Welcome back, loves. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking about building uncircumstantial confidence; confidence that is based on the internal, not the external.

It’s not based on what makeup you’re wearing, what clothes you’re wearing, what you look like, your weight, your relationship status, your bank account, any of those things.

But today, I actually want to talk about the opposite: I want to talk about external confidence, because I’ve been seeing a lot of judgment around women or people in general who choose to undergo different procedures to change something about their looks.

That could mean plastic surgery of any sort, Botox, hair extensions…name your thing.

Judgement Day

This came up because I had a conversation with a private client months and months ago about this. She was judging a guy that she had gone on a date with for getting a nose job.

We unpacked it, and it was such a fucking good conversation, because…first of all, why do we judge men for doing things to alter their appearance, but not women? Women can wear makeup and false lashes and hair extensions and all the things, but if a man’s doing anything to change his appearance, he’s so insecure. He’s such a loser. His self-worth must be in the toilet.

Why are we equating those two things? I don’t think they even go together.

The Result of Circumstantial Confidence

When I speak about having uncircumstantial confidence, I don’t mean that you can’t take pride in your physical appearance…or, on the other end of the spectrum, want to change things about your physical appearance.

I see so much judgment directed at women for getting plastic surgery, or getting lash extensions, or hair extensions, or Botox, or whatever it is, and I just think…why?

One, why are we still policing women’s bodies? It’s 2023, have we not transcended that yet? Maybe we have some more shadow work to do around that, yeah?

So, here’s why this judgement comes out: when your confidence is circumstantial, you’re going to be triggered around doing things to your body or your physical appearance either way.

You’re either going to feel a compulsion to keep changing your appearance, or you’re going to feel an aversion to changing your appearance. You’re either going to think, “I have to do this in order to be confident,” or you’re going to leap to the other end of the spectrum and think, “Ugh, anyone who gets plastic surgery or gets Botox or fake tans or bleaches their hair is fake, and they have low self-worth, and they’re so insecure.”

In both of those instances, whether you have a compulsion for changing your appearance or you have an aversion to changing your appearance, it’s because you’ve tied your external to your self-worth.

Whether you’re in the camp of “I have to have fake boobs and the perfect body and be tanned and have perfect skin and have Botox and have all of these things, and then I can love myself,” or you’re in the opposite camp of, “Well, I’m totally natural, and I would never even so much as pluck my fucking eyebrows because like that would be changing myself,” it’s still coming from a reactionary state.

The person who is “natural” is not superior to the person who is doing the most to try to attain a certain aesthetic.

If you’re the one who’s “natural,” you can get off your fucking high horse and stop judging people who do those things. And if you’re the one changing your appearance to attain a certain aesthetic, you can stop judging the person who isn’t and thinking they don’t take pride in their physical appearance. Just let people fucking live.

Explant to Implant

The other thing that sparked this topic for me is that I just paid to get my titties done.

I shared about my explant surgery some time ago, and when I came out of it, I had a bit of a complication. One of my nipples ended up a little wonky, and it has not improved, even though I’ve been doing the things that they told me to do. On top of that, I’m just finding myself really missing the upper fullness in my boobs.

So I’ve been thinking for a while that I want to get them redone. But I kept stopping and going, “Oh, but is that a lack of self-love? What are people going to think about you changing your appearance? Are people going to be like, “Michelle, you just got them out,” or will they be cool about it?”

By the way, I didn’t get them out because I was having symptoms of breast implant illness.I had zero symptoms. Nothing has changed since I got them out, and I didn’t get them out because I was unhappy with them. I got them out because I had a rupture and I had to make a decision very, very quickly, and that’s the decision that worked for me at the time.

But shortly after, I really wanted to get them done again.

I started kind of going down this rabbit hole of, “Oh, but you teach self-love, Michelle. You teach self-worth. You teach uncircumstantial confidence. What is it going to mean if you’re changing your appearance?”

The answer? It doesn’t mean shit. It just means that I like a certain aesthetic, and I want big titties, and that’s the end of that.

I decided that I wasn’t going to make it something that it wasn’t. I wasn’t going to make it mean anything about me.

Get to the Root

So, the question that I asked myself, and the question that I would suggest you ask yourself…where is this decision about changing your appearance coming from?

If you’re feeling embarrassed or insecure about something, and then you get a nose job or whatever, and you feel fucking amazing after…great! I love that for you. Fantastic.

But for me, I wasn’t coming from a space of being embarrassed about my boobs. It’s not from a place of insecurity. It’s from a space of pure desire.

This what I want you to think of when you’re changing your appearance, whether it’s the Botox, the tanning, the nails, the lash extensions, whatever.

Is changing your appearance coming from a space of not being happy without the thing you’re doing, or is it coming from a space of loving that thing?

Now, this is not a conversation around whether plastic surgery, Botox, hair extensions, or any method of changing your appearance is right or wrong. It’s your body, do whatever the fuck you want.

What I care about is, does the internal match the external? Because if you are not happy with the internal, and you think that changing your appearance by getting your boobs done, getting a nose job, getting Botox, getting tanned, getting acrylic nails, whatever, is going to fix it, I can guarantee you that it’s not.

I’m obviously not a fucking surgeon, but I would say that if you’re wanting plastic surgery, make sure it’s coming from a space of desire and not from a space of wanting to run away from yourself.

Main Character Confidence

If my confidence was circumstantial, I probably wouldn’t be getting my boobs done, because I’d be telling myself, “I’m a coach, and that seems out of integrity for me to do that.” But no. Fuck that. That doesn’t make sense at all, because my confidence is uncircumstantial, meaning I do whatever the fuck I want to do.

I don’t worry about what other people are going to think about it when it’s not going to affect them. Me getting my boobs done is not going to affect anybody else…except my partner, who is probably going to hate his life for the first couple of weeks while I’m recovering. But for the most part, it truly doesn’t affect anyone, so if you want the hair extensions, if you want to get Botox, if you want to get filler…do it. If you want to do none of it, don’t.

You’re the main character. You decide how the plot goes. You decide how the story unfolds. It’s no one else’s story but yours. So if this is the permission slip that you need to be able to do whatever you want to do, which could be everything or nothing…consider it okayed by me.

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