Why Has My Confidence in My Body Disappeared?

If you've lost confidence in your body, there is usually a reason.


For many people, their focus has been on everyone else. They have spent years caring for children, supporting partners, helping aging parents, building careers, volunteering, and meeting the needs of others. Somewhere along the way, their own needs moved to the bottom of the list.


When we stop doing something for a long period of time, our confidence in our ability to do it naturally declines.


Think about any skill you've ever had. If you don't practice it, you begin to question whether you can still do it. Movement is no different.


Over time, many people also become disconnected from their bodies.


Their body carries them through every day, but they stop paying attention to what it is telling them. Instead, they spend most of their time in their thoughts—analyzing, planning, worrying, comparing, and overthinking.


The brain begins telling stories:

• I'm too old.
• I'll probably hurt myself.
• I can't do what I used to do.
• Exercise isn't for me anymore.
  
  
  

But those thoughts are not always accurate.


Sometimes confidence decreases because our body has changed. We may have developed pain, experienced an injury, received a diagnosis, or noticed changes that come with aging.


Even then, confidence can grow when we learn what our body can do today rather than focusing only on what it used to do.


Sometimes confidence begins to return when we stop asking our brain what it thinks and start asking our body what it knows.


✔ How does this movement feel?

✔ Can I do this with ease?

✔ What feels supportive today?

✔ What would my body enjoy doing?
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✔ What is possible right now?
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When we become curious about our experience instead of judging it, we often discover that our bodies are more capable than we thought.


Confidence is rarely rebuilt through thinking.
Confidence is rebuilt through experience.

Your confidence may not have disappeared entirely.


It may simply be buried beneath years of life responsibilities, changes in your health, periods of inactivity, or a disconnection from your body.


The good news is that confidence can be rebuilt.


Not by becoming the person you used to be, but by reconnecting with the body you have today.