Self - confidence

It's blog 2 on lessons I have learnt this year; the lesson is "self confidence"
 It has taken me a while to figure out whether or not I should publish this blog, because in some ways I feel more vulnerable publishing something like this than a blog on emotions.

I have suffered from spots since the morning of my 13th birthday. I woke up and there smack BANG on my right cheek was a huge red angry spot. But it didn't bother me, because at 13 I wasn't really concerned by the way I looked. But then I reached 16  my skin really started to go downhill. I would get big angry spots all along my jaw line, and cheeks, my forehead, my eyebrows, my back, my shoulders. Having a mum who is a nurse she recommended we went to the doctors and got some antibiotics just to calm them down. Again, it didn't really bother me but they weren't pleasant. The antibiotics worked, and my skin cleared up for 5 months. Then again, another round of spots hit me, so back to the doctors I went where I was put on a higher dose of antibiotics. I must have been nearly 17 at this time, so it was starting to affect me a bit more, so I started wearing heavy make up to cover up my skin (this doesn't help it, but its a self confidence thing) 5 months later, I had glowing, radiant spot free skin and all was fine until I got back from Australia this year. My face ERRUPTED (gross image!) These were no longer spots - this was acne. Back to the doctors I went, and this time being more grown up and more headstrong I said to my doctor "I want you to find out why I get these spots, and I want to know why they NEVER fully go away" I was put on 2 lots of tablets and a special cream... and nothing was happening. The acne was staying and getting redder, and angrier and more painful. As my skin was getting worse and worse, my mood was also getting worse and worse. I would wake up in the mornings and dread looking in the mirror. I would flinch as I applied my moisturiser because my face hurt so much. I would feel like punching my sister or my friend when they complained of one tiny spot on their chin. I felt like bursting into tears over ANYTHING. It all became too much one Sunday evening. I don't know what caused it, but I had just taken my make up off ready for bed and just couldn't bear the sight of my face. I started scratching at it, trying to pull the skin off and ran down the stairs in hysterics to my parents. "I hate myself, I hate my skin, I'm so ugly, I never want to leave the house again!" (my poor parents :-( ) I wasn't doing this for attention - this is how I really felt. My parents didn't know what to do - there was nothing they could do. So I went to bed. The next few weeks and months that followed that break down, I wasn't really Bethany. I didn't want to get out of bed in the mornings. I stopped going out with friends. I would go out, get paranoid that everyone was staring at my face, have an anxiety attack and come straight home. You see, people don't realise how much acne can affect a person - it causes so many cases of depression and anxiety and I really believe that more should be done about raising awareness of how it can make someone feel. Nobody had ever said anything mean about it too me, but I was beating myself up over it and we are our own worse critics. I started getting deeper treatments for my skin, and it has massively improved. Sadly I am always going to be left with bruising on my face, until I am rich enough to afford laser treatment, but it's nothing make up can't cover for now.

What I am trying to say from this blog is that I truly truly hated how I looked. I didn't feel confident, beautiful or accepted by society until my skin started clearing up. And that shouldn't have been the case - we should all know that we are children of God, and he has formed us carefully and thoughtfully and loves us for who we are. God would NEVER have said the things to me that I was saying to myself! We wouldn't look at a sunrise, or a gorgeous countryside scene and say "Ergh what a piece of crap, why did God ever make that?" so why should we do that to ourselves? The human mind baffles me sometimes. And we need to be so careful what we think, as the power of negative thoughts has a bigger impact than we know.

We all need self confidence. And what I needed to learn was that self confidence should not come from our looks or our talents. Self confidence comes from knowing who you are, and that you are loved more than you will ever know by someone who died to save you (Jesus)

 I have learnt more and more that character and personality really is what makes someone beautiful. You can see the size 8, blonde haired, spot free skin girl or the tall, muscular well dressed male and think "yes, they are beautiful" but then you get to know them and start talking to them and they are as dull as a brick wall. What really is beautiful is a caring, kind heart, a non-fake smile and laughter. It sounds cheesy, but if you are confident in yourself and can exhibit all of the above qualities then soon you will start to feel that you are beautiful and if you believe it, others will too.

This blog wasn't a cry for attention or compliments - this was a blog to say to people to stop beating yourselves up; you are loved and accepted and perfectly created. We will all have days where we wished we were a Victoria's secret model, but on those days we need to stop and thank God that we are alive and healthy and beautiful in his sight.

Bethany x

Lessons learnt

2013 has been a roller coaster year, and as there are only 42 days left (!) I have decided to do a series of blog posts on lessons I've learnt throughout 2013.

Tonight I want to write about "It is better to try and fail then not try at all"

I think its fair to say I've tried a few different career choices in my short 20 years. (& please don't think I'm fickle) At the end of 2012 I was an intern for a theatre company, worked in the library and then  worked at Sainsbury's in the bakery! My time at the theatre and the library were happy one's but they needed to come to an end, my time at Sainsbury's was a crappy one but it was a job and for that I should be thankful.

In April 2013 I went to Australia and worked in a zoo! I'd never worked in a zoo before, and never thought I would and I was probably slightly deluded thinking I could even try working in a zoo but I gave it a go anyway! A few kangaroo kicks, koala scratches and dead rats later I knew that a career with animals was not for me. But I tried and now I have some funny stories to tell and what an experience it was to be up close and interacting with all these amazing animals.

When I returned from Australia I decided to start a 8 month course in beauty therapy - make up has always been an interest of mine so I decided to take that interest a little further. I now have 8 weeks left of that course and I now know that a career in the beauty industry is not for me either! Before I started my course I thought beauty therapy was a doss career (just being honest) and that the girls who did it were not the brightest bulbs around. But boy was I wrong. Beauty therapy is hard work, that involves long hours, lots of anatomy and physiology and being a very creative and caring person. I really admire some of the girls and guys I have met on the course and know that they will all do amazingly in their careers within the beauty industry.
 However, I find some of the treatments incredibly challenging, the environment tedious and I really can't wait to leave. But again, I don't regret it - I've tried something new and have another skill set under my belt.

I guess what I'm trying to say in all my ramblings is that if you don't step out of your comfort zone, if you don't take risks then are you living and are you learning? By taking risks and doing things you wouldn't normally do, you find out things about yourself. You may discover a new talent or you may find out that its really not for you, and if that's the case then WHO CARES? You TRIED something and now you know something about yourself.

For ages (and you can see from previous blogs) I have never really known what it is I've wanted to do, and I've often beat myself up about it. I wanted to be one of those people who knew what career they wanted. But as we come towards the end of the year I've realised how many skills I've gained. how much I have matured and grown as a person and how many stories I will have to tell when I'm older.

One of the most important things I have learnt through 2013 is that painful break - ups, unrequited love, crappy jobs/courses and the like help to build character, and that no matter how painful it feels you are much better off because of it.

I am still trying new things towards the end of 2013, and my advice to you is this: If there is something you want to try, DO IT. If you don't like where you are, MOVE you are not a tree. Of course you have to be sensible in the choices you make and not to do anything hastily, but you never know what lies ahead for you out of your comfort zone.

x

After the rain comes the Sun

This morning my Dad was dropping me to the station and he said "It's amazing how things have worked out for you finally" I took a moment and reflected...

A few months ago I was broken and it knocked me, but then I was offered the amazing opportunity to go to Australia. Whilst in Australia I thought long and hard about what it was I wanted to do with my life and having always been interested in beauty and make-up I decided to go to Beauty School. I have been there for 4 months now and qualify in January, it's good; but it still wasn't what I wanted. I was job hunting at the same time and got offered an amazing job with the make up  company Clinique, which fitted in perfectly with my course. However I had to turn down this job for a few reasons and once again I felt like I was back to square one on the job hunting front. There were a few other things going on in life that caused me to be quite gloomy, and I had stopped singing. Singing is my release, its my way of getting through an emotion, its something I feel confident in and makes me feel happy... I missed it and was getting tense and sad that I had lost some of my singing abilities... But then I found a new singing teacher. I am now singing again and performing in Aladdin at Christmas and my heart started saying "yep I'm feeling a little more fulfilled now" Then, one night I applied for a job as a young persons worker working with children who have been abused or neglected, and children who have physical or learning disabilities. I applied in haste not really thinking I would get it, as usually jobs like this like people to have a degree in child education or social work. HOWEVER to cut a long story short, I got an interview and now have a job!
I am now doing 3 things I LOVE. I am SINGING. I am WORKING. I am making people BEAUTIFUL.

I don't want this blog to be boastful. I want it to show how God takes a situation and turns it around. He has plans. Amazing plans; plans that are bigger and better than any we could ever dream of for ourselves. It has taken TIME. And it has taken PATIENCE. And it has taken PESERVERANCE. And it has taken a lot of PRAYER and tears. And I am not where I want to be, but Thank God I am not where I used to be. You can't live in brokenness. You can't go through life and say "This has happened to me and this is always the way I am going to feel and be because life is just tough" God wants to take that brokenness and turn it into beauty.

I'm sorry this has been a very self orientated blog post. But I want it to bring hope to those in a dark place that that darkness will eventually turn into light. Sometimes pain is what wakes us up and makes us listen to God. And you will get to where you are meant to be all in the right time and not any moment sooner.

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” C.S Lewis

Bethany xx

Never give up

We all have that one dream, that one goal that we want to achieve so badly. We may talk to a few people about this dream, tell everyone or keep it to ourselves... and then we give up on it because it seems it is taking to long to accomplish. Or we can look into the future and think "in 5 years time I still won't be where I want to be" and so change our dream because we want instant happiness and instant money and instant job satisfaction.

This is where Earl Nightingale comes in; "Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway"

If you really want something - Go for it! Who cares how long it takes - if you know what you need to do, and how you are going to do it then the time will fly by as you work towards it. You will have so much more of an interesting life story to tell if you have had to work hard for something, or if there have been lots of diversions on the way.

I have been feeling a bit defeated these past few weeks; my friends are all either going into their 1st/2nd or 3rd year of university, some are engaged, some are getting married and most have jobs. I don't regret taking a gap year, it was great and I have had experiences that I wouldn't have got if I had gone to university. It has however set me back a year and I feel everyone else seems to be moving on with their lives and I'm still in the same place. HOWEVER I can't dwell on that, I know what I want to do, it is just going to take me a few years to get there.

I think its really important that we (myself included) don't compare our struggles to anyone else's. That we don't get discouraged by someone else's success - we all have our own success in life, maybe by gaining a degree, or maybe by travelling to the other side of the world alone. Never compare your beginning to someone else's middle; you don't have to do what everyone else is doing.

God has an amazing plan for everybody's life.
Never give up.

Do the unexpected

I need to admit something. I'm not like everyone else. Not even close. I may occasionally dress myself up as "one of them" or watch the same mindless TV shows, but it seems the more I try and fit in, the more of an outsider I become; like I am watching all the normal people live their automatic existence. Everytime I say club passwords such as "Have a nice day" or "Isn't the weather awful" I yearn inside to say forbidden things like; "Tell me what makes you cry" or "What do you think de ja vu is for?" I even want to talk to all those people packed tightly in on my morning rush hour train. What if they are all thinking the same things I am thinking?

Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation.. with a friend or even a stranger?

 

Everyone carries a piece of a puzzle.. and nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence.

Trust your instinct. Do the unexpected.

 

 



You are worth pursuing

Today I am having one of those days where my hair is not going right (thanks english weather) my skin is looking awful and I'm just feeling gross. I was moping around feeling sorry for myself when I came across this beautiful quote...

 

Now I have never had a man actually say to me "You are not worth pursuing" (not in those exact words anyway) but I have had knockbacks, hurtful comments as we all have and I often put myself down. To see this quote and read "God became man, died and rose again JUST to pursue you" really touched my heart. This quote doesn't just apply to me. It applies to all of you reading this. Even if you are a male - never let a WOMAN tell you you're not worth pursuing. Because God thinks you are worth a whole lot.

I guess this quote can apply to a lot of things; You have been told you you aren't clever enough to get into that university, you didn't get that job promotion you wanted etc... but at the end of that day thats just a humans view of you, in some cases its a piece of paper in an exam view of you...
 What really matters in this life is God's opinion of you. He loves you and thinks you are beautiful (yes even on those bad hair days!)

Now I'm only human so when I am having these "I suck" days I tend to go shopping... but today I decided to do something a little different. I got my usual cheer me up product of new make up, but then I decided to go to the christian book shop and buy some new quiet time notes. After all, it's our heart that should be beautiful, it's our heart that God looks at, and it's our heart that men/women should fall for.

Keep going guys, it's nearly the weekend!
Bethany x

A little something

Just a little thought provoking poem for you all too read today... 

 

 

 

As children bring their broken toys, with tears for us to mend,

I bought my broken dreams to God, because he is my friend.

But then instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone,

I hung around and tried to help,

with ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back again and cried,

"How can you be so slow?"

"My child" He said, "What could I do?

You never did let go."

 

Trust that God knows what he is doing. Trust he has perfect timing for your life. Remember you can make all the plans in the World for your life, but at the end of the day God's plans will win. We all go through things and wonder why at the time they are so painful, awkward or upsetting.

I promise you God has planned things for you that are bigger and better than you could ever imagine.

 

 

Enjoy the sunshine x