Confidence with Chronic Illness

Confidence is believing in yourself whether it's your health, your job/career, your ability to provide for yourself and your family. It's appreciating yourself and knowing you are right where you are supposed to be. Confidence doesn't equal having a huge ego. Being confident is a positive emotion.

Confidence is something that I struggle to have every day because I don't feel confident with my health and honestly don't know if I ever will. Confidence is something I had while dancing and in course work through high school. Having to quit jobs because I couldn't juggle it all while in so much pain and having some new health issue start up every time I get a job makes it hard to feel confident in my health. Having to cancel plans over and over decreases my confidence a little each time. Will I ever be able to keep every single plan I make with family, friends, and in business and not have to cancel because of my health?

It's hard to have confidence. It's hard to let yourself feel confident when you feel like your body is constantly letting you down or you feel like you are letting others down. Know that the only person's feelings you are responsible for are your own. You can't control how others feel or respond when you cancel. You know you are canceling because you don't feel well even if they don't believe you and that has to be good enough.

We deserve to be confident just as much as a healthy person. We are all equal and have to view ourselves this way to have confidence in ourselves. We can't see someone as being better than us because that diminishes our confidence. We all have strengths and weakness, but they are different and that's what makes us unique. It's important that we surround ourselves with others that bring positivity into our lives and help boost our confidence.

Self-care plays into confidence, too. Music helps me get pumped about something I'm working on (I'm listening to 90's Pop on Pandora right now!). Reading and writing help me deal with how I'm feeling and in that I get to help others, which also helps with my confidence. Some people find that makeup makes them more confident. The way you dress can help boost our confidence levels, too. I find myself changing out of my T-shirts into a more dressy shirt even if I'm running errands to help me feel better about myself and my body. It's important that you find things that make you confident, too.

I do have confidence in sharing my story, helping others, and know I'm right where I'm supposed to be to help people who are going through a similar journey. Know that you are not alone.

How do you deal with confidence? What do you do for self-care? Leave a comment below!

I hope you find this blog helpful in some way.

Take care,
💛Samantha

Picture from koenigdunne.com