1/3 of people that love me? Remember, your vote counts double!

You’re YOU. And I am me. I can never be you and you can never be me. Appreciate that little philosophical nugget. There is no-one else like us yet we’re all struggling to be ‘us’. Aren’t humans silly?

Zoom the focus away from you and turn it to others. Who looks happy in themselves? Talk to them. Ask them questions. (They’ll probably laugh and tell you that they’re just figuring out, exactly like you are.)  Imitate them. You’ll find your way soon enough.

I’m taking my own advice and asking YOU:

How or (even when) do you manage to feel comfortable in your own skin? 

Did you like this post? Here are a few other guides I’ve written:
The ABC Guide to Drama-Free Female Friendships
The ABC Guide to Surviving Being Single

My New Year’s Eve turned out better than I expected. I prettied myself up, I bubbled, I giggled, and I stayed out until a little after I was done. I was done after I lost all my chips at Poker. But I stayed for another round because that’s what I’d told myself I’d do. That’s when my luck changed. I left after I had won all my money back and a little extra.

You’ve got to know when to stay but you’ve also got to know when to go.

When I arrived I had no idea the evening would turn out as lovely as it did. I’d simply made a few choices about the way I wanted to experience the night. The rest was up in the air. After I’d said my hellos and cheek-kissed everyone, I sat on the couch and smiled. It was good to be here.

“So, where are you going after this?” old-time friend said.

“No-where, I’m staying right here.”

“Really? You’re going to waste all of that…on us?” And he gestured toward me, his hand pointing to all of me. I leaned over and patted him on his bicep.

“Well if you’re dishing out compliments like that, you’re sitting next to me the whole night!”

To him, I was wasting a slinky red top, fake eyelashes and red lips on a night with friends and family. Travesty! I assume he meant that I should be at some club meeting some guy who would notice me because I looked the way I never really look.

To me though, I was wasting nothing. And it was only when he used that word that I realized the tag-line of this self-development game I’ve been playing all my life.

I don’t waste. I cultivate.

And I wasn’t wasting anything on New Year’s Eve either.

He couldn’t see that because on the outside it seemed like I was already there. I was already at that mythical destination and not only was I there but I had come so far that I no longer even belonged ‘there’. Now, I belonged somewhere better.

He got all of that from a pair of fake eyelashes, sheer black stockings and a form-fitting skirt. I don’t blame him. From the outside and from a place that feels like a destination, we forget that there’s an inside and that the journey never ends.

It was just another night in a series of night that will lead me to another night in a series of nights. These nights and the days that precede them are where I am while simultaneously being where I’m going.

I am where I am. I thought. And it is fine. And that’s not the automatic fine that we use when someone asks, “How are you?” It’s the spontaneous “Damn girl, you’re fine” that I’ve only ever heard in movies.

DAYUM life, you’re fine.

I like that I didn’t think: I’m not where I should be or I’m not where I want to be or I’m not where I thought I would be. I’ve been there, stuck in that thinking, and it didn’t get me anywhere.

I am where I am.

I’ve only just arrived here but I already know it won’t be a waste. I feel like there is so much possibility in just being where you are. Possibilities that we miss or don’t even see when we’re so busy being at a place we’re not. I can’t wait to discover them.

THINK ABOUT IT: Are YOU where you ARE?

Image via Pinterest

While I prepare for a New Year, I’ve taken a break from sharing new stories. Instead, I’m dipping into my archives and sharing past posts that have been pushed down into my blog’s abyss.

This post almost made it into the book. I liked that it was unedited and raw. But eventually I realized that it didn’t serve the story. I’m glad I took it out, but I wanted you to rediscover it.

When I read it with my older eyes now, I want to slap my younger self. I was so full of idealistic hope that I didn’t know where to draw the line. I’ve learned much over the last few years, especially about the way I want to be treated by men. I’ve also learned to distinguish between healthy hope and flat-out masochistic hope. I hold onto the first one; it’s my life line. But I’ve beat the second one out of me with a stick. It had no place in my life and it has no place in my life now. Hope shouldn’t blind you to reality.

This is when it almost did.  

_____

You know, a part of me doesn’t want to write this post.

I don’t want to ruin this ‘story’ that has kept me and all of you so engaged in the last month or so. Some of you have commented on what a ‘great storyteller’ I am. I guess, months from now, this will be one of those stories I whisper to my girlfriends over a glass of wine. My lips stained with red, my cheeks red with drunk, my drunk finally tapping into my most uncensored feelings.

Am I good storyteller? I don’t know about that. What I do know is that I am ruthless in the editing process. And so, inevitably, what I publish is only part of the real story. I never lie. I never over exaggerate. I try to stick to the facts. The facts, though, are always seen through my over-romanticized eyes.

I leave out details, not to taunt you, but in part to protect myself. Some details, I figure, are not worth mentioning unless they serve some purpose; unless they add to a point I am trying to make. Other details, are not worth mentioning because I don’t like them. I don’t like what they might reveal about me. I don’t like what they might show about him; about us. About the moment. Not only do I edit those details from the post I am writing, I delete them from my mind too.

As if they never happened.

I have spent the majority of the day going over all the details. In their unedited form. I go over the way he has never, not once, initiated his desire to see me. I do that. I go over the way he warned me that he is trouble. How he told me that he had made his intentions very clear to the last girl he was with and that she misunderstood him. And that now he is an asshole. In her eyes. That he does not want to repeat his mistakes. He doesn’t want to get hurt and he doesn’t want to hurt me.

I remember that basking in his presence –high off of a real connection, an unparalleled chemistry– I heard what he said. Then, promptly dismissed it. Because I am different, together we are different, I thought.

To him, I said, “I’m not naive. I know what I am getting myself into.”

The lies we tell ourselves are always more hurtful than the truth we don’t  want to hear.

The truth is that he had no intention of calling me, he said. The truth is that his affection in bed is normal, he said. The hundreds of kisses he planted on my face, my shoulders, my fingers and hands over the course of the night and day? Has got nothing to do with you, he implied. That’s just the kind of lover I am, he said.

The truth is that I fell for all the lines, for the behaviour that benefited me. Then let myself fall into the moment and then –uncharacteristically– into his bed. Two days after handing myself over to a man who only wanted me because of my persistent want for him, I am falling apart over all those lines that don’t benefit me.

I am falling apart gracefully though. There have been no tears; just an explosion of creative energy. There have been no passive-aggressive, cry for attention, late night messages to him; just a remarkable, detached silence. There have been no ‘convenient’ walks over to The Irish; just long, adrenaline-fueled runs on the treadmill.

This is not to say that this is the end. The last time I heard from him, he suggested but did not initiate, that we meet for a coffee in the next day or two. Deep down, I know that this will never happen. Deep down, I want to delete this entire post, as if all his warnings were never said; as if I’d never seen all those obvious cues that he’s not that interested in me.

Deep down, I want to still believe that I am just a little different from all the other girls he has bed. Deep down, I want to believe that he genuinely likes me. Deep down, I want to believe, really believe, in the story I have weaved here for you all. And to tell you truth, right now, I almost believe it.

Because seriously? My hope?

It will always die last.

Has hope ever blinded you from reality?

While I prepare for a New Year, I’ve taken a small break from blogging. Except, that’s not really true, is it? I did post about my interview in the January issue of Glamour Magazine. Get ready for the translation soon!

In the meantime, I found something I wrote in 2008 that seems fitting to post again. It reminds me of a quote I shared on my Facebook page last week: 

“You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.” Lou Holtz

_____

I’m constantly surprised by my relentless lack of confidence in myself and my abilities.

I read comments that compliment my writing and I feel like ‘Hope’ is not me. It can’t be. I check my traffic stats and am thrilled at the numbers it reveals. Then, it dawns on me that those numbers refer to something I am doing. It can’t be.

I receive a text message from Dan confirming our coffee date. I look at it. I put my phone away. I take it out. I look at it again. It can’t be.

I sit next to him and am genuinely shocked that he has chosen to spend two hours of his busy day with me. I nearly fall off the pavement when he makes it clear that he would like to see me again. It can’t be.

I go to The Irish alone as if I am confident. But I’m not confident, I tell myself.

I nurse a beer. A man leans forward and shouts over the music and into my ear. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” Is he talking to me? He is. It fucking can’t be.

I nurse a second beer. The same man whispers into my ear. “I’m leaving. You’re much too smart to be played by someone like me.”  I laugh silently to myself. Am I?

There and there and there and even there. There is evidence that I am someone that has something that they can be confident about.

I nurse my third beer. Why do I have such low self-esteem, I think to myself. Then, I remember the words of a boy who had said he loved me everyday for two years; the words of a boy that I had inadvertently placed my entire identity, my entire worth into his care.

“I never loved you. Breaking up with you was the best decision I ever made in my life. You showed me what I did not want from a relationship. What I did NOT  want in a girl.”

It can’t be, right? But it was.

I remember those words and I repeat them to Dan who has an uncanny ability to make me reveal things about myself that I would not normally reveal. I repeat the words the boy said to Dan as a substitute of the real words I want to say to him, but can’t.

But I don’t have to tell him that I’m not the person he thinks I am because he already knows this. He holds my hands and makes me promise.

“You’re so great. You should realize that!” His compliment fills me with a rush of well…confidence.

But in the morning, I realize that my confidence cannot be dependent on the whims of a man who is leaving the country in three weeks. It cannot be dependent on the compliments of random men I meet in bars. It cannot be dependent on the old words of a spiteful boy. It cannot be dependent on number of comments or number of hits. It cannot be dependent on anyone other or anything outer.

It just can’t be.

What does YOUR confidence depend on?