Welcome back, my loves! I’m very, very, very excited for this post, because I have invited the beautiful Victoria Alario on to talk all things confidence today. Before we get into it, let me start by introducing Victoria!

Victoria is a multi-passionate and multi-faceted entrepreneur with a focus on helping women start living with confidence and step into their 2.0 selves. What started as a social media hobby with fashion blogging turned into a highly successful career in online entrepreneurship.

She’s a confidence coach, the host of For The Girls podcast (which you guys should definitely check out), and founder and CEO of Vicsen The Label, a newly launched feminine clothing and lingerie brand. Her work helps women build their self-esteem, embrace their purpose, and get everything they want out of life, which we love here at Unf*ck Your Relationships.

She’s known for telling it like it is, keeping it real, and pushing you out of your comfort zone to raise the bar. (Sound familiar? Definitely on brand here!) I can’t wait for you all to hear from her, because if I vibed this hard with her, I know you all will, too. Let’s get started.

Single, Sober, and Celibate

Michelle: So, Victoria, one thing you said that stood out to me when you reached out initially was that you have been single and celibate since April 2021, and I love that. I think everyone has this perception that I’m like, “You guys should be dating all of the time.” Bitch, if you want to be single and you’re enjoying your life like that, soak it up! Enjoy it! It’s not for everyone, but that doesn’t mean it’s not for you. Anyway, I’m really curious as to what celibacy means to you, Victoria. I’ve done stints of intentional celibacy in the past, about six months at a time, during periods where I just felt that I needed a break. I needed to make space for intentional time alone to heal myself and work on myself. I didn’t set a date when that period ended or anything; I just waited until I felt in my body that I was ready to begin again. For me, those periods meant no sex, no dating, and not even entertaining dating apps. I really wanted to focus on my own healing. But what does celibacy mean to you? What does that look like?

Victoria: I’ll give you the backstory first. You hit the nail in the head when you said that you don’t set a firm timeframe or anything like that. Part of living with confidence is knowing how to feel when you’re ready to get back in. I think there are levels of readiness that come and go, and for me, it just recently started coming back.

So from April of 2021 to some point this summer, I was totally celibate, including no kissing. That was over a year of not even having kissed a guy, even if I went on a date. I wasn’t celibate from that—I was still going on dates. I was just treating it very platonically; I looked at it as getting to know people. I’d even go so far as to call it networking. I just told myself that if it was meant to be, it would be, but I wasn’t seeing everything as potentially romantic.

So I was kind of dating, but with zero sense of anything further than just the date. There was no kiss, no nothing. And on top of that, I was also completely sober during that period of time. I didn’t have a stitch of alcohol, which helps a lot in this process, because alcohol is so toxic. We become a different version of ourselves when we’re drunk; more confident, maybe, but living with confidence that’s falsified isn’t what we’re going for. Even when I was traveling, when I went to Italy and Vegas and all different places, I didn’t drink the local wine or the fancy cocktails or anything.

In the past couple of months, I definitely loosened up a little bit as far as drinking goes. I finally felt that level of readiness again. I wanted to go out and let myself get a little tipsy and have a little fun. And beyond that, I’ve very recently had a little kiss or two, but that’s as far as that went. I’m still celibate as far as anything beyond kissing.

Now, I’m not waiting until marriage. I’m not waiting until a certain time stamp, but if I wouldn’t even consider marrying you, then I wouldn’t get into a relationship with you. And if I wouldn’t get into a relationship with you, then I wouldn’t have sex with you or anything of the sort. That’s what my commitment is: I’m not having sex unless I’m in a relationship.  

So that’s where I am now. I’ll be going on two years soon enough, and it’s been great for me.

Trusting Yourself

Michelle: I love this. I want to circle back to what you just talked about, how you began to feel like you couldn’t kiss someone even if you wanted to. I’ve certainly felt that in myself, that feeling of wanting to hit a certain milestone and wanting to prove to myself I can resist, even if I don’t want to. And for me, I actually realized that was a situation where I was not fully trusting myself. I didn’t trust that I could just kiss someone and stop there, or that I could just have one drink and not continue.

Those hard lines might be beneficial in the beginning, because you’re trying to break a behavior or habit, and that’s difficult without some firm lines. But once you get past that point, you have to learn to trust yourself. You can realize that you can do this one thing you want and still stand true to your values and boundaries.

Victoria: Right. I’m a firm believer that no one knows you better than you know yourself. You know your own limits, and living with confidence means trusting yourself to stick to them. Through my coaching program and even on my social media pages, I see a lot of girls that don’t even really know themselves. They don’t really know what they want, and they don’t even trust themselves, which is a huge hindrance to living with confidence.

Of course, we all go through moments like that. I didn’t wake up one day and say “Hey, I am now the 2.0 version of me.” I feel like I’m there now, but there were times where I wasn’t living with confidence. I didn’t fully trust myself. It got to a toxic point where I realized that this situation was no longer serving me, but I kept telling myself that was too bad, because I made a commitment that I wasn’t going to do this thing or that thing.

There are levels below that toxic place. While living with confidence, you can still stay true to what you want and what you’ve committed to, but you don’t have to be that controlling over it. If it doesn’t feel good, part of living with confidence means allowing yourself to change it up. You should feel good about every single decision that you make. You should make decisions because you want to, not because you have to.

Getting Comfy in Your Skin

Michelle: So I know that you’re practicing celibacy, but I actually have another question surrounding this. Without that factor involved, what do you do to stay radiant and magnetic in life? How do you keep living with confidence in that situation?

Victoria: Well, for starters, I actually find that I’ve become much more powerful since making this commitment to celibacy. Prior to being celibate, if I would date or meet guys out, I always had these worries stewing subconsciously in the back of my head. Should I accept if they invite me to their house? Should I invite them to mine? Is he going to make a move? Does he think we’re going to have sex? When you have a subconscious thought process happening in the back of your head, it takes you out of being super present and enjoying the moment, and that can sabotage your ability to keep living with confidence.

You might be listening to a conversation, but you’re also internalizing certain thoughts, which already decreases your magnetic abilities. I find that since I’ve committed to celibacy, the commitment to celibacy isn’t only physical, it’s also internal. I don’t even think about sex when I go out or when I meet guys or when I go on dates.

Because of that, I start to treat guys more like friends rather than someone that I could potentially have sex with. And I find that when I’m my friendlier self, I’m a much flirtier version of myself. I’m way more magnetic because I’m way more comfortable in my own skin. I’m living with confidence knowing that no matter what, nothing else is going to happen.

It doesn’t fucking matter what they think about me, because nothing is going come out of this. Nothing is going to happen beyond the flirt. And if he really likes me all that much, then he’ll ask me out. It’ll be fine. I find that I’m much more effortlessly me by having this commitment because I don’t have any lingering thoughts or worries about the potential of sex.

The 2.0 Version of You

Michelle: So, you’re talking about living with confidence as this 2.0 version of you, which I love. What inspired you to make this decision in the first place? Was there a 1.0 version of you that wasn’t living with confidence that made you realize you needed to do some work?

Victoria: Well, firstly, looking at my life today, everything that I have right now is truly the version of myself that I used to dream about being. I’m very humble in the way that I operate and do things while also remaining very aware of my accomplishments and very aware of my growth.

Obviously I’m a confidence coach, and I’m a big believer in owning your shit and living with confidence in who you are. I’m able to confidently say that yes, there is a 2.0 version of me, and I’m being her right now. But there is also a 3.0 version of me that I haven’t become yet.

For a lot of girls, their goal is to be the 2.0 version, and I’m there now, so I know I can help them get there.

I made that happen. I’m proud of myself. I’m living with confidence. I’m very sure of myself. And yeah, there’s still growth. Of course there is. No one’s ever perfect. I can be totally proud of where I’m at and still acknowledge that there’s more growth to do.

Still, I’m living with confidence like never before. I am able to tell people no. I could look a guy right in the face and say, “Fuck no.” I wasn’t always living with confidence like that; I was a definite people pleaser when it came to guys at certain stages of my life. It takes a lot of work to get to a place where you’re so content in who you are that you can say that even if you never find your person in this lifetime, it doesn’t matter, because you’re whole as yourself.

For me, as much as I deeply desired to find my person, I still got myself to a place of living with confidence and contentment. I have it all for myself, and there’s even still more. I’m still working toward my 3.0 self, but I know I can get there.

Living With Confidence

I loved having Victoria on as a guest, and I hope you learned a lot about living with confidence from her today. If you want to listen to the full interview, you can find Episode 71 of Unf*ck Your Relationships on your favorite podcast streaming platform!

Be sure to connect with me over on Instagram. I’d love to hear what you thought of this post and what your major takeaways were. Or head over to my website to learn more about how we can work through your relationship journey together.

Are you ready to get off the hamster wheel of going on date after date that goes absolutely nowhere and learn how to date with confidence and clarity? Sign up for Swipe Right, a six-week program for women who want to date like motherfucking queens: https://michellepanning.com/swipe-right 

Love what you’ve heard from Victoria? You can connect with her on Instagram here:

Main Instagram: @victoria.alario

For the Girls Podcast Instagram: @forthegirls.podast

Check out Vicsen The Label, Victoria’s elegant, enhanced lingerie line: @vicsenthelabel