Confidence (or Whatever the Hell This Actually Is)

Last year, someone I deeply cared about - someone I loved - told me that my confidence scared them. And quite literally, it did. They went away. It broke my heart.

The irony is that their leaving - their sudden absence, their lack of capacity to stay, or even to communicate - brought me to one of the lowest points of my life. Not because I couldn’t see that their reaction belonged to them, or that it was revealing something they weren’t able to meet. But because their disappearance forced me to sit with every last ounce of woundedness still alive in me.

Vulnerability is the cornerstone of confidence. - Brené Brown

The critical voice came online almost immediately.

This must mean you’re a piece of shit.
This must mean you’re not beautiful enough.
Not smart enough.
Not kind enough.
Not soft enough.
Not gentle enough.
Too much.
Not enough.

There was no avoiding it. Anything unhealed made itself known. What followed was months of something that felt like a living hell - relentless, exposing, inescapable. A year later, I was still processing it. Still uncovering it. Still sitting with it. Still letting what hurt do its work.

In the moment, it landed like a kind of breathtaking paradox - almost comical. Cosmic, even. My confidence scares you? Are you fucking kidding me?

I remember thinking: What confidence?

It wasn’t until that moment - well into my forties - that it dawned on me people might actually perceive me as confident. And even now, as I sit here writing this, I’m not sure that’s the right word for what they’re seeing.

Shortly after that conversation, I wrote a journal entry to help myself metabolize it. Because what I wanted to say - what I didn’t yet have language for - was this: If you knew where this came from, you wouldn’t call it confidence. You’d call it the afterimage of surviving profound self-hatred.

What people sometimes read as confidence was forged in the deepest places of shame - places I carried not just psychologically, but cellularly. In my body. My nervous system. My spirit. I didn’t wake up one day liking myself. I crawled my way here. Bloody. Bruised. Cracked open. I fought tooth and nail to climb back onto the pedestal of my own life.

And the dark joke of it all? I don’t think confidence is even the right word.

So what is it? The closest thing I’ve found is wholeheartedness. Or maybe authenticity - though even that feels too polished.

What actually happened is this: I got exhausted. Exhausted from the cost of self-hatred. Exhausted from shame. Exhausted from contorting myself to be palatable, quieter, smaller, less threatening.

At some point, I waved the white flag of surrender - not because I’d “mastered” self-love, but because I simply could not afford to hate myself anymore. So here I am. Not fearless. Not flawless. Not floating above pain. Just… here. In my skin. In my truth.

As I move through my second year of singleness post-divorce, I recognize the patterns more clearly now. Not from a place of superiority, but from lived experience. We repeat lessons until they resolve. We attract unresolved energy - unhealed parts - until they’re seen, integrated, redeemed.

And yes, sometimes that means people are scared away. Not because I’m too much. But because I’m no longer abandoning myself.

There’s an image that comes to me sometimes - of crashing through the finish line of worthiness. I’m not triumphant and pristine. I’m wrecked. Bleeding. Split open. And yet - my self-love is intact.

It didn’t come free.

What I understand now is this: I will only be able to meet someone who has also come to love themselves. Anything less would require me to betray myself again.

I remember the moment I chose to leave my marriage. The clarity of it still takes my breath away. I remember knowing - without drama, without blame - that I had a choice: I could choose fully alive. Or I could choose to stay married. I chose life. Even if it meant walking alone for the rest of it.

I don’t believe walking alone is my fate. But I know this: I will not compromise my aliveness to make someone else comfortable. If that scares people, so be it.

This isn’t confidence.

It’s the quiet, unshakeable result of choosing myself - again and again - after a lifetime of not being chosen at all.