The Women Who Built Me

We have all heard about breakthrough moments. Perhaps a conversation that changes everything, or a major decision that sends your life in a new direction. Maybe a single day when suddenly you see yourself differently. Perhaps an epiphany, where it all finally makes sense and something clicks. I wish I could tell you that happened to me, but it didn’t. My confidence didn’t arrive all at once. It accumulated slowly, like sand filling an hourglass. Almost undetectable while it was building, until there was so much that it began to spill over.

Looking back now, I can see it, though I couldn’t recognize it as I was living in the moments that built it. Every few years, a story I believed about myself faded away. Not in a dramatic fashion. It was just life doing what it always does, teaching me, stretching me, and changing me before I even realized it.

For years, I thought the weight was the problem.

Now I realize the shame was heavier.

I judged myself long before I imagined anyone else was judging me. I believed, deep down, my weight was a weakness, and because of that, I assumed everyone else could see it too. I carried that story everywhere I went like a fifty-pound weight on my back.

When I eventually lost more than one hundred pounds, I didn’t just leave behind a number on the scale.

I also left behind one of the loudest voices telling me who I couldn’t be. Losing weight didn’t suddenly make me confident. It just gave me enough space to start seeing myself in a new way. A way that I could always see glimmers of but couldn’t fully materialize. After the weight loss, life kept showing me proof that I actually could.

Riding the wave of my newfound confidence, I enrolled in graduate school in midlife. Twenty-five years after earning my last degree, I became a student again; I learned new technology, started building a business, and slowly stopped telling myself I wasn’t capable of doing things that once intimidated me. Every new experience challenged an old belief that I held about myself.

The biggest surprise was finding my voice. For years I told myself I wasn’t a public speaker. I shuddered at the thought of standing in front of others as the center of attention. Today, the idea of speaking on a podcast or in a room full of women doesn’t fill me with fear. It fills me with purpose and excitement because at some point, I realized I had something worth saying.

I used to think confidence was something people either had or they didn’t. Now I wonder if confidence is simply what grows after you’ve survived enough things you once thought would break you.

Somewhere along the way, new beliefs took the place of the old ones.

I grew to believe that nothing is unfixable.

Not because life is easy, but because life keeps reminding me that very few things are as permanent as they feel in the moment. I’ve watched my own grief soften. I’ve watched mistakes I couldn’t stop replaying become lessons I now teach from. I’ve watched fear slowly give way to courage. Living through pain, loss, grief, and heartache has given me opportunities to heal and grow after the storm passes, and to fully appreciate that strength is built in these moments.

Perhaps that’s what wisdom really is, not always knowing what to do or having every answer. But living enough life that you stop believing that the storm will destroy you, because you have lived through the storm before, and you have survived.

When I look back now, I don’t see different versions of myself. I see one woman.

The daughter.

The mother.

The psychologist.

The lifelong student.

The writer.

The woman building something she never imagined she could build.

None of them disappeared.

They are all still here within me.

They all belong to the same story and couldn’t exist without the one who came before.

Maybe that’s what becoming really means. It isn’t becoming someone new or finally arriving, but gradually outgrowing the stories that no longer fit, and trusting that there are still parts of us waiting to be discovered.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop becoming. At least, I sincerely hope I don’t.

Because if the last few decades have taught me anything, it’s this:

Wisdom doesn’t arrive all at once. It accumulates over time

And with it comes something I spent years searching for: not perfection, not certainty, just the confidence that whatever comes next, I’ll find my way.