“Today I made a conscious decision to trust someone I love. To trust that person when they tell me they love me….to believe that person when they say that they think about me….that sometimes I’m the first person they want to tell things to….to know that that person means it when they say they miss me.
Thinking about it now, I realize that a lot of my negative thoughts stem from self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence. I have never been a very confident person. I always feared that being confident meant that I was in some way cocky, and I never wanted to come across cocky, so I always shied away from confidence. In many aspects of life, I never felt that I was enough. WHY? Well for starters, I always would compare myself to others. In doing so, I would always find ways to put myself down. Instead of appreciating the differences between Becky and I, I would focus on Becky’s awesome sense of humor, or her great hair (as Beyonce put it) and put myself down because I didn’t have that.
Even when people DID compliment me, I never accepted it. It was a consistent cycle of self-hatred and thinking about it now, I realize how poorly I treated myself. I see how I treated myself in the past effects the kind of person I am now. I’m anxious consistently, I’m constantly worrying if I said the right thing, and I’m always doubting anything positive; those who tell me they love me, those who tell me I’m a good person, those who tell me I have a good heart. I hear those compliments and send them away. I replace them with the negatives, and go over all the reasons in my head why I don’t deserve that, and why I’m not those things…a destructive cycle of thinking.
But today I made a conscious decision to trust.
It’s not gonna be easy. In fact, I don’t think I even really realize how difficult it’s gonna be to replace the negatives geared towards myself with the positives; to take compliments and actually embrace them instead of fight them. I choose today to put my trust in others, and I can do that only by trusting in myself and the person I am. I choose to breathe in the moments of extreme doubt and anxiety. I choose to replace my negative thoughts with positive ones. Most importantly, today I choose to try. To try to be kinder to myself. I am not perfect but today I choose to see the good in myself and to embrace it instead of fight it. I will try to become better, because if I’m better to myself I will be better to others. Today I choose confidence, and tomorrow I choose to grow.”
I wrote this a little over a week ago. Oddly enough, I wrote it after watching the movie My Cousin Vinny, which long story short is about “two teenage boys from NYU who road trip through the South after accepting scholarships to UCLA. Once in Alabama, they stop at a local convenience store to pick up snacks but right after they leave, they get arrested. Thinking it was for shoplifting (as one of the boys did steal a small snack item), they admit to the theft not knowing that they were actually being arrested for a murder and robbery. Worst of all, they’re facing execution for a crime they didn’t commit.
To prove their innocence, they call on the great Vincet Laguarida Gambini (one of the boy’s uncles), who unbeknown to them was an inexperienced lawyer who had to yet to go to trial and who took the Bar SIX times before passing. Obviously, his inexperience made the trial pretty tough, which caused him to have A LOT OF SELF DOUBT….BUTTTTTTTT, at one point when he was struggling, his fiancé walked right up to him, looked him in the eye, and said some of the most inspiring words I’ve ever heard…..
“You’re the best when you’re YOU…THE QUINTESSENTIAL GAMBINI!”
….and I tell ya what, words have never stuck with me so much. It’s crazy how some of the most inspiring words I’ve heard in my life came from an Italian comedy but here we are…that’s life for ya.
This Friday marks the end of my first week of second semester. This semester, there’s a lot of changes and I’ve been having a lot of anxiety over them. There were days this week where I felt so down, so alone and so doubtful in myself that I couldn’t imagine going through another day…but I did…and here we are. Oddly enough, I kept thinking about the Quintessential Gambini…“you’re best when you’re YOU!”
Some days I feel super lost, like I don’t really know who I am, but if I look hard enough I know that there are things that I like about myself and when thinking about the Quintessential Gambini, I am reminded to take those small aspects and be them, to embrace them, because that’s my YOU! When I remind myself of that, it makes the bad days a little less bad. I breathe a little easier, my limbs hang a little bit looser, I smile a little more and I laugh a lot more because SOME THINGS ARE JUST SO FREAKING FUNNY!
SO HERE’S TO THE LITTLE VIBRANT MIDDLE-AGED, LEATHER WEARING ITALIAN-STALLION ATTORNEY THAT LIVES WITHIN EACH OF US.
Pb & Gel 