Ask OMT!

A friend of mine (HEY!  I have them…) suggested a post idea to me that if successful, may become a regular series here at OMT!  Kinda like a grown-up version of the What I’ll Tell Sweet E series.  For now I’m calling it: Ask OMT!

Wow.  My originality exceeds nothing.  Good thing I had to name only one child.

My first thought when the idea was posed: I don’t think I’m particularly interesting, so we’ll see how this goes. Now, what happens in my life, well, that is highly amusing to me and somewhat interesting to others, but me personally, meh.

Here’s what I promise:

* I’ll answer as honestly as I can.

* I won’t sugarcoat or bs my way through the answers.

* I’ll offer this caveat: Once some things are seen, they can’t be unseen. Are y’all sure you want to know some thangs?  Yeah?  Ok…

* You’d trust this face, right?

Let’s get to it!  (that was weirdly enthusiastic)

Q (posed by many throughout my life): Where does your confidence come from?

To answer this question I need to give y’all a bit of background.  I grew up surrounded by boys, or wild dingos as I refer to them.  A pack of wild dingos in West Texas.  I wrote about it HERE.

To be surrounded by the opposite sex, in the late 60s-80s as a gal, meant I was surrounded with confidence, misplaced as it might have been at times.  Confidence begets confidence. I place a lot of my bravado at their feet.

The other well from which I drew my confidence was my father.  I spoke of his part in shaping me HERE.  To be a girl in a man’s world was tough enough, but to have a father who pushed me to believe I could DO ANYTHING made all the difference.

Finally, some of my confidence is inborn, I believe.  You know, the temperament you’re born with and all that science-y stuff.  Part of it was environment.  Part of it was and still is the sheer will of believing my way is the right way for me.  I honestly don’t know where that comes from, it’s simply innate.

I was like that as a child, as a young wife, a mom and onward to this moment, as I continue my charge into this world of unknowns.

The funny thing about confidence is that I have found it wanes when you are proven wrong, which I have been a’plenty.  Though mostly, I’m head up, reaching low and hitting hard whenever I encounter an obstacle.  For those of you who hate football, that’s known as a tackle.  When I reach that obstacle, and it’s unmovable, I just keep on moving, charging, hoping that eventually I bring the S.O.B. down.  This insistence is written in my bones.

Confidence.  I guess that’s what people see when they witness a take-down.  Like you, I want to live peaceably and will do all I can to make that happen, but when someone interferes with that, I act like a dude.  Directly.  No misunderstandings.  A solid tackle.  You’re gonna feel it.

Can you teach me?  This is a question many women have asked me.  I always answer in the affirmative. Even if you don’t feel confident, you can project confidence, which many times gets the job done.

Let me backup and say this: this is not about physical confrontation.  This is about teaching others how to treat you.  BTW: I have been saying that long before Dr. Phil bogarted the statement. Or maybe it’s a Texas thang.

Confidence let’s folks know where your line is, in any situation.

I think the trick, if there’s a trick to confidence, is honesty, which is the bugaboo of many a soul.  To be honest (and not the mean-spirited kind) is tough on the women of our culture because so many have bought into the very Southern ideal of being nice, especially at your own expense.  But honesty is freeing.  If you have a beef with someone and you approach them with the intent to clear the air, that’s gonna require the honest telling of what you feel or of what happened.  Many don’t have the constitution for this kind of hard emotion.

It makes me think to when I was around 10-years-old and there was a salesman pitching The German at the door.  She tried being polite in her rejection, she tried telling him she was busy, she tried everything her nice heart could manage, but there he stood, hounding her like an easy mark.  I watched until I couldn’t any longer.  I walked up behind her, gently tugged her away from the door, told the guy, “She said no thank you!” then proceeded to shut the door.  The German was stunned into silence and I went off to play.  Later that day she asked why I did what I did.  My answer was the truth: because you wouldn’t or couldn’t, even though you wanted to.

Truth.  Simple.  In action.

That’s confidence.  Simple truth in action.  It’s not about forcing people to do what you want; it’s about putting action to your truth.  Simple in word, hard in deed.

So there you have it.  The inaugural (and possibly last) question posed and answered in Ask OMT!  My confidence laid bare.

If you have something you’d like to ask, zip me an email or leave it in the comments and I’ll try to include it in a new post.

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