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
Noticing your self-disconnection and easy steps for self-reconnection
Feeling disconnected during major life transitions, like pregnancy, is more common than you'd think. Join me, Jess, as I navigate this intricate journey on the Self(ish) Confidence Podcast, exploring unforeseen challenges and personal growth.
Authenticity and relatability are the cornerstones of our community, where real women face real challenges without pretense. Together, we unpack the sensation of being out of sync with oneself — a common plight during unpredictable life changes. Through mindfulness and self-awareness, I encourage you to embrace every season of life, whether you’re feeling adrift or in harmony. Learn how curiosity can be your ally in fostering true confidence and appreciating life’s finer details.
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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 oh, ho-doozy, ho-ma-doozy.
Speaker 1:I first off just want to say thank you so much. I'm so grateful for the grace that has been given to me since announcing that I am pregnant and maybe this is your first episode here and I'm like, hey, girl, I'm pregnant. But it has been such a journey that I just didn't anticipate. I honestly thought that everything was going to be sunshine and butterflies and roses and all of the things right, because I am an optimist, I can only see glitter sometimes and I just thought it was going to be so smooth sailing, basically, until delivery, and I'm not sure if that's just because that's what's kind of like depicted to us, that's like what's shown. Of course, there are some videos that talk about like it not being the most comfortable journey for everyone, but it's not always the thing that we see online or in the movies and so I just in my head, assumed everything was going to be easy. It has not been the easiest journey for me and I just want to thank you so much for allowing me some extra space and some grace with the perfect timing of getting these podcast episodes out, getting them up. I know this one's dropping a little bit late. If you're listening to this in real time, I know some of you are like waiting for it first thing Monday morning and it has just not been the perfect journey of getting these out exactly on time every week and that's okay, like for me. I know that's okay and I know that nobody's sitting on the other side going like Jess, where are you? You might hope that the episode drops pretty soon, but you might not be sitting there and be like Jess, I can't believe you, you and your pregnancy.
Speaker 1:But it has been a really interesting journey and I was just thinking earlier today about the last time I really felt this way, a little bit disconnected and disassociated from myself, and I wanted to talk today about just different things to look for that. Maybe you're disconnected from yourself too, and these last couple of weeks, especially post Speak Up, has really allowed me some time and some space and some clarity to see things differently, to see things how maybe I might want to do them differently. And you know I am all about transparency here, so I am always going to tell things to you maybe not necessarily in like the exact real time that it's happening, because I am someone who needs to process things myself before I can really like I don't know verbalize it to the world, but it's pretty quickly. I do want to share things with you as I'm going through them, because that's what this podcast is all about. That's what the foundation of this podcast was right Starting the year of confidence and bringing you along for the journey of me finding my confidence again.
Speaker 1:And it feels like that in this season of uncertainty through pregnancy and just not knowing what next year is going to look like. But this is probably the first time in a while that I have just felt some peace and some clarity through the process, and I'm not sure if it's because I never visualized myself in this role of motherhood, like truly never pictured myself as a mom, never pictured myself pregnant and to go from knowing it's what we want to do. I'm not saying that I have any regrets. I know it's what we want to do and I know it's the journey we want to take. Well, it's a little too late now, is all I got to say. But no, seriously, it is the step and the process that I wanted to go through to make this family that we have on our heart come to life. But I never saw myself in this role and it has been a really interesting journey processing this, and I think that's why Speak Up was so helpful for me, because I could focus on that piece of getting the job done right, getting the event all together and sharing it with everyone, and it was just so magical and so good that I almost forgot I was pregnant for a while.
Speaker 1:As much as you can, as much as you can forget you're pregnant, but really kind of just disassociated and disconnected from that piece of my journey right now, because I've had to focus on something else, and maybe you're doing that in your life too, that you're on autopilot and it's just like go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. That you can't think of anything else, right? It's like get the kids up, get yourself ready, get to work, do your work, go home, pick them up from school, pick them up from daycare. It's just make them dinner. Like it's go, go, go.
Speaker 1:That you don't have the time to really sit and process things or even think about what you want in your life, because you don't have the time and you definitely aren't making the time. And that's kind of how I felt over the last, let's say, like six weeks of figuring out the season that I'm in, and then, as soon as speak up was done, I was like okay, what's next? I'm a person who likes to check the box and then move on to the next thing so freaking fast that I forget to celebrate what I just did, and I know I'm not the only one to do that. It's just easy for me to move on to the next thing. I'm probably moved on to the next thing before that thing is even done, and it's not always the best way to live. Let's be real.
Speaker 1:It's not the best way to live at all, and I think society that we live in now has made it so normal for us to always be on the go and to always be busy and to always, you know, have something to do, that we don't get the time to sit with ourselves and figure out who we are, and to sit with ourselves and to figure out what we want, and to sit with ourselves and just be, be yourself. Right, we don't always get that time. I don't know about you. The times that I notice this the most is when I'm walking really fast but I don't really have to be anywhere. In particular, it's like running through the grocery store, basically, and you don't really need to do your groceries as fast as you can, but for some reason we do. Or when you're driving somewhere and you speed just for the sake of speeding. You're not even late, you're just going fast. That, essentially, is the society that we live in.
Speaker 1:We live in this fast paced go, go, go all the time, and it's creating this disconnection to ourselves. And for me, I think business and life has really created this disconnection almost from pregnancy, except when my head's in a toilet or when you're not feeling good. Honestly, the first I'll be real with you 20 weeks for me was really hard because I was sick all the time, and then even this weekend. I just found out today that I'm anemic, which is not really surprising I've had low iron before, but it makes sense on why I've been extra tired. So even this weekend things were a little slower because I needed to get rest and to take naps and to slow things down, and it's in those moments that I'm starting to see more clarity for what's next. But had I not been pregnant, or had there not been these seasons that forced me to slow down, I don't know if I'd have that Especially post-speak up right, because everything was so busy for so long that I just felt that momentum and I wanted to keep going without even realizing that maybe this is a season of rest for me, and for me a season of rest doesn't necessarily mean doing nothing. It means, you know, slowing down a little bit, focusing on different things that might not be as fast paced or as like I don't know what the word is but really just like surrounded by emotions and feelings and energies of other people, and really just allowing it to be the emotions and feelings and energies of other people and really just allowing it to be the emotions and feelings and energies of myself, right, and I don't do that a whole lot, and maybe you don't either. I think there's a good chance you probably don't do that either.
Speaker 1:I think the really beautiful thing about the Selfish Confidence Podcast is that we're real women. We're real women with real lives, doing real life things, and it's not necessarily any like superpower people who are listening to this who are like I know everything and I have everything right. You listen to this probably because you're like me and you're figuring things out as we go, and I think that's the really beautiful thing about this community is that we are so authentic in our journey. There's no hiding behind everything being beautiful or everything being perfect, and there's definitely no hiding behind, you know, yeah, this image that society has for us. We're real women and I love that we can do this together.
Speaker 1:And today I really wanted to talk about this season that maybe you're in, that you're disconnected from yourself, and what does that even mean to be disconnected from yourself? Really, it's this idea of our mind and our body being two separate entities, even your soul and your body being two separate pieces, and there can be an unplugged piece in that, right, there can be disconnection between your soul and your mind and your body, because your body is going, right, they're getting in the car and they're going to work and they're doing all the things, but our mind and maybe it's the opposite, right, maybe for you, your mind is going and your body is not. There can sometimes be that disconnection and that disconnection makes you feel less like yourself, right? That disconnection is what makes you feel unaligned, uncomfortable, confused, because, honestly, these last six weeks I've been really confused, like I'm stepping into a season of unknown. I'm in a season of unknown, right? I've never been pregnant before, I've never been a parent before, except to my beautiful fur babies who, honestly, I think turned out pretty good. So I'm like maybe I'll be good at this, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But all these things that we think about, right, these these seasons that are just so busy that we don't get to totally be aligned with who we are and what that purpose is, and that self-awareness piece is probably the most important piece and we've talked about this a lot when it comes to confidence is awareness and who you are and understanding who you are is actually that key component in becoming more confident. You can't become confident without knowing yourself, knowing who you are and what you want. We can fake it, sure, and we can wear the cool outfits and we can do all the things, but real confidence, that true, authentic confidence, is not going to come unless you know who you are. And I think that's why, in these seasons of change, we have this big lapse of disconnection, because we don't necessarily know this new version of ourselves. And again, I know we've talked about this so much, but it's like it's the key here.
Speaker 1:It really is the key, and that awareness is so powerful, like that is the power and I have been noticing this more and more that really, this self-awareness just comes from us being curious. It doesn't necessarily come from us knowing things a hundred percent or being like, yeah, I'm Spider-Man, yo, no, I don't know where that came from. But no, like, seriously, it comes from you just being curious about your life and your experiences, maybe slowing down a bit so that you can see things differently, that you can see the eagle when they're flying overhead, or the blue jay in the tree outside, or you know the grass, that it's a little bit greener, or that your burning bush in your front yard is finally starting to turn red when everybody else's burning bushes have been red for so long and yours is just getting there, it's just starting and I'm just yep, that's a personal experience lately noticing every day that it's getting more and more red. And just those little things, those little experiences that you can have every day, are really going to help you to start to have that awareness. And really you're only going to see these things when you slow down to see them. And I know there's people listening to this. From the human design perspective, my generators are like, okay, jess, I don't want to slow down. Even my like unaligned projectors are probably just like I don't want to slow down, I am in flow. And if you are and you're feeling good and you are feeling so aligned and connected with yourself, do you 100%, do you? Do you, 100%, do you?
Speaker 1:But I wanted today to give you a couple symptoms really that can show you that you might be disconnected from yourself, and the first one is that constant state of stress. If you are feeling like that anxious fight or flight and that stress 24, 7, okay, from the second you wake up, you are thinking about your to-do list and you're thinking about being behind and all the things that you need to get done. That is a clear symptom that maybe we're just going a little too fast and we're disconnected from ourselves. Right, and I'll give you some information on how to get reconnected to. But these are just some of the symptoms that might be coming up. Okay, maybe it's this feeling of being out of touch with others so lately. Maybe you just don't feel connected to people and the people in your life who are important to you. You still feel disconnected from them. That is a clear symptom of you also being disconnected from yourself, right, you can't really connect with others if you're not connected to yourself.
Speaker 1:The other one is this overwhelming feeling of emotions and I actually noticed this one a lot at Speak Up not necessarily from myself, but from other people who, for the first time, were feeling something. They're having this like. Maybe it was in breath work, maybe it was in when you were listening to the panel and connecting with people, maybe it was a particular speaker, but like that, you just had this feeling of like who? I'm feeling my emotions for the first time and I am just not sure I'm ready for it. That is a clear symptom of being disconnected, right, it's that overwhelming feeling of like oh, these are emotions, and I have been there. Okay, I know emotions can be really uncomfortable, but they are such an important tool in connecting back to ourselves.
Speaker 1:And another piece is just being uncertain of yourself. This has been the one for me that has been showing up a lot lately, and it's not even just uncertain of self, but uncertain of, like, what's next and what do I want, and you know where am I going and what, what is life? Right, because it just can sometimes feel so overwhelming to be uncertain of who you are and what you're doing and what these next steps are. And that is just a clear sign, right, if you were feeling totally aligned and connected, we wouldn't be having these uncertainties in ourselves, right, we wouldn't be having this feeling of stress and overwhelm 24-7, because you would know where you were going and you would know what you're doing. And I just want to take a quick moment here, side note, to just remind you how completely normal this process is.
Speaker 1:We cannot be plugged in and aligned and connected all the time, right? I actually do feel, truly in these seasons of change, that that plug becomes a little loose and it takes time for us to figure out how to plug it back in, right, and that means we're plugging it back in at the next level, the best level of ourselves, right? And it's not always about being totally perfectly aligned in our lives. I find I learn the most in these seasons of difficulty, in these seasons of disconnection, and even though I'm in one right now, I feel like it's starting to push me in the path of where I'd want to go. If I was aligned all the time, I wouldn't be having these questions to change things up and do things differently. So I just want to remind you that if you're also in a season of disconnection, it's totally normal. These seasons come. It's not going to always be perfect glitter, butterflies and rainbows, although I wish it was. It's not going to be that all the time. It can't be. And if you're listening to this and you're like, okay, jess, I think I might be disconnected too.
Speaker 1:Honestly, truth is, a lot of us are okay because, again, that fast-paced society that we live in, it's really hard to keep up and we often prioritize keeping up versus slowing down, disconnecting a little bit and seeing where we can realign into something else. And so if you're feeling like this in this season, right now too, again, that like constant state of stress, feeling out of touch with other people, feeling disconnected from you, know others and also from yourself. That uncertainty of self, that overwhelm with your emotions, all of these pieces that like confusion. Confusion is a really big one, too. If you're feeling any of those things, then I want you to check in with yourself. The best thing you can do in these seasons is just prioritize a pocket, and this is not like an overhaul in our life. This doesn't mean we can slow down on everything and stop taking the kids to school and stop working. It doesn't mean we can do these things, but it does mean we can do things differently.
Speaker 1:Right Now that you're aware that maybe something's a little off and we want to do something differently, we can take time to pause, to practice and to really to check in with ourselves on what we might want today, and this doesn't have to be long-term things, but the best thing that we can do is just start to practice the pause. Maybe it's a minute. I often do this when I'm driving or when I'm noticing I'm walking too fast, like I mentioned earlier, and I have nowhere to be. I'm just walking too fast. It's like whoa, okay, take a little pause. Okay, slow down the pace and see how that feels. Right, that simple reconnection of noticing that we are rushing for no reason can really help you to start to feel like yourself again. Just slowing down the pace and pausing a little bit more They'll be laughing if this is someone who's listening to this in like two speed, two X me. I know there's people out there who listen to everything in two speed and I just feel like that's also causing that like rush feeling, that panic feeling all the time, and so I would just encourage you to pause, to slow down a little bit and to see how that feels in your day-to-day life, even if it's just one minute of slowing down and checking in. Okay, what do I need today, what do I need right now? And maybe all you need is to slow down a little bit, to cut that pace back, to take that foot off of the pedal, of the gas pedal, and just coast for a little bit.
Speaker 1:For me, it's been allowing myself the time to rest. Taking a nap on the couch yesterday was huge. I am not a napper, but I put on Hubie Halloween and then I woke up and I'm like oh, I missed the whole middle section. I saw the beginning and I saw the end. What happened in the middle? And just allowing myself that space to slow down, to lay down and to take a nap, maybe it's starting to pause and ask yourself some really tough questions. So in that pause you can just ask yourself again what do I need today? What would fill my cup up? What would feel really good this evening?
Speaker 1:Our automatics are often to come home to make dinner and lately for us it's been to watch Netflix or to watch Disney. Like, put something on the TV, but what if you were to do something differently? Put something on the TV, but what if you were to do something differently? Maybe it was to play cards, or to pull out your coloring book, or to work out, go down to the gym. What, for you, is going to be that thing that's going to shake this practice up a little bit more?
Speaker 1:Because, again, that self-awareness piece of asking yourself what you need takes you out of the autopilot state that you've been in for so long and allows you that time to see something differently, to try something differently. And again, you know I'm not about big actions. This can be really, really small things. So this could be 10 minutes of yoga. Or, you know, instead of watching an hour episode on Netflix, you maybe watch a 20-minute one and then you take, you know, the other 20 minutes to do something else to take that bath, to shave your legs for the first time in like a month, okay, like whatever it is. For you that's going to feel good. Go with that. And the more you start to do this, the more you start to check in with yourself and you pause in those moments that you notice that things are really busy and things are really crazy and you just shift it into a different direction. Really crazy, and you just shift it into a different direction. It is going to have a huge impact on that self-awareness piece, on that confidence piece and, again, on reconnecting with yourself. Right, because the more you ask yourself what you need, the more you start to reconnect. You start to put that plug closer and closer to the socket to get it reconnected to who you are and your purpose. And this can happen really small, like, again, small things every single day.
Speaker 1:But instead of doing the automatic thing that we have been on on the autopilot of putting your car on cruise control and just driving to work right and listening to the radio or doing, do one thing differently, one thing in your morning routine. And by morning routine I do not necessarily mean that sitting down and like meditating and doing all your perfect your routine is probably like wake up, brush my teeth, eat some breakfast, get the frig out the door right In that morning routine. Doing one thing differently, slowing down the pace or listening to a podcast instead of the radio or, you know, trying a different kind of breakfast, shifting things up, shaking things up in a very simple way, is a way for you to start to understand what you need and reconnecting. It's getting out of that autopilot mode, getting out of that disconnection mode and starting to reconnect to your needs. And I just want to tell you real quick as I wrap up this episode this stuff is really hard. Getting out of that mode that you have been doing for weeks, months, years, to try something different, to reconnect back to yourself, is really difficult to do, okay. So I don't want you to beat yourself up If this has taken a little bit more time than just that perfect plug in and go. Okay.
Speaker 1:This is not a quick fix, this not amazon prime reconnecting to yourself, especially if you've been in a season of disconnection for a long time is going to take effort, it's going to take time, it's going to take you making choices for yourself every single day, and that's the season that I'm in right now making those reconnections and those choices for myself, for my future self. Knowing that there is a baby coming in three months still blows my mind and, as that is happening, I know I need to prioritize this reconnection now because, if not, I'm going to be doing this work with a little human here, and it sounds like it's going to be a lot harder to do it then when someone is relying on me 24-7, versus right now when it is just myself, right, and I can focus on myself. And maybe you're in that season of that after, where there's a tiny human or even large humans that need care all the time. Again, focus on the smallest pocket, one pocket pause, and you say, okay, I'm pausing, I'm slowing down a little bit, I'm maybe not going to speed today and I'm going to focus on what I need. Check in with yourself what do you need today? Something small, maybe it's a really nutritious meal for dinner, or it's a quick pause, or it's turning off the Netflix and actually going to bed right or reading in a book, whatever it is for you.
Speaker 1:Take that small pause today and move into a season of more confidence, knowing that you did something for yourself. And again, it's a really simple exercise to just pause, ask yourself what you need and prioritize that action. But it's remembering to pause when we've been on autopilot for years. That's the piece. That's hard, so maybe you can write it on your hand or make a little alarm on your phone. Just be like, hey, pause, I'm going to take my pause pocket right now and again. It does not have to be long, it does not have to be big, it's just that reminder to slow down. Be big, it's just that reminder to slow down, ask yourself what you need and prioritize putting that need into your life so that you can start to feel more aligned and to feel more connected with yourself.
Speaker 1:And if you're like Jess, I want to do this but I just don't know if I can or how. I am right there with you. Send me a message, seriously, send me a DM, because I'm figuring this out. Every day too, I'm trying to figure out these pause pockets and to step into realignment and reconnection with myself and I'm really starting to find that clarity aspect after being in this for weeks and weeks. Okay, so I'm just sending you a big hug and, if you feel comfortable to do so, send me a message. You're not alone in this, and I really want you to know that I am the person who answers all of my DMs. It's me okay, so I will be the person to answer you. So just find the courage to step into that and to ask for help too. So I love you so much.
Speaker 1:I hope you are having a wonderful week and that you are going to be enjoying some Halloween candy with me. I was supposed to pick some up today and I totally forgot, so I'm going to have to go back out later and get some Halloween candy. So I'm wishing you a very happy Halloween and a wonderful week of delicious sugar and lots of good fun. So talk to you soon. 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.
