First Post. Welcome <3
Wow! Welcome to the Chronically Confident Community, you work of art! I am honoured that you have come to this space to further support me and my work. Let me start by saying - I am incredibly grateful and I would not be here without you!
I had the idea for this community back in 2020 - I was getting tired of algorithms and wanted to create a space where the Meta ‘gods’ couldn’t influence who my work was reaching. I also wanted to allow my community to support me directly so my content could remain as authentic as possible. For a while, my goal was to do the whole brand deal thing, but I found that there was always a level of authenticity I had to remove to be palatable to brands and agencies. Once I let go of that, I felt completely liberated. I now get to be as authentic as possible online without having to placate my opinions to please brands. But - this came at a cost as this was how I made my entire living. I created this Substack to be able to make the best and most authentic content possible with no influence from brands or agencies, and I can’t do it without your support!
Despite needing to keep paying rent, there is another major reason why I created this space. This is the space I desperately needed growing up. After speaking to many of you, I have noticed how many out there lack a community of people to discuss the intimate topics we shamefully harbour to ourselves. As Bell Hooks puts it in All About Love: New Visions:
“Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openess and honesty that is at the heartbeat of love. When we can see ourselves as we truly are and accept ourselves, we build the necessary foundation for self-love.”
“Whether we learn to love ourselves and others will depend on the prescence of a loving environment. Self-love cannot flourish in isolation. It is no east task to be self-loving. Simple axioms that make self-love sounds easy only make matters worse. It leaves many people wondering why, if it is so easy, they continue to be trapped by feelings of low self-esteem and self-hatred.”
We need a supportive and loving environment free from shame to learn to love ourselves. Self-love cannot happen if we remain trapped in the same patterns without anyone to support us. That requires a community that supports honesty about how we feel about ourselves and refutes shame. Once a thought we have been shamefully harbouring emerges from our brains and is vocalized, we can tell the truth about ourselves and begin to build the necessary foundation of honesty required for self-acceptance, love and confidence.
A community of people working on our confidence and self-love will allow us to reject shame, build self-acceptance, and begin to grow our confidence to advocate for ourselves and create the life we want. I wanted to create a group of genuine people who are willing to come together to help each other and work toward a common goal of loving ourselves. We can learn from each other, offer each other perspectives, and know that we have support during the riskier actions we take toward confidence. We can connect over meaningful dialogue and expand our perspectives in a way we never could before with respectful like-minded people. We can meet others, watch their confidence grow as we grow our own, validate each other, and read other’s perspectives when we need a confidence boost of our own. And we can encourage others to boldly take the next steps forward and celebrate together when they do. We can learn together, grow together, and learn to love ourselves together.
This is my first step in building a community that is off of social media. Transparently, I will be figuring out what works along the way. Feedback will be highly encouraged on what would help us connect further and what isn’t working. Despite this, I am thrilled to be creating a space that will be transformative for so many people working toward self-acceptance, and confidence, and creating meaningful change in the world.
XOXO,
Hannah Bee