Editor’s note: These posts were written back when my brand name was Remodel Fitness. I’ve decided to include them here without editing them, in the interest of…well… transparency. 😉
When I was 8 years old, I had a friend who was funny, and pretty, and smart.
Whenever someone complimented her on anything, she would always kind of shrug it off and explain why the person was mistaken.
I remember thinking why would someone pretend not to know she’s awesome??
Then one day, when she was telling me how much funnier and prettier smarter I was than her, it suddenly dawned on me… she actually doesn’t know. She literally had no idea how cool she was. She didn’t know that the other girls (myself included) looked at her with emoji-hearts in our eyes. She didn’t know that the boys all had crushes on her. She wasn’t pretending to be modest when she dismissed compliments, she was just trying to set the record straight.
This realization broke my heart and marked a permanent, significant change for me.
Up until that point I had mostly been consumed by my own feelings and experiences, but from then on I started paying attention to other people. It suddenly became clear that there was a drastic and deeply unsettling difference in confidence between the boys and the girls. The boys all seemed to like themselves. The boys felt deserving of love, praise, attention, and other good things. But for some reason the girls just… didn’t.
I’ve known countless girls and women like my friend in elementary school. Girls and women who gave up their power, because they never knew how funny and pretty and smart they were. Girls and women who didn’t feel deserving of love, or praise, or attention. Girls and women who brutally starved or punished themselves for not being “perfect,” because it’s a self-evident female truism that only someone who is perfect can be worthy of love.
I’ve seen countless girls and women put their happiness on hold indefinitely, while they work on achieving this impossible “perfection.”
I’ve seen them energetically shrink themselves to fit into the only narrow mold they believe they deserve to occupy. I’ve watched them squish themselves down, follow a script, play a part, pretend to be something they’re not, put others first, and suffer the vague panic and pain of their endless unmet desires surrounding them.
This is why I created The Empowered Women Project.
To be honest, the response to the Empowered Women Project launch has been pretty amazing so far. (A huge thank you to every person who has liked, shared, commented, and emailed me with support and questions about it. Please keep ‘em coming!!)
Tomorrow I’ll be answering the top questions about the course, like what you can expect when you sign up, and what’s on the syllabus.
<3
Jessi
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