The voice in my head at times tell me I’m not good enough or that my husband couldn’t possibly love me because there are so many other beautiful women out there. That the woman in that outfit looks amazing and I could never wear that. That the naturally thin woman at the gym is lucky because she doesn’t have to sweat for hours to try and lose a hundred grams. That all the other authors I meet who write in my genre are all so much more capable and talented than I am.
We all have insecurities, and often these come from childhood. We carry our insecurities with us, and they become the sound track to our lives—stealing the joy of living and the courage to step out and do things we’ve dreamed of.
Body image is the one area I think we are all affected by. The voice in our head harks back to childhood to the first time someone called us fat.
The first time we noticed our thighs were chunky. The time we noticed a belly over our bikini.
The times we looked at other girls, and wished we had their nose, or thought they were skinnier or prettier than us.
We see people on Facebook who’ve lost weight and look amazing—we’re happy for them, but inside think— I couldn’t be like that.
As I grow older I’m changing the voice. I can’t measure up to perfection, and I’m sick of the voice in my head that tells me I don’t measure up, or that I’m not good enough.
I’m trying to make friends with that voice—the woman who I know so well, but want to tell, ‘Get over yourself. No one really cares. Just be yourself. Live the life you were created for and dream of.’
The voice in my head is becoming a friend I can coach with new truths, and new confidence. I can teach her to have a new conversation so that we can encourage each other.
The voice in my head is my friend, and friends look out for each other— don’t they?
The Bible tells us to love others as we love ourselves. Most of us forget to actually love ourselves.
The voice in my head now says, ‘Be the best you can be. Do it. Say yes. Who are you to do this? You are you. No one else is you.’
To be able truly say, ‘She’s not my competition,’ we need to deal with our own insecurities and stop the comparisons. Life is too short to waste bound up in the ugly voice in our head.
