Just Ask🤷🏼‍♀️

I remember being so scared and anxious all the time. Every thought that ran through my mind had some negative emotion attached to it.

Who else struggles with this kind of thing?My struggles with anxiety began early in my life, and today I am grateful that I had the opportunity to face my giants and that everyday is a battle, but not a losing one.

It started with struggling to make friends and fitting in with groups of girls in grade school. Then came the academic stress, of not being ‘good enough’. These are the negative things that I used to tell myself. Meanwhile, I was and am easy to get along with, and I just didn’t find positive coping techniques or positive self talk at that time. I used to go above and beyond just to remain friends with someone and more importantly be friends with the popular kids.

For everyone that has gone to school anywhere in the world, the things we see in the movies about the cliques is found everywhere. Later on in my schooling I was in a group that all succeeded in academics and sport, we were mostly pretty balanced. I played netball, swam, played guitar, sang and I was socially acceptable to my peers. Did it help with confidence? Yes, but it also affected me in a negative way. I was always striving for perfection, and that’s not good!

It added so much extra pressure and stress to my life , I lived this truth for so long, that I was so burnt out after my school years. I mean a 18 year old with burnout😳 It’s so much more common these days because of the pressure on children from a young age. With this being said, my parents never added stress to my life, we always had a choice whether we wanted to do something.

This led me to ask, why did I want to be perfection, which we all know is impossible. Possibly because everyone around me was excelling at everything and I wanted that too, instead of living my own truth and owning myself.

I recently saw a Documentary, on Netflix called “100 Humans”where a psychologist spoke and said that women are taught from a young age that we need to say and do all the right things and just be ‘good girls’, and in effect that is exactly what I did.

The smallest failures, for example, not grasping a concept of maths when I was 9 would just throw me off completely. I was so hard on myself because of this immense pressure that I put on myself. Consequently I started looking into the reasons why such a small thing would mean so much. Then I realized that I made the mistake that many girls make, I never asked for help. Somehow in my subconscious mind I thought that asking for help would make me look stupid, and this mentality followed me all throughout my academic years, school and college, and even in my career.

Not only my academics suffered under this thinking, my relationships did too. Except this time I would fail to ask myself a very important question. Do you believe that this person sees your worth, and are they worth your time? Oh man, I can keep you busy for days about the decisions I’ve made when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex, but this isn’t relevant.

The sad part is that I was looking for acceptance from people, and compliments and and and… we all know that feeling, I mean it feels great when someone tells you that you’re beautiful and smart etc.! The problem here you ask? I did not accept myself and so I looked for validation, and if I didn’t get it, the negativity crawled back in.

It all starts with you, YOU make the change, YOU’LL see the change.

Never be afraid to ask, you will be saving yourself a lot of confusion and disappointment. Never be afraid to speak up and never ever be afraid to be yourself 100 percent. The right people will love and respect you and see you for who you really are.

Like in my case, many of us put ourselves down, and this spirals. Stop your negative thoughts and start backing yourself and your abilities.

I really hope someone needed this today Much Love💙

Xoxo Dan the Wooman