Learning to Trust Myself Again

When you know what it's like to be disciplined, to work hard and reach your goals, but then watch it all slowly unfold in front of you, it changes you. You become someone you don't recognize. Someone you're embarrassed to show the world because you're not proud of her or who she has become. Someone who doesn't feel worthy of love or appreciation. It creates a thought pattern in your mind that leads to heartache and self-sabotage.

This is a pain I’ve been dealing with for the past year and a half. It has taken a toll on my self-esteem and confidence. I don’t like the way it feels, and I hate the way I live in my own head.

I have a dream of becoming someone who is confident again and capable of so much more than this. And the thing is, I have done this before. It wasn’t easy. There were definitely blood, sweat, and tears involved. But it created a woman that I was proud to be. Someone who radiated confidence, pride, and joy. She had goals and didn’t look for outside validation. The only opinion that mattered was hers.

I often lie in bed at night reliving the life of the woman I used to be before life hurt her and shook her to her core. I imagine what my life would look like if I were still her. But then I realized something. She still had room for growth.

For one opinion to shake her world and make her feel like she no longer had control of her life, to the point that she had to sabotage herself just to feel loved, is not the woman I ultimately want to be. When I reflect on it now, I can see that she is closer to the woman I want to be than who I am today, and she still lives inside of me.

I can grow back into her and help her become an even stronger woman. And that is what this project is for. Project Starr is about becoming the woman I once knew and helping her grow stronger and shine brighter than ever before.

When I look back at how it all started, I was focused on three simple things: my relationship with God, sticking to my diet, and moving my body.

So if I’m starting again, this is where I will begin, because I know these things work and they are exactly what I need most in my life right now.

So what’s the plan? I’ve done my research and I’m choosing to follow a way of eating that I believe is the healthiest and most optimal for my body. I’m not doing it out of restriction, but out of love for my body and the desire for it to feel and move the best it possibly can for as long as I can.

I will be following a strict carnivore diet. I’ve done this before and have followed it on and off for the last year and a half. When I’m consistent with it, I feel like a superhuman and like nothing in the world can stop me.

What is stopping me right now isn’t the diet. It’s something she lacked and something I want to work on: emotional maturity. I often turn to food for emotional support because I feel like I can no longer turn to the people I once trusted after being hurt by them.

But someone who is emotionally mature can withstand the blows of others and still lean on herself for support.

This is where God comes in. My relationship with Him has become complicated when it shouldn’t be. I grew up very religious, going to church every Sunday, reading my scriptures, and saying my prayers. But as I got older, I started seeing how people can twist the words of God for personal gain and still call it church.

When I realized that, I felt crushed. I had devoted so much of my life to something that suddenly felt manipulated and distorted.

Now I sometimes feel like I don’t know who God truly is. I don’t know what is truth and what is man-made. But I do know this: there is a God who loves me and wants me to know Him.

And the only way to know Him is to learn about Him. When I learn about Him, His light will begin to shine in me again. Through that light I can learn to love Him and love myself again. Love myself enough to lean on God when the world fails me.

And finally, movement. Our bodies are made to move and are capable of incredible things.

But when I get stuck in my own head, I hide. I sit in a dark room lit by synthetic blue light and scroll endlessly on my phone. It feels good in the moment, but when I’m done I realize I’ve wasted an entire day, a beautiful day that had so much potential, lying in bed watching things I will never use or need.

I love walking outside in the sun. I love stretching my body and giving it the release it needs. I love going to the gym and pushing myself.

Or at least I did before I allowed my own thoughts to consume me. But I know I can find that love for it again by pushing through this phase of slothful energy that has taken over my mind.

So I have created a plan: three small check marks that I can complete every day. The check marks may be small, but the habits behind them will not be easy to rebuild. But nothing worth having ever comes easy.

Here is what I’m committing to.

Read the Bible every morning.
Follow my daily meal plan.
Walk 5 miles every day.

These three habits will help kick start the journey back to the woman I want to become.

It’s going to be long and difficult, but the time is going to pass anyway.

So why stay here when I know I can be and do so much more?

— Allison Starr
The Starr Project