I began in my introduction (see writing called Me, My Mad Mum and Others) by saying that I like myself. This has helped to define who I am both personally and professionally. It has given me confidence that negative relationships both privately and professionally have been unable to crush, although they have still managed to dent it at times. It has also enabled me to stand tall even through very difficult episodes in my life. However, as with most things it was a long process to get to this point.

 

As a small child I grew my confidence through having to stand my own against 3 older brothers. In order to survive the teasing I grew a thick skin, which stood me in good stead for school and finding confidence within my class. My school was a tiny village school and it was easy to feel confident with only a few children. I was sometimes very sure of myself and able to have the confidence to be very sure of what I liked and wanted to do. Playing football for the school team was a good example of this. Not many girls played football and it was still seen as a male sport. In fact the playground where football was played at lunch time was called the boys playground. I felt very confident of my abilities to be as good as any boy and as a result was a very successful striker.

 

At other times I could be very submissive and wanting to please. This sometimes meant I did things I didn’t feel comfortable with. I suppose my self esteem was quite low to feel pressured to do them, I think I was looking for acceptance. I remember once playing secrets with my brother James and admitting I had stolen penny sweets from the shop. He immediately broke the secret and told mum, which immediately got me into lots of trouble! 

 

A lot of my confidence came from being expected to talk in adult forums, I was always involved in my reviews of my foster placement with my social workers. My first social worker Mr. Herringshaw, who was my social worker all the way through my first school, in reflection had excellent participative values. He always asked me how I felt about what was happening to me. He asked me to speak when it was thought it would go to court to review my care package. He treated me with respect and that gave me the confidence to say what I felt. I think the respect I was shown by my social worker made me feel I had a voice and that I was important. Later social workers would be better or worse than this and my relationships would change with each of them. I would analyse why they were good or bad and rather than find it upsetting if they were bad it would make me feel I had a deeper understanding of what I would do when I got a job helping people.

 

These forums that opened up to me increased as I got older and I was able to be a co-opted member of Dorset Social Services. I learnt to speak to a big forum of councillors and give my views. I felt so strongly about making my voice heard that this gave me the confidence to speak even though I was probably the youngest person at those meetings by several decades. I always read the stack of paper work and highlighted areas I felt I could contribute and influence the councillors in their decisions. I also had opportunities to speak at conferences and seminars, again to professionals who had the capacity to change things. This increased my confidence and the feedback I would always receive would be of admiration not just for speaking to such a large group but for what I had said. I remember one councillor coming up to me saying how moved she had been by what I said and that she had never thought about what the would feel like for a child in care. This increase my self esteem as I recognised I was an important voice and that my experiences, feelings and thought mattered and made a difference.

 

As I moved up to my Middle School I had another big shift that made me grow in confidence. I was the only on from my primary school who went to Swanage Middle School. Having had a secure base with friends and going to a small school where I knew pretty much everyone, I left to go to a school where I wasn’t sure if I’d know anyone in my year. As it turned out I did know a couple of girls on my class and soon ended up with a big gang of friends which were adopted by some of the girls from the top year. It took me a little while to settle on some best friends and that gave me security and a place I felt I could develop my confidence. I always felt fairly popular and had lots of boyfriends and friends. I wasn’t part of the trendy crowd, I was a bit more alternative and liked to feel like I was an individual and not just like everyone else. 

 

It was at middle school my form tutor Miss Baines introduced the idea of having a secret diary. We would get time to write in it in class and she would read our writings. I really enjoyed writing about my day and it was something I carried with me throughout my teenage years and still use occasionally. I think the use of a diary helped me to explore my self and work through insecurities I had in a private space. It helped me to become reflective and to learn from the past. Although reading back on my diaries can be a bit embarrassing it is really interesting to be able to map my development and where my self esteem grows and where it fades. Here are two excerpts that show just this type of movement. 

 

On the 13/11/96 I wrote in my diary when trying to work out why my friends cared so much “I don’t know why they think I’m so wonderful – I don’t get it at all”

 

But by 13/6/97 I say ““Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds” Albert Einstein. I am both a great and a free spirit I believe this about myself and have faced opposition through out my life. But I believe I have a strength which will always rise up against it”

 

(The accurate Einstein quote is actually 

 

‘Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.’ 

    

Albert Einstein, quoted in New York Times, March 19, 1940

However I will leave the original as this is the quote I used in my diary.)

 

I also had a strong faith through out my teenage years. This also helped me to be reflective and to try to live my life in a way I believed God wanted me to. I spent a lot of my time praying and studying the Bible when I was a teenager both on my own and in groups. I think church is another space I felt confident I was taken seriously. On my 13th birthday I had a believers baptism, it is where you stand up in a pool of water and get dunked backwards under the water by the minister. I felt really strongly I wanted to make sure everyone knew I was a Christian. I had been to a Christian Camp for a week when I was 11 called New Wine and made me feel I needed to make sure people knew I was a Christian. I think this gave me a confidence to talk to people about what I believed in. It also gave me a security that I believed God loved me and that was the most important thing in my life so I felt very confident in who I was. However, the other side of Christianity is that you often feel a lot of guilt and a lot of my diaries are filled up with concerns about whether I had sinned and upset God and whether I was living my life as God wanted me to. I often lost my confidence at these times and would give myself a hard time even though my expectations were incredibly high for myself.

 

My Christian friends Tamsin and Susie used to send me to go and talk to people who were aggressive about Christianity. I remember one afternoon on the sixth form concourse, Tamsin and Susie had run to get me to talk to one of the boys in the above. Pete had short hair and was renowned for being very opinionated and tearing strips off people if he didn’t agree with what they were saying. I always felt very comfortable talking to anyone about my beliefs, I was very self assured and confident in what I believed in. I sat down and had a really interesting talk with Pete and we both left agreeing to disagree but both respecting the other persons opinion. 

 

I suppose part of my confidence came because I worked hard to understand things and read a lot about subjects I was interested in. I was also very reflective and people rarely came up with arguments I’d not already explored before on my own. This helped me to feel confident when talking to people and present my self as very self assured.

 

As I got older my friends started to be more important to me than my family and I started to gain affirmation from friends. I continued to be part of a more alternative crowd. I think we were seen as a bit of an odd group, but I really enjoyed expressing myself in a way that I felt comfortable, wearing ‘hippy’ or ‘grunger’ clothes and listening to grunge music. People used to tease us but I felt confident to argue back and felt pleased to be different from the main stream. 

 

I did reflect in a piece of writing I did in October 1994 when I was 15 for English GCSE course work that I felt it was important for me to have my own space. I said ‘I have good friends and we spend a lot of time talking. Sometimes about unimportant things, but often about deep things about our hurts, fears and theories on life. But even that isn’t a complete escape because I am easily led when it comes to people’s opinions.’ My teacher has written on the side ‘I can’t believe that!’ I think it shows I felt much more fragile than I appeared on the outside. I was always externally very confident but held a lot of doubts on the inside about whether that was really who I was and what I thought.

 

I think being reflective increased my confidence and self esteem. It made me grapple with who I was and what I liked and didn’t like about myself and how to resolve those conflicts. However, it also made me spend a lot of time analysing everything I did, so nothing was ever just something that happened. I would look for the inner meaning and what I had done and often give myself a hard time. It is often said that your worst critic is yourself. Without this awareness and honing of myself I doubt I would know myself as well or like myself as much as I do today.

 

I think the best thing for my self esteem was my first serious boyfriend. Tom taught me to be kind to myself, to like myself and to appreciate myself. He showed me why he loved me and taught me to love those things as well. It took a long time but we spent a lot of time together and he was very patient with me.   I think Tom and I were very honest with each other about how we felt and that let him realise what things I wasn’t confident about and the things I didn’t like about myself. This allowed him to help me see myself in a more positive light. If I had of hidden those feelings about myself I would never have addressed them and I don’t think I would have loved myself as I do now. My own reflections were often to harsh and didn’t lead to me loving myself.

 

A number of other people in my life helped me to achieve a loving relationship with myself. The joy and energy I describe in my diary every time I see my Aunt Sabina and my cousin Annetta is really strong. The quote on the 13/7/97 was written after conversations with Annetta and Sabina. On the 14/6/97 I write

 

‘I am at Annetta’s and the sense of freedom and calmness is so strong … I can feel myself emerging again after such a long time being held down. It is a wonderful feeling.’

 

For me my Aunt and cousin held and continue to hold a space where I can be true to myself. We create a loving energy where we can discuss anything and it builds a connection with each other and develops a space of it’s own. I drew a picture on the 9/7/09 when I was travelling on a train from Malaga to Hendaye to explain how this felt called Conscious Conversations which is below:

 

 

 

 

The note I wrote on the back says ‘inspired by the Celestine Prophecy – the 8th insight. I found this summary of the 8th Insight by Laura Bryannan:

 

‘All the answers that mysteriously come to us really come from other people. 

1. Not all the people you meet will have the energy or the clarity to reveal the message they have for you. 

2. You must help them by sending them energy; consciously projecting energy into a person helps them see their truth. They can then give this truth to you. 

     • We must hone this interpersonal ethic and treat others in such a way that more messages are shared. This insight is about using energy in a new way when relating to people in general’

 

And then

 

‘Consciously interacting in a group: 

1. As the members of a group talk, only one will have the most powerful idea at any one point in time. 

2. If they are alert, the others in the group can feel who is about to speak, and then they can consciously focus their energy on this person, helping to bring out their idea with the greatest clarity. 

3. Then, as the conversation proceeds, someone else will have the most powerful idea, then someone else, etc. 

4. If you concentrate on what is being said, you can feel when it is your turn; the idea will come up into your mind. 

5. The key is to speak up when it is your turn and to project energy when it is someone else's turn. 

6. Some people get inflated when in a group: they feel the power of an idea and express it, then because the energy feels so good, they keep on talking, long after the energy should have shifted to someone else. 

7. Others are pulled back and won't risk expressing an idea, even when they feel the power of it. When this happens, the group fragments and the members don't get the benefit of all the messages. The same thing happens when some members of the group are not accepted by some of the others. 

     o When we dislike someone, or feel threatened by someone, we tend to focus on something we dislike about the person. 

     o When we do this, instead of seeing the deeper beauty of the person and giving them energy, we take energy away and actually do them harm. 

     o Humans are aging each other at a tremendous rate with these kinds of violent competitions.’

 

I experience this feeling of inflation and energy when I am in a group that is ‘in tune’ with each other or in a conversation with just me and another person all the time. I felt this drawing really drew out this sense of loving energy that is exciting and creative which these conversations pool. I feel it is in these places that I have unlocked much of my confidence and self esteem. 

 

The Celestine Prophecy had a big influence on me to find a transition from Christianity into a new more open philosophy. It also enhanced and helped me to make sense of the influence Tom had on me. However, it enabled me to take ownership of the new view I had of myself as a wonderful, exciting person. It enabled me not just to love him but to love myself.

Although it crushed part of me for a long time losing Tom, I was able to mourn the loss of our love but did not lose the love for myself. I remember making a decision to pursue  my next boyfriend, Jules, and decided to invite him back to my house. I remember him saying to me that he was amazed that I had such confidence and that I hadn’t considered he might say no. It was true I hadn’t considered this. Even though it had been Tom who had stopped loving me, he had not stopped me loving myself. He had left me with a great gift. Perhaps it is because Tom had a great sense of love for himself that he was able to give me this gift or perhaps that he had loved me so deeply. I expect it is a mixture of both.

 

Jules did not share this confidence or this love of himself to any where near the same level as Tom and throughout the relationship this shook some of my confidence. However, I had a strong foundation that had been laid and I was able to challenge when his insecurities tried to rock my self esteem and the belief I had in what I could achieve. This meant that I still achieved everything I would have wanted to regardless. 

I am very proud of the 2:1 I got at university as it was not an easy feat and I had to work to finance my studies all the way through. Although I recognise my intelligence, I do not find things come naturally to me but that I have to work hard at them. The pride in my achievement has also increased my confidence. At every new challenge we meet and succeed at our confidence is raised and this was certainly one of those challenges. It gave me a confidence to take into the work place.

 

When it came to my first career job as a Intensive Connexions Personal Adviser with 16-19 year old young people not in education and employment I felt confident to take on the challenge. I had a supportive team at The After Care Team and an excellent manager who built my confidence and supported me to work out how to move forward with the complex case load I had. Each young person I worked with had a so many barriers and challenges and many of them had been written off by every other professional that worked with them. I felt confident in my values and this drove me to continue supporting and believing in them when nobody else did. This sometimes was successful and sometimes it was incredibly frustrating. However, I hold the hope that I will be a person in those young peoples lives that they can always have that believed in them.

 

I loved my job with Connexions and loved the young people I worked with. I found in each one of them something that was wonderful despite the often violent and destructive actions they displayed. I felt very confident that I was good at my job. However, confidence does not always increase and when a new manager came to the team the support I had received disappeared. I began to question whether I was really good at my job. It felt as if the self esteem of the team was slowly being chipped away by the new manager. At the time I was very inexperienced and assumed it was something I was doing and hence my confidence began to fade. A great team member and friend Tony helped me through these concerns. He was a black man with Caribbean heritage who seemed ageless but must have been in his forties as his children were in their late teens and early twenties. He had the biggest grin and most infectious laugh of anyone I have ever met and just his presence would light up a room. One day I discussed my doubts with him and he assured me that I was a good practitioner but explained that some people can try to take our confidence away and it is up to us to hold on to it. He also said that sometimes we need to leave to protect ourselves. I did decide to leave this job after much heart ache and soul searching. In the end it came down to not being able to live my values as the new manager valued keeping the budget in check more than he valued the young people we worked with. I felt I couldn’t be true to values under this leadership and so in the end I left confident of who I was despite the destructive influence of the manager.

 

At this time I had begun a new relationship with Ben and he was also a great support to me making these decisions. Unlike Tom he was quite insecure and had a negative image of himself but unlike Jules he believed in me completely and supported me and continues to support me in everything I do. He always believes I can do it and has absolute confidence in me. In our relationship I have taken the role Tom had with me to try to reflect why I love him so much to help him to love himself.

 

I think this is an important area I am just learning about and it is something I realise I can bring to my work. I have continued to love my work and continued to be confident in my values and my abilities as a professional. I took a six month maternity cover post with the Youth Offending Team and co-ordinated the Mentoring Project. I had another great manager Griff he had a bald head and always wore a black leather jacket. He was a musician and had a really husky voice. He would also always be chewing nicotine gum. He had successfully given up smoking but had become addicted to the gum but he felt this was a worthwhile trade off. Griff lived his values and although he was a manager he was not driven by target, paperwork or budgets but by improving outcomes for young people. He believed in restorative justice and lived this through his work. Griff also made me believe I could achieve anything.

 

As the job was a maternity cover I had to almost immediately look for a new job. I went to an interview with the Youth Offending Team as a Court Worker. In the interview the subject came up about how much I would be paid. This has never been the motivation for me to work and I was embarrassed to discuss it at the interview. However, the discussion filled me with indignation. It was with great embarrassment the interview panel, many of whom I knew and respected,  explained that the personnel department would not accept my qualifications which were now academic and vocational as I had completed a professional Connexions Personal Adviser qualification with University West of England. It meant about a £5000 pay cut. I was upset about the money as it would make it difficult to support my expenses as my brother had just come to live with Ben & I and Ben was struggling to find permanent work, however I felt it was a personal insult to my achievements and experience. 

 

It spurred me to go home and write an application for the Young Carers Manager job I had originally decided not to apply for because I wasn’t confident enough that I had enough experience to take on a management role. It turned out to be the best decision I could have made as I was able to do a presentation that demonstrated my values and I was offered the job.

 

I remember a former colleague Debbie, who was a beautiful brunette with curly hair and took over the other half of the county from me when I was a Connexions Personal Adviser, talking to me about my new role as Young Carers Manager. She asked if I was worried about being able to be a manager and said she’d be too scared to do it. Although I was worried about having enough experience, I was extremely confident in my ability to do the job well. Again my strong value base gave me the confidence that I would be able to do the job and having worked with Griff who had limited IT skills, was disorganised and his paperwork was a nightmare, showed me that to be a good manager is to have strong values. I felt that everything else I would learn over time and that has been the case.

 

It is still the job I am doing now and I continue to love the job and the children and young people I work with. I have worked with over 200 young carers over the last 4 years and they continue to inspire and amaze me. I feel a great privilege to work in the job I do and I continue to grow in confidence in what I am doing and as I grow in confidence I am able to lovingly bring out the confidence in the young carers I work with.

 

I have recently started attending Conversation Café on a Thursday morning and Masters Classes on a Tuesday night with Jack Whitehead Professor of Education at Bath University and Marie Huxtable whom I talked about in my introduction. It has brought me back to the pooling of a loving energy that takes place in a conversation with a group of like minded people. This has again increased my confidence personally but also that great changes can be made where conversations are held that discuss the shared values people hold regardless of profession. I feel the need for a growth in confidence beyond myself and that can impact our local area and beyond. I hope by writing this it will begin sparking the readers excitement about being a change maker and increase the confidence of those people who feel their stories are insignificant or that they can’t make a difference. I have come to love myself, what I do and who I am. I am not perfect by any means but if I waited for perfection I would never do anything. If we can have a confidence despite our imperfections then we can achieve change for the better great and small. The more we speak out about it the more we have influence.