Your Own Fun is a Priority

I am so proud of myself for this weekend. Not only did I conquer my burn out and perceptions as I expressed in the last post, but I took it a step further. It was a fairly easy motivator before, because it was for someone else. But I had yet another event in my schedule that I was considering not doing, and that one was just for me. I was seriously considering not doing something I loved due to the same exact perceptions I conquered before.

I was willing to do it for someone else, but not for me.

Luckily, I saw that. I heard that loud and clear. I then made it my mission to go out dancing with the girls, because I couldn’t let myself down in the same way I knew I couldn’t let my friend down the day before. Most people have to be told the Golden Rule, but I have to learn the inverse – treat YOURSELF as you would treat others.

Not only did I decide to go out dancing, but I decided to break through a few other issues that I have. Normally I care too much about how I look. I hate how my arms look, so I usually cover them up. But I get really sweaty when I go dancing, so that’s always a nightmare – it would be better to go sleeveless, but I cringe at that idea. I also try to wear something flattering on my figure, but then I’m usually pulling and tugging to keep things in place while I dance. But I just decided to wear something sleeveless that drapes down my stomach, and does not necessarily flatter my figure, but it looks nice, it’s comfortable and it will reduce the pulling and tugging. I also usually do my hair down, because I look horrible with my hair up. But again, the sweat makes that nasty. So I did a little side pony tail, Katniss style, with my bangs on the opposite side. If I stop caring about looking sexy, it looked cool. I just had to make sure to not think about it the rest of the night.

I also consciously tried to work on… I guess you could call it a confidence issue? Going out dancing like that, I don’t have any “moves”, I just sway along to the music, basically. We get in a circle, and people jump in the center to do some moves. I can’t improvise like that – my entire life I’ve prepared and practiced every single thing I do, and dancing is no exception. I can’t create moves on the fly. But now I know that is not a solid fact forever. I tried to be a little more daring. I did moves that I thought were kinda dumb and may have drawn too much dorky attention to me, just to allow myself to TRY. In the circle I jumped in a few times and was just silly, but I decided I didn’t care that I didn’t have cool moves like some of the other girls. One day I will.

So I was wearing unflattering clothes (exposed face and arms) and was doing potentially dorky moves, and yet that was possibly the most fun I’ve had and I got a lot of attention. Go figure! When you stop caring and just find your confidence, you get everything you wanted.

Now let me explain “attention”, though. Not the male attention you probably thought I meant. Just - acknowledgement that I’m there. Usually I start to feel like an outsider and suddenly I get blocked off from the group. But this time, I was definitely part of the group, and I took it upon myself to establish my position instead of letting people block me out (no more manifesting my own invisibleness). Also, a few guys even tried to dance with me, but only one in a sketchy way, and I used that opportunity to try a trick I learned about turning it into a more innocent form of dancing. I turned around to face him and started doing silly dance battle-type moves, so I wasn’t rejecting him, I was still dancing with him, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, either. That way it was still fun. And I twirled in a couple guys hands, too. All in all, so much fun!

I’m so glad I decided to go out. This one was for me, and I definitely deserved it.

I rocked this weekend. And hopefully this victory will help me remember this upcoming week that I can control my perception and create my own happiness despite the circumstances. We shall see!