Self(ish) Confidence
Your confidence is your superpower… but what if you don’t have any? It can be hard to show up as your authentic self. When we go out, or even scrolling on the couch, it's easy to get trapped in the comparison game, making it even harder to be beautifully you. Self(ish) Confidence is about finding your confidence, shining your light and taking action toward your unconventional life. Every week, we'll chat through barriers that could hold you back. Follow along with me, Jess Clerke, as we learn to find our confidence together and begin to share our magic with the world.
Self(ish) Confidence
You're a butterfly, Sis: Transformation is happening, even if you can't see it yet
Ever felt overwhelmed by the demands of a big project and wondered if you could truly trust the process? Join me as I share the rollercoaster experience of planning my first major event, "Speak Up," and how it has taught me to let go of rigid expectations. From emotional highs and lows to a transformative retreat in Kentucky, learn how releasing control can lead to unexpected yet positive outcomes. Discover why maintaining genuine energy and authenticity is crucial, even when life throws curveballs.
Through the lens of personal transformation, I emphasize the importance of persisting through the difficult "soup season" to achieve true metamorphosis. With updates on the upcoming "Speak Up" event, I’m excited to connect with you and spread love, positivity, and confidence. Remember, you are magic, and I’m here to remind you of your incredible worth and potential.
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Welcome to Selfish Confidence, a place where we can connect and be real about how hard it is to be your damn self. My name is Jess and my goal is to help you build confidence and belief in yourself to live any life path you want, even if it's unconventional. It's time to flip off societal pressures and connect with women who've also felt on the outside by their life choices. We're here to encourage you to grab the mic and speak your truth. I know it can be scary, but we're in this together. Let's get started. Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Selfish Confidence Podcast. It's Jess here and I know if you are a regular listener, you might be thinking Jess, you've been dropping the ball a little bit with this podcast. Okay, like I am waiting on Monday morning for those episodes to come out, and the last couple of weeks have been a little all over the place. There was one week I didn't drop an episode at all, first time in almost three years that I didn't drop a weekly episode at all. First time in almost three years that I didn't drop a weekly episode, I think last week the episode came out later than I expected and we're just rolling with it right now, in the season that we're in, and I ask for a little bit of grace. I ask for a little bit of just yeah, a little bit of grace and a little bit of love right now, which is what I'm trying to do for myself in this season Because, as many of you know especially if you are an active listener or you're someone who's in the Selfish Sisterhood or you're someone who's coming to speak up it is a season of planning a lot of details, a lot of details for a large event that I've never done before, and, although I do have a volunteer team and some people who are helping us for the event and some amazing friends who've been helping me with, you know the artwork and the workbooks and the decorations for the event, which I'm so grateful for, because without I would not be okay right now.
Speaker 1:But it is a lot of stuff that I have been doing on my own and I have been planning every single detail out myself, and it has taken more brainpower than I anticipated and even when I was about to sit down on the weekend and record this episode, my brain just couldn't be here for you or pretend that everything's okay and I'm not saying things aren't okay. Things are actually great, but the energy has to be right. The energy has to be expansive and beautiful and confident and loving for me to come on this mic. And if it's not, I'm not going to fake it, I'm not going to come on and just record something. And so last night, as I was about to sit down and record this for you, it just didn't feel right, and in those moments I don't want to bring a weak ass episode to you. I want to bring you something with love. So I decided to wait it out, and today I have been in the mode of mapping out all of the final details for the event, for all of the speaking notes, for the stories I want to share with the speakers, with just absolutely everything. And so I'm feeling that energy shift, that energy of excitement for Speak Up, for just like what is about to come next weekend. It's going to be amazing and I wanted to share with you a little bit, without giving away any details, because I do not want to give you any spoilers. But the energy feels different as I sit down and record this, because sometimes, when you're planning things like this, the visualization, the visual that I had for the event isn't always how it's going to turn out.
Speaker 1:Can you think of a time in your life where you're just like I pictured it to be exactly this way and it did not go that way? Like, maybe, think of like Christmas. Maybe it's your first Christmas with your family, like baby's first Christmas, or your first Christmas with your partner, or just Christmas morning in general? Can you remember the shift when the magic from Christmas just felt different? Or after the loss of someone really important, them not being at the holiday anymore and the expectation that we have for some of these events in our life don't look the same way and we almost have to mourn and shed a layer of ourselves in these seasons to see it the way it's meant to be seen.
Speaker 1:And I have been really working through that in the last week where I just came home from my very good friend Diana's retreat in Kentucky called Emerge, where she invited me to come down and I talked about this last week invited me to come down to stay with her, to be a part of her retreat, to help her with some things and to do a workshop on human design, which I can't wait to share more about that with you because I have deeply fallen in love, as you know, with human design, but using it as a tool at the retreat was really cool too. But anyways, this retreat allowed me some time and space to let go of the visuals that I had for Speak Up or even for anything Like. The visuals I had for this year are drastically different than how the year turned out. And releasing that, releasing the plan and the expectations that I have, and allowing there to be a plan that's different, maybe a plan that's even better, but I can't always necessarily see it and I can't always necessarily see it, and I can't always necessarily believe it, because sometimes we need to see things to believe it right. And I've been just trying all week to squash this little voice that's in my head that's telling me I'm not good enough or that this event isn't going to be good enough, and really leaning into the trust that everything is going to work out how it's meant to be.
Speaker 1:If there's technology glitches. There's technology glitches If, you know, there's some kind of mix-up, there's some kind of mix-up. If certain people can't make it, then realizing that this event is going to be exactly how it's meant to be, with or without the people who are in that room and I have been really trying to shift away from this visual that I had, especially for something as big as this, when you've been planning it for so long, right? Same goes for, like, your wedding day or maybe even a job, a new job that you got, and you're like I thought it was going to be like this and it's not. Almost like you've been trapped. I've been there, okay. When you're promised things for a job and you start working there and it doesn't look like that, I've been there, okay. When you're promised things for a job and you start working there and it doesn't look like that, I've been there, okay. And so all of these scenarios where things look different, they've never held me back, right. If the job didn't turn out how it was supposed to, well, I just left or I started something new or I shifted my focus, right. If you know there's a mix up on your wedding day, you can change things up. Someone's going to have some problem solving skills and they're going to make it happen. I think that happened at the wedding too.
Speaker 1:It's never gone according to my plan or according to my vision, but for some reason, it's really hard to let go of that and to just be free with how things are going to turn out. And so I'm wondering if maybe that's something that you have in your life too, maybe that's even an expectation that you have on yourself, something that you've been holding onto, that you're just like, okay, like when I hit this, that's when I'll feel successful, or that's when I will feel beautiful, or that's when I will will feel beautiful, or that's when I will, you know, finally see myself as the person who's worthy, because I hit that thing or I did that thing, or I crossed that off the list. And we all know from many, many years of experience that that's just not how this works. You don't have to do anything differently other than to change your mindset or maybe take a little bit of action in your life. But the physical piece, the expectation that we have, really doesn't make a difference.
Speaker 1:Whether you drop a dress size, whether you've read 200 books this year, you don't necessarily feel any different about yourself, unless you can start to apply some of those things that you've been changing, or that mindset that comes with weight loss, the confidence that maybe can come with weight loss, how that feels for you, and I've been just working really hard in the last week to lean into this energy more, because at the retreat that I was at, I released the plan, like I mentioned earlier, I released this concept and idea in my head that my plan is better than anyone else's. And I don't mean even like physically anyone else's, I truly do mean like God's plan, the universe's plan for how life is supposed to look, how life is supposed to plan out. And I think it becomes really clear with the fact that I'm sitting here 22 weeks pregnant and remembering that the plan that I had for myself a year ago looks very different than the plan I have now. And if I can surrender to starting a family, I should be able to surrender to what a perfect event is going to look like. And it's not always that easy. It's not always that easy. And so if you're leaning into something like that this year too, and you're just like okay, I have this visual and I need to release it, maybe we can do that together right now. Like, think about that thing, that one thing that you just want so bad. And I'm not saying don't dream big, I am not saying throw your dreams out the window. They're never going to happen. God's plan is it. That's not it, because I am a big dreamer and that's never going to happen for me. I am a person who's always going to dream probably bigger and I think that's why I struggle with these expectations, because the dream is always way bigger than what actually happens in real life. But I want you to think about that thing, that expectation that you've been having on yourself, and I want you to just kind of like take a deep breath and release it. What could life look like if it didn't look like that? Could it be better? Right, I've always had the motto it's this or something better. And Glenn and I have leaned into that more and more and more with the life that we have been choosing and with the seasons that we're in, it's this or something better, because I truly do believe it could be better. Even if it's different, right, different could be better. Even if it's less than you expected or smaller than you had in your head, it still could be better. And really just leaning into that energy more and more in our life is helping to release some of those expectations that we have and helping us to see that anything is possible and also making sure that that anything is really really flexible is really flexible. Expectations are hard in the society that we live in. Like we're going to go viral. Tomorrow, amazon's going to have that package on my doorstep. I am going to be I don't know insert whatever.
Speaker 1:We just watched the movie Uglies on Netflix I don't know if it's on all Netflix, but anyways, netflix in Canada and it was really about this perception of beauty and how your life will be better when, in this video, you turn 16 and you become this like absolutely beautiful version of yourself. And the expectation in this movie is that when you become this more beautiful version of yourself essentially like the AI perfection beauty version of yourself, which looks really weird, I'm not going to lie. Okay, like, seeing imperfect people is a bit strange, but when that happens, life is going to be perfect, right? You get invited to all the glamorous parties. Everything in your life is going to be better when you get this surgery to become the perfect version of yourself. Be better when you get this surgery to become the perfect version of yourself and I'm not going to give you any spoilers on the movie, but we all know that's not true, right? It's based on a book series, but that's not true, right, being perfect, being this ideal version of you, with, you know, chiseled abs and muscles and perfect eyes and a smile that's contagious to everyone and all these things right. They are not real right. That's not gonna change anything about you just because you have them.
Speaker 1:I have been on many journeys in my own life, especially weight loss journeys. Right, I used to be a health and fitness coach and we would almost sell the fact that after you did these programs or after you lost this weight, you would become the more confident version of yourself. And I am so grateful for that season in my life because it taught me many things about health and, most importantly, it taught me that losing the weight and being a different body size didn't necessarily mean anything about my confidence. And it brought me into this direction of focusing more on the mindset, focusing more on, you know, having physical changes, but them not necessarily being weight loss changes that were going to help us to have more confidence and really stepping into that. And yeah, that movie, the Uglies, was really surprising for some of these things and obviously I bet you can predict the ending, but it's a series of books, so it's not really done FYI. If you watch it it just kind of leads into another movie.
Speaker 1:But anyways, that being said, there are a lot more important things in this world than the things that we think we need in order to be X, y, z in order to be a good mom, in order to be X Y, z in order to be a good mom, in order to be a good coach, in order to be a good person. There's so many things that we can be doing instead and putting our interest and our focus in, instead than these high expectations that we have of ourselves, and I really do blame society in a lot of ways for this, just because our North American society has made it really hard for us to be imperfect or for us to do things our way or for us to see things in a different light, and I think that's why sometimes I feel like such a weirdo when I sit down and I plan these things events, retreats, you name it programs. I feel like a weirdo because it's not the normal way of thinking, and maybe you feel like a weirdo too. That's what selfish confidence is all about, right, being these outside, not so normal people stepping into different seasons of their lives, maybe ones that society don't always glamorize, definitely. I'm feeling that, as I step into this season of getting on a stage that I've created, an event that I created, and sometimes still believing that I'm not worthy of it. Right, when it's a thing that we've built, it can still be really hard to see yourself as the person who can pull it off.
Speaker 1:And if you're listening to this and you're coming to speak up, I promise you it's going to be epic. Is it going to be perfect? Heck, no, that's the whole point. Right, there's no way it can be perfect, but it is going to be beautiful and it is going to be wonderful, and I am not giving any spoilers away for what to expect for the weekend, but I am really excited to bring this vision, however it turns out, to life. And I ask you to do the same, whether you're coming to speak up or you are just listening to the podcast episode as you're driving to work today, or walking the dog or unpacking your groceries, wherever you are in this moment, I want you to release one thing that you've been telling yourself that you're not good enough for, or that you can't live without, or you'll be when. I want you to release just even a little bit of it today, and I know this voice comes up over and over and over and over again. It does, because it does for me too. It's not just like a one and done, like, oh, I released it. No, this is something that we work on every single day, and if that's the truth for you, too, I want you to, even just today, release it once.
Speaker 1:Have a second to believe in yourself that you're worthy and that you're good enough exactly as you are, and then see where next week goes, see where tomorrow goes, see where an hour from now goes, because if that voice pops up again, just take a little pause and release it again. That voice is a liar. It is not the truth. You are the truth. You are your greatest teacher. You know yourself better than anyone else in the world, and I want you to lean into that energy a little bit more. That belief really makes a difference. Losing the weight or buying that sexy dress or I don't know, insert the thing that you've been telling yourself you're going to feel better when doesn't matter. What matters is that you believe that you're enough right now because you are Like you are. You're literally the magic in this world, like without you in this world, we would not feel this magical energy around us Like. That's the the truth. You're here for a reason and I want you to finally start to see that, and maybe I need to replay this episode for myself today too, because we are stepping into an expansive transformative energy this week and it can feel uncomfortable as we do it.
Speaker 1:I actually pulled that card right before I hopped on the mic. Here was the transformation card and I'm going to read a little piece of the transformation card to you today because I think we could use a little reminder. It's actually the blue butterfly. It's absolutely gorgeous. I am a big fan of butterflies, you know that, and this is all about change, reinvention and the rebirth into a new way of being. And so when you see this card, it's talking about change, it's talking about transformation and, as you know, when the butterfly they like go into like this butterfly mush soup, it's like gross.
Speaker 1:I used to work at Butterfly World PS in Moncton, new Brunswick. I was the manager of Butterfly World for a very long time in my life and I was the person who would pin the chrysalids, the little like butterfly cocoons, up into this cage. It sounds really weird when I say it like this. It was like this box that was kept warm so that they could, you know, come out in a beautiful and safe space to be able to do that. And so every week we would get a shipment, a box of these chrysalids, and I would pin them up into this transformation station for them and wait for them to come out. And through the process, you see them, they turn to kind of mush and then they rebuild themselves as these butterflies and come out.
Speaker 1:So the caterpillar goes in. We've all heard the story right the caterpillar goes in and it comes out a butterfly. But the transformation that it has to go through to come out as a butterfly is absolutely insane. Like God was doing some magic work when it came to butterflies. But it's the truth. You turn into this mush, you literally go down to nothing and you come out as this beautiful butterfly.
Speaker 1:But the process from caterpillar to butterfly is not easy. That transformation is hard work, and so pulling this card today reminded me that this season that we're in in this middle right between caterpillar and butterfly, is hard work. It's not easy, it's not something that we can just be like. Okay, I am in my soup season. As we walk into fall, right, soup season. Allow yourself the process to break down, to be rebuilt into the butterfly. And so this color of blue butterfly suggests that spiritual renewal, that initiation and that transformation. That doesn't mean taking something old into building something new. It's about becoming something totally different. It's about becoming this transformative new version of yourself, and the butterfly is a perfect example of doing that.
Speaker 1:Change is uncomfortable. That soupy season in the middle is uncomfortable, and I think that's where a lot of us are sitting right now. I'm sitting in the soup right now. It is uncomfortable, but we need to go through this discomfort in the middle in order to get to the other side, in order to get to that butterfly, in order to get to our highest good. And, yeah, this card that I pulled about transformation was that perfect reminder today that we're in the middle of it. If things are hard right now, if things feel really uncomfortable right now, it's because we're in the middle of it, we're in the soupy season and all you can do is keep going, is to keep going, to keep showing up, to keep being yourself, to keep shining, to keep doing whatever it is that you feel you need to do right now, in this season, because transformation is coming.
Speaker 1:Imagine looking back on yourself one year from now and being like, oh my gosh, we actually did it. We actually actually made it. We came out to the other side and things look pretty good. They might not look how I expected them to look. They definitely don't look how I expected them to look, but they look pretty good. That's really how I felt, too, with the year of confidence. When I came out the other side of doing a whole year of confidence boosting activities the end of the year, I expected, expected massive transformation. And there was right, there was massive impact in my life. But it still wasn't how I expected it to look and how I expected it to feel. And sometimes we can see that as a failure. Right, oh, I didn't hit that, so I didn't get it or I suck. But what if we could see that end goal, that vision of what we had and that vision of what happened as the gift, as whatever it is supposed to be, and when we can lean into that energy, I think we can start to see the transformation a little bit clearer.
Speaker 1:The version of Jess that started planning Speak Up a year ago and the version of Jess who is sitting here today making this podcast episode is two different versions of Jess. One she's a pregnant version of Jess and also she's a stronger version of Jess. She's a lighter version of Jess. Maybe she's a little more carefree on how some of these things are going to play out, because I've surrendered the plan that I had and the vision that I had for this event and I'm really leaning into what it's meant to be, what it's supposed to be. So I hope you do the same this week.
Speaker 1:I hope you know that you're the butterfly and if you're not in the season that you're the butterfly yet and you're in the soupy season, I promise you it's coming. I promise you it's coming, but the outside world sees you as the butterfly. Okay, even if you don't feel like you're the butterfly yet, I see you as the butterfly. So I hope you have a wonderful week. I thank you for listening in and we will be having all the speak up updates on our social media this week. If you are watching live, um, saturday night is our VIP night. Sunday is our full day event. You can. You can follow along and see what's going on in real time on our social media and also just throughout the week and next week we will bring some updates for you on what happened and how it went.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you have a wonderful week and if you are coming to speak up, I can't freaking wait to hug you, and if you're not, here's your virtual hug. I'm sending it over to you right now. I love you so much. Have an awesome week. What's up, sis? I am so glad we could hang out today. If you love this episode, send it to a friend or share it on your social media and tag me so I can personally Thank you for helping me sprinkle some confidence in the world. And don't forget you are magic. Let's show the world your shine.
