Self Care Sunday- Dealing with insecurity and negative thoughts
“I’m good enough. I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”- Stuart Smalley
My story- My most recent experience dealing with insecurity and negative thoughts:
While writing about my experiencing the Miss Back to the 50s pageant, (those posts are still forthcoming.) I couldn’t help but think about some of my feelings during the experience. One thing that came up repeatedly was feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. Feeling like I wasn’t a real pinup and that what I was doing wasn’t good enough. These feelings surfaced especially when I saw some of the other women and their outfits and hairstyles. I also had some of these feelings while preparing for the contest and had a hard time imagining myself winning. This was not my first time dealing with insecurity and negative thoughts and I doubt it will be the last.
Intellectually I know that I am just as good and that comparisons are odious, as my mom always said. I have been living the pinup lifestyle since 2019 and I know I had every right to be there.
Despite that it was hard not to feel less than and like a pretender. It was hard to shut off that voice inside and silence the doubts.
Despite that, I still went out there and tried to do my best.
What I do:
As for how to deal with doubts and that little voice, what I found helped was reminding myself that some of the other women had been doing this a lot longer than me. Any time I started to imagine the worst or think negative things I tried to replace those thoughts with positive ones.
By the time the contest rolled around I was actually imagining myself coming in second.
What can you do to counteract negativity and insecurity?
- The best thing is to avoid comparisons if at all possible. If you must compare yourself to others you should think about whether you are being fair or not. If you are a beginner at a craft, or a sport, or something like pinup it’s not fair to compare yourself to someone who is a professional or who has been doing whatever it is for a long time. Remind yourself that they were beginners once too and thats you’ll get better and better the more you keep at it. (Whatever it is.)
- Focus on the positive. What you like and excel at. Another thing I’m insecure about sometimes is how I look in pictures. When I start feeling negative or that I look ugly or too masculine I take a moment to dismiss those thoughts and think about what I do like about that picture. I have found that once I start looking at the pictures with more positive eyes that I can actually start liking them when at first I didn’t.
More suggestions for dealing with self doubt:
- Remember that you are your own toughest critic. No one focuses more on your faults (real or imagined) than you do. No one is harder on yourself than you are. Think about compliments you have received and positive reactions you have gotten and try to focus on that.
- Visualize the positive rather than the negative. There is a saying, “The mind is the builder” and I fully believe that. Focusing on the positive can bring positive results. Focusing on the negative can put you in a bad headspace and bring you down. Not to mention you don’t want to be putting that negativity out into the universe.
- Repeat a positive mantra to psych yourself up. You can also put positive messages on your bathroom mirror or refrigerator door for any time you need a pick me up. It can be something as simple as “I’m good enough” or I’m enough”. Or something catchy like “I don’t mean to be crass but I love my ass.” Anything you think you need to hear on a regular basis.
The important thing is to remember that you are still a work in progress and perfectly imperfect and that is just fine.
You’ve got this.
