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Ahoy-hoy, BE folks. I hope August has been good for you. For me, it has been inspirational. Weather really lifts me up and it’s been beautiful lately. I love this time of the year. It makes me super nostalgic! Remember as kids, we use to get so much advice? Some of it actually turned out to be pretty useful: don’t press your pimples, never take anything from a stranger, early to bed early to rise makes and a man healthy, wealthy and wise, never shop without checking zippers and buttons, and finish your homework and some of it was utter bullshit. I think it’s better to skip it. But the motive behind all of it wasn’t wrong. Like everyone else, people around us wanted us to have a happy healthy life. But there is this one thing that never fails no matter in what situation you are and that is – fake it till you make it.

Don’t get me wrong here – I don’t want you to base your life around a made-up personality. I’m talking about confidence here. Honestly, being an introvert in my early teens, I have faced plenty of issues with my confidence. I still do. I use to think that there is something really wrong with me. I use to get intimidated by situations (it’s still the same) but I just couldn’t let it frustrate me. For a very long time, I avoided being in situations like that (tiny cough). But it kept haunting me and I thought to myself – What am I running away from? And more importantly why? I can just put my I – CAN –DO it intentions out there and deal with it. I’ve improved over the years – a lot needs to be done still though. I still feel terrified of going to a place where I don’t know anyone. But I do it anyway. I do a lot of self-talk and make myself understand – you are a cool person, you know you have something to add. May be sometimes I suck at it – but at least I’m trying. You have to fake it till you make it, honey! You have to give yourself a chance. Choosing to be in such situations does make a lot of difference. Half the battle is won. Literally! Hope this was helpful in some way.

Laters!

there will come a time when you want to cut off all your hair. do it. realise that the thing you want rid of doesn’t lie in the long curls that frame your face so perfectly. live with short hair for a while. it’ll grow.

you won’t always want to talk to people. that’s okay. when it’s late and you hear your friends talking in the next room, you don’t have to join them. you’re allowed your solitude. it makes company sweeter and it teaches you how to survive alone. you will need that skill.

in the winter, you’ll believe that nothing will ever grow again. you’re wrong. every year, london looks like it’s on its last legs, wheezing through those last cold days in March. every year, spring comes like an explosion and the city shakes off its sleep.

mundane problems will get the better of you sometimes. don’t worry. try as you might, life cannot be an endless, beautiful, intense moment. find comfort in money worries and late trains; they’re a welcome rest in between heartbreaks and breakdowns.

people will call you a cynic, a wry smile on their faces. pay them no mind. you alone know that you are capable of a love greater than anything they can comprehend. you alone know that you are not willing to sell your identity and respect to the first smirking halfwit to pass by. it is not cynicism. it is reverence for your own vast and fathomless heart, and it makes sense only to love someone who understands that and is awed by it.

you will not always get what you want when you want it. accept it. your goals are not set in stone and you are not on a fixed trajectory. sometimes, life will take its time and you will have to play the long, interminable game. play it well and with as much grace as you can muster. live at your own pace.

at night, you will occasionally wake up afraid, wanting to die. don’t give in. night plays its tricks, but you are not so easily fooled. your mind will play its tricks, too. it will make you believe that you’re not who you are, but you must not give in. you take a breath and you tell yourself that you are here. that you always were.

via – http://thatkindofwoman.tumblr.com/

ON CONFIDENCE

Practical advice for difficult women