Work in Progress, Pt. 3: Battling Insecurities.

Good Morning (it’ll actually be afternoon when you see this) and HAPPY FRIDAY! Yes! HAPPY! I’m currently sitting on the porch, listening to Yebba’s new project 🔥 It’s finally not hot and smokey here anymore, THANK GOD. So I decided, why not write on this beautiful Friday morning?

There are a few things I’d like to say before getting into today’s topic.

1. I know I have some college students, people who work from home, and some music connoisseurs, I’d like to consider myself to be one 😂 reading this so, I want to shout out my cousin, John who dropped his first album “On My Mind: Vol. 1” last Friday! YESSIR! I’ve been listening to his music while I journal. Might I say this is long overdue but GREATLY appreciated? I love you, John! Congrats because this is huge! Okay enough, find his album on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/on-my-mind-vol-1/1583632150 and Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5hRrCFrNmi3IvHo0YkjdSo?si=XhdcUWlxTUaMiaB1ZaC7hg&dl_branch=1 🤍 (my R&B lovers, I have something for y’all Monday 😚)
2. THANK YOU to everyone who’s interacted with my posts in any way. I truly haven’t felt this good in a very long time and the responses that I’ve been receiving just from these past 3 days is immensely appreciated!
3. Ummmm? Can I just say that I received some much-needed childhood healing this week? First, we got Steve from Blue Clue’s explanation video and now Aaliyah’s Self Titled album has been released on streaming platforms? The best way I can describe how good it feels is like this. You remember as a kid, there were those few times you’d asked your parental figure, “Can we go to McDonald’s?” and you’re expecting to be told we have food at the house but next thing you know, you're turning right into the McDonald’s parking lot? 🥺😎 Yeah, that smile you just made or that little chuckle you just let off? That’s how it feels. Good. 😌

It doesn’t start out easy at all, well at least for me it didn’t. I’d say I started picking at every little thing about myself around middle school. So let me paint a picture for you and take you back to how Jourdan thought between the ages of 11–17. For starters, I was always tall as hell. So boom first things first, Shopping was always weird because at the time, finding jeans that were long enough? Rare. My shoe size grew as I went from grade to grade so, trying to find shoes that I, a pre-teen/teenager would like in the WOMEN’S section while all my friends have size little feet and were buying shoes for $30 (or more) cheaper… y’all know how it goes. Someone start a petition to bring PAYLESS back!! How’d we let them fail? Okay next. There’s the physical appearance insecurity for you. Following? Good. So, I mentioned I’ve always been tall. I stopped playing basketball before high school and was STEADY drilled with the, “you hoop?” question. I’d be rich as hell if I was given a dollar for every time I was asked that. “Am I not doing what I’m supposed to be doing?” There’s the second-guessing and thinking I’m not doing enough insecurity. Next, the one that probably bothered me the most. B*ys. Wow, I am so upset I let y’all rusty-dusty boys make me feel the way I did about myself. 😂 I knew I wasn’t the prettiest and again, I’m tall so we have to knock out some of them because being with someone shorter than you? Oh, you’re just asking to get roasted. 😭 and the fact that I have beauty marks was already a huge part of my physical insecurity. Being called Ice Cube was very traumatic let me just say, so screw whoever started calling me that lol. We’re going to leave that part alone because I got some words for a few of y’all. Also, I was annoying as HELL. I now see why I was treated the way I was at times. Little did I know, my attention-seeking personality was really a mask to hide my cry for help. Therapy y’all. Sheesh. The decline of my self-esteem, lack of self-love and, the minuscule amount of self-confidence I had caused me to carry myself with a negative look on my life. I didn’t think I was beautiful. It was hard because I always felt like I was just that one friend, you know. I was the mom of my friend groups. I was the sister, the best friend, the advice giver, the not relationship material type gal. I had a bunch of pointless situationships 😂 I was what…? I mentioned in the past how I felt that I basically needed to be everyone’s go-to. Yes, I realized that most of those sitationships were just them using me because of that trait of mine. Ouch. It was because I didn’t feel like I was ever capable of giving myself the love I was looking for and longing for in everyone else. Analogy time. I was good for feeding everybody at the table and watching them eat, enjoy what I gave them and, take what they need to fulfill themselves while I sat back, exhausted and drained but that didn’t matter. This was a reoccurring feeling too. Everyone else was GOOD. You’re good, just enjoy the fact that everyone is happy. WHY YOU GOTTA BE SO INSECURE?? YEAAAAH. If you know me you know I love Jazmine and Bryson.

I’ll be honest, it didn’t fully hit how insecure I was about myself until this past year when I had to dig so deep during moments where I was by myself, to find something to keep me going. I was never the type to compliment myself or admire my strength still working on it, as I type this because I believed I wasn't worthy of compliments. I didn't think I was strong because if I was, why am I feeling like this? Why am I going through the things I’m going through? God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers right? Why did I feel so damn weak? Where’s that strong girl everyone “admires and loves so much”? Being strong at a young age really isn’t that admirable of a thing when you think about it. What did I go through that made me have to be so strong? Who hurt me? Undealt with Trauma? Yeah, I’m going to touch more on this in another part but back to what I was saying. I’m very good for a couple things, let’s list them out:

1. saying “no, I'm okay.” when I'm actually drowning in the many thoughts that cross my mind daily and I am FAR from okay. I didn’t like feeling as if I was a burden or an inconvenience to people so I kept most of how I was truly feeling to myself.
2. when people ask me to do something, even if I'm not feeling my best, I do it because helping others=making them happy=I should be happy too. Eveyone’s go to. Feeling obligated. Vicious cycle, I’ll tell you.
3. saying something nice about myself but quickly following it up with some negative ass comment, constantly having people tell me, “Don’t say that about yourself” or “stop doing that to yourself”. You all were right by the way, I was doing nothing but harming myself even more.

I was doing these things to myself DAILY. To the point like I said in part one, I didn't even recognize who I was. I was lost in everyone’s opinion of me, I was stuck. That’s all. I originally typed, “I was stuck in…” but something told me to just delete the ‘in’ and just say it. I was stuck. I was lost. I didn’t know me so I pretended to be someone I wasn't. I didn’t love myself enough. I didn’t appreciate myself. I never went out of my way for me. If i’m being honest, I hated myself. I hated everything about myself. I nit-picked at every flaw. Never once realizing what I was doing to myself. It took me going through one of the most gruesome and traumatic phases in my life to finally appreciate me.

You guys know how I like to be vulnerable. As I say, I believe it speaks to my growth. I battled through mental health diagnoses, severe depression and anxiety and, at one point feeling as if I lost control over my life. I found myself in the lowest of lows. It made what I went through in Middle School and High School seem like absolutely nothing. It’s extremely hard when it’s your own mind doing the attacking and belittling and not others. I was definitely my worst enemy. So you can already guess that all positive remains of self- ANYTHING went straight out the door. Quick praise break? God, there were so many times, I can look back now and say Thank You. It really was just me and you. Thankful you kept me near and protected with your love. 💗 Remember how I said I never admired my strength? Well look. I brought myself out of the inevitable in my eyes. Have you seen my glow lately? I’ve finally started to fall in love with who I am becoming. I let go of my want-to-be perfectionist ways, I let go of the doubts about myself, I started surrounding myself around people who held me accountable to believing that I am in fact worthy of everything I want (s/o to my groupchat man, y’all already know what it is. Never have to say too much 🤞🏾) finding things and hobbies that made me happy and, started to re-train my brain to be grateful for all that I am. It has been a fun and eye-opening part of my journey so far. One thing about me, I love projects so working on myself has been my favorite one by FAR.

I’m not crying, you are.

I can’t wait to continue updating you all on how I transition and evolve into a better version of myself. I hope you enjoyed today’s read as well as my others. I’ll leave you with this, I want you to find some time today and just say 3–5 things you need to hear from yourself. In order to start loving you properly, you have to believe you’re deserving of it. 🤍

✨ Jourdan, I am so proud of your growth. I am grateful that you never gave up. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL! Progress looks so good on you. ✨