Down the Rabbit Hole

I could almost hear my mom’s frustration, travelling 4000 miles through cyber space, thanks to the Gods of Apple and Facetime. There are very few things that could make the journey and not lose their effect, a parent’s frustration is definitely one of them.

“Just do it,” she quoted Nike, “stop doubting yourself so much.”

Ah, there it was.

She’d done it, she’d spoken the forsaken words that made me slump deeper into the small red couch, hiding my face in my jumper and under the blanket, even though the only living creature that could see me was the dog.

The big guns were coming out. And truth be told, I probably needed them.

It had been a tough few weeks. My confidence had been knocked and whenever that happens, I get into a slump.

It was the same sensation as a break up, except that no men had taken part in this attack on my confidence. No, this was friendly fire. This was an attack from within the ranks, from women who are supposed to support other women, women who are supposed to support their growth and all of those fluffy things they feed you along with their overpriced smoothies. And perhaps, that was what had made it sting so much and had made such a seemingly insignificant event unravel something deeper in me.

While the battle for respecting people as people, especially as employers and leaders of the future is a great one, it has to wait for another day. Today, I have a bigger battle to fight. A battle with myself. And believe me, I am one worthy opponent.

My mom was right, I needed to stop doubting myself. I needed to get up and shake it off — cue Taylor Swift. But that’s always easier said than done. Especially for me, the ex-shy girl who would refuse to speak in public until disturbingly late into her childhood years, and I’m not talking about public speaking — as in to a crowd, I’m talking about going into a shop and asking for the price of something.

Yes, I’m that girl.

Very few people still exist in my life who remember those days. To the rest of the world, I am bubbly and slightly loud. I’m the girl who willingly works in customer service and loves chatting to strangers on the tube. I’m the girl who takes charge and speaks up, usually. But behind this façade, there’s still that little girl, terrified.

Confidence has never come naturally to me. Until the age of 17, I think you needed a magnifying glass to find any trace of it in me. But slowly since then, I have been building it up, cracking the shell, one step at a time. It’s been a journey, a pretty bumpy one.

The hard truth is that I’ve chosen a solitary path. I’ve chosen to do something slightly out of the ordinary with my life, something that not many people around me have done in this way, and honestly, something that many don’t quite understand.

When doing abnormal things — no, extraordinary things — there will always be people doubting you. It will be hard to translate your days into words that people understand and naturally, as humans, we will doubt these actions. And this doubt, sometimes, seeps in, especially if you’re rejected from something you are overqualified for.

It’s never been the doubt that I’ve had a problem with though, it’s the spiral.

We live in a society that appreciates confidence. And we are conditioned to think that confidence is the lack of doubt, because in a world of perfect Instagram posts, you don’t always see the battles happening behind the scenes. You don’t always get to see how much someone is fighting doubt to appear confident — and one day maybe actually feel that way wholeheartedly.

The problem with self-doubt in the 21st century is that the doubt leads to self-bashing, which leads to more self-depreciation and down the rabbit hole we go. And at the bottom, it’s hard to see the way back up.

Even now, saying this out loud — or on my screen, knowing it will have maybe a couple of hundred people reading it, I’m fearful that the Department for Strong Independent Women will knock on my door and revoke my membership. Because strong independent women don’t doubt themselves.

Now this is probably the part where you expect a magical cure, a wise word that will transform your life, because of course the solution is quick and simple. Like a pill we can swallow.

Truth is, I have no words of wisdom when it comes to self-doubt and confidence. I don’t have a miracle cure. I don’t have a fix-it-all answer.

What I do have is experience. As a recovering self-doubter (that sometime relapses), I can tell you that the only thing to do is to fight. Fight every second of everyday. That is the only solution my 24 years have taught me, to close your eyes and fight. Fight for an inch, fight for a mile, fight for a day, a week, a month, however long it takes to convince yourself that the doubt is stupid.

Lady Gaga says there could be a 100 people in the room and 99 won’t believe in you and all it takes is 1.

Be that one. If you can’t find anyone that believes in you — or if you doubt their belief because they love you too much — then you have to be that person for yourself. There is no miracle cure, there is no easy way out. There’s only one way out of the rabbit hole and that’s climbing back up.

So this is me, leading by example. Recovering, clawing and shutting up my inner self-doubter, one breath at a time.

Originally published at https://www.onebreathlondon.co.uk on November 14, 2018.