How to improve self-confidence through sensuality

I want to start by validating your feelings, having low self-confidence is very common, it happens to us all. I’d like to normalise your feelings and give you some valuable information that can hopefully help empower you to understand self-confidence and how you can build it. 

Low self-confidence can manifest in many forms, whether that be in body-confidence, a lack of self-confidence when in public or when walking into a busy room full of people, and many more. 

Confidence is built and nurtured over time, the more we say yes to our impulses and intuition. Self-confidence is within, it’s a feeling. It’s not a look, a dress, a face of makeup, it’s a state of being. Which can fluctuate.

We all have dips in our self-confidence and days where we may experience more self-doubt and be more self-critical. Listen in to your body and take care to nurture yourself in those moments of low self-confidence. 

It’s okay to feel confident, sexy and vibrant one day then less confident, lower and more subdued the next, we are multi-faceted human beings. 

Allow the emotions to pass, it doesn’t need to mean you aren’t a confident person. It’s a temporary feeling so try not to attach a meaning to these feelings. The word emotion means energy in motion. So, allow yourself to feel the negative emotion (energy) and allow it to flow and pass through your body. 

Awareness of your body can be cultivated through sensuality.

Sensuality is purely the expression of enjoying something through our senses. 

Our five senses are:

Taste

Touch

Smell

Sight

Sound

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So how can we adopt sensuality into our daily lives?

In the shower in the morning, instead of scrubbing your hair frantically, can you slow it down, massage your shampoo & conditioner in sensually and take note of how it feels on your scalp and what it smells like.

I highly recommend taking time to moisturise your body after you shower. When doing so, softly and gently rub in the moisturiser, caressing your skin. Take time, touch your skin, look at your hands massaging it into your body.

How can we normalise touching ourselves, sensually?

I’d like to acknowledge that in our society (generally speaking) touching yourself means masturbating. So it’s no fault of anyone for thinking the same.

‘Touching yourself’ is a colloquial and more palatable term for masturbating/wanking. 

And how dare we discuss masturbation, so of course, we had to find a more digestible and acceptable phrase to explain when we touch ‘down there’ 

However, for this article, my focus is on non-sexual touch.

A lot of us are so disconnected from our own bodies that even touching them feels weird, awkward and creepy. But it’s not.

We so happily rub our partners shoulders, give them massages, touch our friends’/families arms and backs as a sign of affection. So why can’t we show our own skin the same affection?

Self-touch is a huge part of self-soothing. When I’m stressed, I put my hand on my chest to try regulate and slow down my breath. When I feel bloated after food, or on my period, I rub and place my hands on my lower tummy. If I’m feeling nervous I notice myself stroking my arm to self-soothe. 

These are all beautiful acts of kindness to ourselves. The mind-body connection is so powerful. If you feel stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, what’s the most common piece of advice you’d be given? 

BREATHE!

And that’s because by focusing on your breath and slowing down your heart rate, your body will calm down and it will come out of that heightened stress response and into what’s called the relaxation response.

So of course, we all need to breathe but why don’t you try this as well. 

When you notice you’re stressed (and good luck for getting this far, the first step is self-awareness and if you can recognise when you are stressed you’re in a much better position to get yourself to a more relaxed state)…

Can you gently touch your opposite hand, lightly stroke your arm, rub your legs, anything that brings your awareness into your body. It doesn’t need to be huge movements, or for a prolonged period of time. Especially if you’re at work or around people, you may not want to bring attention to yourself if you’re just starting off on this journey of connecting to your body. So small subtle strokes that tell your body, you’re safe and you’re comforting yourself. We so often look to others to soothe us, but how can you soothe yourself in future?

Self-awareness is key to developing self-confidence. Being aware of your thoughts and how they make you feel can lead to a deeper understanding of yourself and take you on a journey of self-discovery.

I hope this has helped cultivate a deeper connection with yourself and by practising, over time, through repetition self-confidence can grow. 

Thank you for taking the time to read.

The Wellness Studio

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