Charm School: Confidence

I have to share this comment that came in last week.  I share it because it illustrates a point.

Debby in KS: This post made me flash back to a comment a woman made to me at the Y pool. I was going to the lap pool and walking down the side of it to get my kickboard. Then I walked back. After I got in with an ungraceful jump lol, she swam over to my lane and said, "My gosh, you have the BEST posture! Do you practice walking that way?"

Honestly, I had never considered it!! But! A pool sighting many years before has affected my poolside walking ever since! Firstly, I am fat. Not chubby. F-A-T. I don't say that to speak lowly, but to be honest. Well, before I got fat, I was once at a public pool and saw 2 just chubby women walk by. I immediately noticed that one had her shoulders pulled back and her chin up a little. The other was slouched forward a bit. Well, they were of similar size, but the one with her chin up looked SO MUCH BETTER!

In what I think was an attempt to make herself less visible, Miss Slouchy looked like a mass of skin in a wad. Her downward chin and hunching pooched out her tummy and butt, causing flapping thigh jiggle. And, she had a continuous shelf of flesh rolls from chin to boob. I never forgot that. So, I always made a point to stand up straight and walk when I was in a suit.

I long ago realized that NOTHING is going to make my jumbo self invisible so the option was to own it! Head up, shoulders back, abs engaged. Now, if I could just make myself do it when I have more clothes on lol.....

I bolded the above statement because that 'own it' attitude is the very epitome of elegance and grace.  It's having the confidence to carry yourself well despite added pounds, limps, lack of funds or whatever else hinders you from that life of perfection. 

To a letter, each and every book on charm and every post written on other blogs addresses weight.  The better books address both the over weight and the under weight women.  The less nice ones will only address the heavier ones.  I don't care if you weigh 90 pounds or 350 pounds if you carry yourself with confidence you will create an aura about you that masks weight and fully pushes YOU, the personality that you are, into the forefront.  So I won't share weight loss goals or tips here.  I guess you are all pretty well aware of your own weight and how to reduce if you want and how to carry it off if you don't.  Personally, I've lost weight these past two years, but I'm still a big girl.   

I have always been a big girl.  When I married I got fat.  No nice way to put it just fact.  When I was 30 years old I went back to school.  Here I was a wife and mom and overweight in a world of pretty young things and handsome young men.  I was older than some of my teachers!   I used to take a study period between classes in the school break room.  Often I'd be joined by various young men.  I didn't seek them out but somehow or another one or three would find their ways to my table and they would tell me about themselves and their lives and hopes and dreams.  It wasn't attraction exactly, at least not of the sexual sort.  I think I was 'safe'.  They didn't have that pressure to be attractive that they felt with girls their own age.

One day a girl friend stopped me in the hallway to say that she just had to relate what she'd overheard in the break room that day.  She'd happened upon two young men talking about me.  I wasn't at all sure I wanted to hear anything they had to say but she persisted in following me to the next class. "Jim said 'It's funny about Terri.  I forget she's big.  She's just pretty and nice and that's all you remember about her."  Honestly, it was one of the nicest compliments ever.  I didn't let it go to my head and act foolish but I did gain confidence in who I was and that was most helpful.

My nature is to be a pleasant chatty sort, a little shy, content to watch and read people and their reactions to their surroundings.  My nature is to be modest and casual rather than showy in style.   What gives you confidence is being the best YOU you can be.   Just like Debbie's determination to carry herself well in swimsuit, which takes confidence no matter what size you are.

A lot of charm's power isn't that of big personality nor of how intelligent we may be and hopefully are.  It has nothing to do with what our bank account statement says we have or don't have.  Charm is the power to attract quality attention and to give it.  Charm is about making a good first and last impression.  It is about being nice and genuinely so.  Charm is about the inner confidence that quietly imparts the sense that you are somebody worth knowing.

Now let's go on out there, in swimsuit or fully dressed, and carry ourselves as though we are the queens of this world.  Because we are you know...