44. Embracing the Journey to Self-Worth: Navigating Self-Doubt, Finding Confidence, and Discovering the Power of Self-Acceptance with Hazel Atkinson-Brown

Remember that time in seventh grade when a single comment about your outfit could make or break your day? That was a reality for me, Hazel Brown, and it sparked a lifelong quest to unravel the mysteries of self-worth and confidence. Embark on a journey with me as I bare my soul, sharing the intimate tales of battling self-doubt and the childhood triggers that initially sculpted my self-image. These personal anecdotes promise to lift the veil on the often silent struggle to maintain confidence in a world that’s quick to judge.

Fast forward to the here and now, where the quest for self-love becomes even more poignant amidst life's natural flux—be it weight changes or early menopause. I reveal how I've learned to navigate the treacherous waters of external validation, finding solace in self-care and the power of standing tall in one’s own skin. Through my candid discussions on body image and identity, I hope to inspire you to embrace every season of life with grace and to occupy your space in this world with an unwavering sense of empowerment. Join me for these heart-to-heart conversations that are less about finding a quick fix and more about embarking on a transformative journey of self-acceptance.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to. It's the Human Experience Podcast Hosted by Hazel Brown, a healthcare leader, wife, mom and career coach. If you're big on authenticity, personal development, perseverance and transparency, you're in the right place. Get ready to be uplifted, inspired and empowered as you become fearless in pursuit of the life you desire and deserve. Our goal is to help you level up by creating a safe space to learn and reflect, while listening to transparent stories from our host or successful professionals and business owners who've agreed to share the parts of success that typically gets x'd out on social media, because that's the part you need to see and hear the process. Go ahead and subscribe. You don't want to miss out on these transparent stories and discussions that reveal highs, lows, aha moments and nuggets that'll help you to grow and glow.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Hey, hey, hey. You are now tuned in to the it's the Human Experience Podcast. I'm your host, hazel Brown. Welcome. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast, guys.

Speaker 2: 1:26

I wanted to talk to you guys about self-worth, self-love, self-care, putting yourself first all those things. I know that February is typically like the self-proclaimed love month, but I need you to love on yourself every single day, every week, every month, every year, in your good and your bad moments. The reason why this topic became so important to me is as I work with different people in my nine to five, in my redefining the future you career, coaching, business, through my event, planning for workplace therapy, women's empowerment conference. As I talk to friends, family, there's some sense of self-doubt. People don't show up for themselves in the way that they should and I think a lot of it really stems from early on triggers and trauma in their lives. So it had me thinking. It had me thinking that, wait, how did you overcome those self-worth, living belief triggers that you went through yourself as a child? And I wanted to make sure I was obedient enough to just share transparently my road and role with self-love, self-worth and confidence.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I often get told that I am really confident and people are attracted to me based on the confidence that I exude. And I think it's interesting because I genuinely did not think I was beautiful when I was younger. I genuinely would cry about the way that I looked. I would squeeze my nose to try to make it smaller. I would not like my forehead, not like my ears. The only thing I liked was my lips and my eyes, and I would hope that they were hazel. So I didn't even like those that much, and I share that. To say that people look at you and think, oh my God, you've always been confident. But that is far from the truth, especially when all of us had to go through elementary school and middle school and it is a whole hazing experience for most people and I was definitely hazed and tortured through my elementary and middle school experience. Specifically, the sixth grade was probably the hardest time of my life. I feel that in that moment and when I think about my triggers and my trauma, I was constantly ridiculed, constantly criticized, constantly made to feel as though I was not beautiful. What really did it for me was I remember one year I think I was in a seventh grade and they passed a paper around the room, braiding all of the girls in the classroom and when I saw the rating that they gave me on the paper, some people had rated me at eight, some rated me at nine, and don't get me wrong, this is getting validation from others as opposed to getting validation for self. But guys remember, I was in the seventh grade so I knew nothing about validating myself at the time.

Speaker 2: 5:08

My self-worth came from the way that people made me feel, and so I knew I had a lot to offer in the world, but I was constantly being told that I was not enough, I wasn't pretty enough, I wasn't any of the things, and so when I think about looking at that paper, I was shocked because you were able to see who rated you what. And these were some of the people that was dogging me out and making me feel like I was crumbs between their toes, like literally not even crumbs that fell off the floor or on the floor from a brownie or a cookie yeah, like brownies, but anyhoo, I feel like it wasn't even a crumb from something that I like, like it was a crumb between someone's toes is how they made me feel. So the reason why I shared that is in that moment. I remember feeling like all of this time, you owned the way that they tend to make you feel by criticizing you, you started internalizing the things that they're saying about you and took it as truth. When you look at this rating chart, these people actually think you look pretty decent, like an eight and a nine is not too bad, like not too shabby for the way that they're talking about me and describing me, to make me feel like I'm about a three or something. Right, and so it was. In that moment it's truly pivotal, truly aha, aha.

Speaker 2: 6:41

I started to realize like you cannot allow other people's opinion of you to dictate how you feel about yourself. And in those critical moments, you're doing things like hoping your hair is long enough to put into a pretty fan of your African-American woman listening to this podcast and you know exactly what I'm talking about Like back then you would have this long fan and you wanted the fan to be the longest thing on the streets. And I started to realize, even as I get older today, right, I don't really wear my real hair out as often as I would, despite how much it was a thing to want long hair, and so I have long, healthy hair, but I don't like doing it. So I often like to put it in braids get it done and all the things. But I think about all the societal things that make us feel as though that is what dictates our worth.

Speaker 2: 7:42

So, through the experience in the seventh grade and really thinking through a lot of the things we went through growing up, I had to start to understand that I can't allow people's perception of me to dictate how I live my life, because if I do, I'll constantly be shrinking and then growing, and shrinking and then growing. And what I mean by that is, every time somebody tells you you're beautiful, you'll grow. Every time somebody tells you, girl, you're not that cute, you're shrinking. Every time somebody tells you you are so smart, you're wise beyond your years, you're gonna grow. Every time you're made to feel as though you don't have the information and you're not as smart and sharp as you should be, you're gonna shrink.

Speaker 2: 8:40

I had to realize that you can't spend your life like that. And who are these other people to dictate how you feel about you? How? I had to take my power back. I had to realize that what mattered was how I felt about myself. What mattered was making sure that the life that I had was worth living. What mattered was that I was betting on myself, that I felt good about the person that I saw in the mirror, and the reason I explained all of that is I want to make sure that you take a moment to look in the mirror and decide what's important to you. How do you feel about yourself from a self-image standpoint? How do you feel about yourself from the things that you're accomplishing and doing in the world? How do you feel about yourself because you showed up for yourself, true and true, all of the trials, tribulations and adversities that you've gone through? How do you feel about you? It is so important that you sit there because in that moment, you can decide what you need to do. If you're not getting up and grooming yourself and making sure that your hygiene is on 10 in the way that it needs to start doing that, you're not doing that for validation from other people. You're doing that because when you look good, you feel good and you perform even better. So start the day by prioritizing your health and wellness, your self-care, making sure that you feel your best, because if you decide to just kind of, hmm, I'm not even doing any of those things, or whatever those things are for you, then throughout the day you don't feel good and you wonder why you don't feel good, but it's because you didn't show up for yourself. I also want to navigate over to more of the self-image portion. Anyone that knows me knows that.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Yes, this is going to sound extremely conceited and I apologize in advance, but I had the body of the bodies back in high school and middle school. Literally in middle school. I remember people pulling over when I'm walking past. This probably happened twice, but in my head it happened every day. I was like, oh my God, girl, you are going to look so good when you get older. Clearly they were pedophiles and predators, but anyhoo, and in high school definitely had a really nice shape, and throughout college also.

Speaker 2: 11:21

I think for me, the reason I bring that up is because I had so much of my identity around my shape. So as I started to gain weight, it was really hard to own my new body right. It was really hard for me to show up in my fullest and highest self because there was so much feeling small, because I wasn't small, and so after my twins, who are now 11, they'll be 12 soon I'd lost all my pregnancy weight. So I'm not one of those that could say I have three kids, I gained all my weight because of my pregnancies and so you know, is baby fat? No, I literally created a Facebook account or Instagram account, actually right after I had the twins. That was called no More Baby Fat. That was the name of it. If you scroll down to I am Hazel Brown all the way at the bottom, you'll see things that have at no More Baby Fat across it.

Speaker 2: 12:26

Through my weight loss journey experience and I created that page because I wanted to have accountability for myself and I never liked the cliche term where people would say, oh, the reason why I'm this weight is because of the baby and that was big for me. So I was obsessed with making sure that I lost that baby weight and I did, and so like I shared it sounds really shallow, it sounds all the things, but the reason why I share that is because, in order for you to understand what I'm saying, you have to understand mentally where I'm coming from. So as I fast forward and started going through early menopause in 2016, I started gaining a lot of weight and I started having to work so much harder to maintain the weight that wasn't even my ideal weight. And then, clearly, after my grief journey with my mom prior to her passing, I was in the gym all the time I was with a personal trainer. I was at a point where I could accept the body that I was bodying, but it still wasn't my ideal body. And I had to decide like, am I gonna love me in this moment as I work on getting to a space where I truly love the body that I have on the outside, and I had to make the decisions that, yeah, this is not my ideal weight. Yes, this is not my ideal circumstance. Yes, this is not how I would put myself as a genie in a bottle and make it happen for my wishes and my goals. But at the same time, I have to learn to show up and take up space. Literally, I'm taking up more space, so why not I'm? I have to make sure that I own it. Like, why am I gonna shrink? Because I'm not the weight that I want to be? Why am I gonna shrink because I didn't get the degrees that I wanted to have? Why am I gonna shrink because I don't have the job that I wanted to have? Why am I gonna shrink because I don't have the man that I wanted to have, why am I gonna shrink because I don't have the kids I wanted to have? Why am I gonna shrink Because my house is not the house I wanted to have, my bank account is not the one I wanted to have, my friend circle is not the one I wanted to have Whatever that is for you. That is why I shared all those things. You cannot shrink just because life is not perfect. Life is a journey. There's ebbs and flows. We go through all sorts of things, and what I had to do was own where I'm at in the process, own where I'm at in the journey.

Speaker 2: 15:09

If you don't stand up for you and you don't love you, how can you expect anyone else to? That is what I had to realize and that is what I did. I had to hold myself, hug myself, stand up for myself. Internally, I had to make sure that I was loving on me, because when you love on you from an inside out perspective, that's what shines, that's the confidence that shows up. And it's amazing when you can love yourself in your lowest moments and in your highest moments. And if you can't do that for yourself, you cannot expect anyone else to do it. I'm going to let you sit in that If you cannot do that for yourself, you cannot expect anyone else to do it. That doesn't matter if we're talking about growing in your career. It doesn't matter if you're talking about growing in your relationships, it doesn't matter what it is. How you do anything is how you do everything. So you may not be where you want to be, but you got to love where you are today.

Speaker 2: 16:23

And if you can't love who you are and where you are and what the circumstances are, how will you love your next level? Your next level is going to come with more chaos, more problems, more obstacles to be able to solve and go through. So I need you to learn how to solve the problems in front of you. That way, when you get to the next level, you're ready. You're not coming to the next level with all this baggage. Child, there might be some crumbs not the one that was between my toes but there will be something for you to heal from. Still Clean up as much as you can. So when you get there, you're not having to go back down and clean up and disinfect all of the things you're brought with you. Right, you're able to address the new level with clean lens clear lens One of the biggest things I hear a lot of people say is that when you are trying to grow into your highest self and you are trying to bet on yourself and accomplish these goals, you have got to make sure that you know that the demons are going to come back up If you don't solve your problems.

Speaker 2: 17:36

They're going to show back up and sometimes we pray for these opportunities to happen, but we're not ready for them, and the reason we're not ready for them is because we haven't took in the time to look in the mirror and make sure that we iron out some of the wrinkles, we iron out some of the mess, we get some therapy, we really identify what it is that we want and who it is that we are, so that as we move into the next level, you're clear. People don't talk about clarity for no reason. You are clear on who you are. People can't shuffle you and say, hey, I don't think you could do this, and then you're like drink oh, I think you're really good at that. You're walking on your purpose. Grow, oh girl, I don't like the way your voice sounds Shrink. No, you need to be clear about who you are so you don't waver, you don't fall back, you don't start crying God, I don't know why that's it. You know who you are and I'm not gonna say wait until you know who you are before you bet on yourself. I want you to bet on yourself right now, but understand that you are going to have to put some time into taking care of yourself, giving yourself that self love, that self care, so that you can have the self worth and the confidence that you need to step into your highest self. Do it for you. There is no reason that you have one life and you are treating yourself like you don't matter. That is unacceptable. It was unacceptable yesterday, it's unacceptable today and it will be unacceptable tomorrow. Bet on yourself. Go after your goals.

Speaker 2: 19:19

I hope this episode was impactful, rated five stars. Share it with your besties, share it with your friends. Share the whole podcast with any and everybody you know. Tag me on social media at it's the Human Experience. Slide into my DMs. People do that and I love it. I love hearing your takeaways. Let me know how you enjoyed the episode. Leave a comment below.

Speaker 2: 19:42

Y'all don't like leaving comments and I get it. If you're not listening on Apple. There's no choice. You can't leave a comment. But if you're listening from Apple, leave a comment below. If you're listening on YouTube, leave a comment below. Thumbs up rated five stars. This really helps to push the podcast in front of more people. My goal was for us to surpass 5,000 downloads by the day of the conference. We surpassed that and we are on to newer things and bigger goals, and I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you guys for supporting me. I appreciate you guys for investing in yourself. I appreciate you guys for making sure that you are constantly growing and stepping into your highest self. As always, I am rooting for you. Remember it's time to grow and glow.

Speaker 1: 20:34

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