Building Confidence Through Change

Life Adapts.

Change has a way of messing with your confidence, especially when the change isn't something you chose.

For me, becoming disabled changed more than what my body could do. It changed how I saw myself and made me much more aware of how other people might see me.

Before becoming disabled, I moved through the world pretty much like everyone else. My body worked pretty much like everyone else's. I didn't have to think about accessibility before going somewhere, and I certainly didn't have to wonder whether someone noticed my wheelchair before they noticed me.

Then suddenly, all of those things became part of my life.

That's a strange thing to adjust to because when something about you changes, your identity doesn't necessarily change right along with it. You can understand intellectually that your life is different while emotionally still trying to recognize the person looking back at you.

But you don't have to become disabled to understand what it feels like to struggle with the person in the mirror.

Most of us, at some point, find something about ourselves that we wish were different. Maybe it's our body, our hair, our weight, our age, or some other characteristic we've decided doesn't measure up. Sometimes we can change the thing that's bothering us. Sometimes we can't. And sometimes we spend so much time concentrating on what we would change that we forget there's an entire person attached to it.

Disability forced me to confront that in a way I never expected.

I couldn't rebuild my confidence by pretending nothing had changed. I also couldn't spend the rest of my life comparing myself to the person I had been before. Eventually, I had to begin accepting my new identity.

That didn't mean I suddenly loved every change that came with it. Acceptance and liking something aren't the same thing.

It meant becoming more comfortable being seen differently without allowing someone else's perception of me to become my perception of myself.

I'm still learning how to do that.

There are moments when I'm very aware that someone may see my disability before they see anything else about me. There are also moments when I catch myself doing essentially the same thing—seeing the wheelchair, the limitations, or the changes before seeing the whole person I've become.

Maybe that's part of rebuilding confidence: learning to see the whole person again.

I can be disabled and confident. I can use a wheelchair and still take up space. I can need help with some things and still value my independence. I can miss parts of who I was while genuinely learning to appreciate who I am becoming.

Those things can all be true at once.

And I think that applies far beyond disability.

Confidence isn't about reaching some point where there's absolutely nothing about yourself you'd change. I'm not even sure that person exists.

Maybe confidence is being able to look at yourself honestly—at the things you like, the things you don't, the things you can change, and the things you can't—and still recognize that all of it belongs to you.

For me, that has meant realizing something very simple:

This is me, too.

Not a lesser version of me. Not a temporary version waiting for the old me to return. Just me.

I'm still getting to know this version of myself, and there are days when acceptance comes more easily than others. But I'm no longer waiting to become my old self before allowing myself to feel whole.

Maybe that's where confidence begins when life changes.

Not with becoming the person you used to be—or the person you think you're supposed to be—but with giving yourself permission to belong in the person you are.

Until next time... keep adapting, keep living.