Confidence

Confidence. 

I am a well adjusted, kind, good looking woman with lots to offer. 

When I am in a room full of strangers, given the task of welcoming or greeting I am the best version of myself, head held high, engaging, sweet. 

When I am given the task of speaking or performing for a large group of people, I am a charismatic, smiling pillar of confidence. 

Strip all that away and I would say my inner self allows me to feel confidence on a ratio of 80:20 on any given day. WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN? 

I have every reason to feel completely self assured. Great jobs that I love, self control and reasonably good looks, a good life with a great man. So what the heck is my problem? 

I typically try to stay away from self-help-esque websites, I tend to have a no-nonsense outlook and a lot of times these websites and books just add to the confusion. However, this one grabbed me: 

Why it that some people, the Donald Trumps of the world, seem to believe only the best about themselves, while others—perhaps especially women, perhaps especially young women—seize on the most self-critical thoughts they can come up with? "It turns out there's an area of your brain that's assigned the task of negative thinking," says Louann Brizendine, MD, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of The Female Brain. "It's judgmental. It says 'I'm too fat' or 'I'm too old.' It's a barometer of every social interaction you have. It goes on red alert when the feedback you're getting from other people isn't going well." This worrywart part of the brain is the anterior cingulate cortex. In women, it's actually larger and more influential, as is the brain circuitry for observing emotions in others. "The reason we think females have more emotional sensitivity," says Brizendine, "is that we've been built to be immediately responsive to the needs of a nonverbal infant. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing." 

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Why-Women-Have-Low-Self-Esteem-How-to-Feel-More-Confident/1#ixzz2fiiNsWLN

Science....egads, predisposition...There are some days I wake up and I feel like I'm on the brink of severe mental illness. I get stuck inside my head, I let myself dwell in the negative, I allow myself to feel weak and ugly and useless and lame. 

Anybody else? Ladies? Gentlemen? 

So fighting the good fight for me means fighting myself a lot of days. Fighting to hear the words of my friends and family as positive rather than a sarcastic dig. Fighting to see the glances of strangers as friendly exploration rather than cold judgement. 

I am my own worst enemy.