To be or not to be confident

A week ago I wouldn't have believed where a new pair of black shoes can get me. But then second hand store happened and the International Women's Day of today was around the corner. That combination was enough to inspire me to wake up at 6 am and to go for a mission.

Yesterday morning I headed to the university to start the day with something else than studying. I had little butterflies in my stomach when changing the shoes. Everybody must be looking at me (like they wouldn't have more important things to do).

Where could I find a quiet place to have a photo shoot? Well, my dear, you decided to come to the university, it might be a challenge. This is how living on the edge excites me even in every-day life. Luckily it was the holiday week, so the corridors were rather empty, even on a Finnish level.

I am tall. High heels of any height make me a little taller. This hasn't been the easiest thing to digest and has made me hear comments for this feature of mine. "You don't even need to wear high heels to look like a model" or "good luck with finding a man taller than you".

Nowadays I can laugh along the comments. But being in the "size of a model" has not always felt like a compliment. I really didn't know how to take it, because on the other hand, model career was typically associated with "waste of brain". So I probably thanked and said something about not planning to become a model. I didn't feel pretty, nor I didn't want to be stupid.

I was totally not comfortable with how I looked, and I guess I was not alone with that among all the other teenagers. If I remember correctly, most of the time I didn't care, but then there were those moments when I wished I would have been anyone else in the world, and if I just could have had a face of someone else.

Walking down to the university corridors with my high heels, the distances felt longer and the echo from the walls louder than ever before. That one thing I didn't take into consideration with the emptiness.

The two main feelings when walking around were "pleaase don't look for too long" and "wuaaah I feel so powerful". One kind of experience of empirical science - to analyse people's reaction is my way of coping with uncomfortable situations. Feel free to use!

The strategy of empirical science thinking is actually pretty recently implemented. Before my coping hints have included for example dancing, taking classes of acting, and picking up every opportunity to travel that I was offered. Those gave me the possibility of having a moment as that someone else in practice, and bit by bit thought me how to enjoy moments with new people, strangers. Through those strategies I was also able to start broadening my thinking with anyone I met.

Changes in how do you see yourself won't happen overnight, that's for sure. It takes time, but in my opinion you can have an effect on the meaningfulness of the years that will pass anyway. Now, I don't have a career of a model, but that doesn't stop me from getting excited of spending a regular day in a gala skirt.

Today being the International Women's day, I thought it to be a good reason to celebrate where I have gotten so far. Also, what would be a better time to encourage, share stories or to complain together with everyone else who is on a same journey?

For all of you, and as a reminder for myself, always be courageous, and dare to take that one step higher of which you have been dreaming. Sometimes all it takes, is to literally pull on those high heels only to walk around the university.

And it might start with just a small thought, you don't always need to plan an adventure a year in advance. Why not doing it tomorrow as the first thing when you wake up?

My #BalanceForBetter pose