How to Live More Confidently with Rebekah Buege

The following words are for you if you struggle with confidence, or if you have struggled with confidence before...because as we know, confidence can come and go if the foundation of our self-worth is not rooted in faith.

Rebekah Buege is a confidence coach who helps women think less about their bodies and more about their inner identity. She is the host of the Confidently She podcast, lover of the Gospel and vulnerability. I hope that my recalling of a conversation with Rebekah will encourage you in your journey and bring you peace, excitement, and hope.

Rebekah's story is similar to many of ours - her identity and self-worth was, at times, so impacted by the way her body looked and her relationships with men. The way the Lord has transformed her and given her a new level of confidence is incredible...something that women desire so desperately.

How Following The Lord Can Shift The Direction Of Business

Rebekah describes herself as "just a single Christian woman doing my best"...I think that's something we can all relate to. Her faith has become really strong over the past year, no thanks to some trying times! This time a year ago, she was actually engaged. Engaged to someone who didn't really have a heart for Jesus. At the beginning of that relationship, she thought that because he believed in God and in Jesus, that would be enough. But as the relationship continued and got more serious, it became very evident that it wasn't going to be a good fit. So she left. Called off her engagement. And since then, the Lord has just swooped her up. She feels like she's been in His hands ever since; He's got her back as they work to do something cool together. A testament that super hard times can also be really amazing!

Looking back over the past year, Rebekah is able to see God's hand in everything that's been happening in her life. She has experienced so much growth, through which she has built so much trust in the Lord. And with this growth and strengthened faith, she has changed the foundation of her business.

Originally, Rebekah's podcast was called Body Confidence where it was all about her own views on confidence. And since, she has changed the name of the podcast to Confidently She; really giving credit to God because all of the things under the umbrella of confidence are founded in biblical truths...she just needed help realizing that's really where the confidence is coming from. In her other business endeavors, she shifted the direction and foundation too. It became the Word over her own thoughts. Because our thoughts are SO subjective.

She had been helping people realize that they could DECIDE their own worth when it hit her that we don't actually get to decide this. Our worth has already been decided. And the good news is, we're worth a lot. No-one gets to dispute this! Not even you!

Biblical Confidence Versus Subjective Confidence And Overcoming Confidence As An Image

When I think about something tragic like Rebekah calling off her engagement and how hard that would have been, I can see just how important it is to be rooted in faith. When we encounter hard times, we have two options: to let it shake us or to see it as an opportunity to grow and to become closer to Jesus. The more we do the latter, the harder we make it for anything to push us off our paths and the more we build up our confidence. Not subjective confidence, but biblical confidence. And that is so beautiful. It all comes back to identity because when things in our lives are shaken; when certain things that we have held on to for a long time change, whether it's a relationship, a career, the way we look, the way people perceive us, and so on...when that starts to change, it threatens our identity if we place our identity and self-worth outside of God's arms.

And this isn't to say confident (truly confident) people never all apart, because we all do at times. They just don't fall into patterns of unhealthy healing for very long. It takes having a whole lot of grace for yourself to realize what you need when you are going through a tough time; knowing what you really need to heal yourself at the root of the pain and that comes back to where you're getting your identity. If you put your identity into your career when your relationship falls apart, or your relationship if your career falls apart, then that's just exposing the other thing to be shaken so much more easily.

Faith isn't built by sight. We can't see faith. And to most people, when they think of confidence, they think of image; what they can see. For me personally, my world was rocked (in a good way) when I understood that confidence as a whole is wrapped up in our faith. It's not by sight. It's what you're doing in the dark when no one's around. It's what you're doing with your life. It's what you're choosing. It's what you're listening to. It's the environment you place yourself in. It's what you're choosing to do in your spare time. True confidence is built up in all of these things, not the things others can necessarily see at first glance.

Again, real confidence isn't what someone looks like or how they carry themselves. We all know looks can be deceiving anyway! But I know it can be hard to separate all the 'image' words from the word 'confidence'. To do this, Rebekah reminds us to bring ourselves back to the root of what confidence really is; the biblical meaning.

When we fall apart, we tend to try to keep our struggles and sorrow behind closed doors. We are so conditioned to appear confident. On the surface, yes, you may be walking tall, you may be smiling like nothing bothers you, you may be the embodiment of 'confidence', but true confidence is something that is felt by the person who has it, and it is then felt by the people around them. The person confidence matters the most to is the one who feels it inside themselves. It doesn't matter if other people think of you or see you as confident. If you can feel it, it is TRUE.

Our definitions of confidence are shaped by our upbringing, and therefore everyone's definition of confidence, beauty, what's attractive, what success looks, etc. is shaped mostly by our parents and other influential people when we were young. So then it's easy to see how we have got tangled up in a subjective view of the world. And when something is subjective, that means our idea might not be the only right answer...AND it might even mean that ours isn't even right at all.

So then, what does it look like when someone is truly, biblically confident? It's like with anything else where the roots and the seeds create the fruit. It's the foundation. It's the stuff we don't see. Yes, we can appear confident without having a solid root system, without true feelings of confidence within ourselves, but the tree bearing the fruit won't stand tall for long. A way you can start to separate this is to look at examples of people who you thought were confident, while on the inside they really weren't. They were just so good at deceiving other people. We are all actually masters of deceiving, in particular, we're really good at deceiving ourselves when it comes to confidence.

Business Confidence

I was so interested to hear what changed for Rebekah when she decided to be bold in her faith over everything else and submitted to her real mission in life. She knew she couldn't continue half-heartedly. She had to be all in, or not at all. And one day after her breakup, she just knew. It hit her. "I'm going to bring Bible verses into this podcast and whatever happens, happens. I'll probably lose followers, but then that's just not for them and that's okay". And what happened?...her podcast actually grew because of it. This happened to me too - when we stop fighting and resisting the calling, flow has space and grace to enter and help things flourish.

Rebekah didn't start her self-employed business life podcasting. She started out as a copywriter in 2016 (which she still does), then introduced the podcasting and then coaching. What transpired her move into podcasting and coaching on confidence was that she found what a lot of her clients were missing; why they were struggling with copy was because they weren't clear on who they were. She had a background in sales, and it became evident that she needed to help these people sell themselves. It was confidence holding them back in their businesses, all the way down to the messages and words they were using. She recognized that if these women felt more grounded and confident in who they were, then it would come through more easily in their websites/products/services/branding. Because, when we have a strong identity, it can't be ignored. You won't be liked by everyone, but you won't be ignored anymore. When you're not afraid of criticism and rejection that comes from truly being yourself, there is NO way you can be ignored.

So, in 2017, she started the podcast and confidence coaching to address this gap she found. And one of her key messages about confidence now is in the use of the word PASSION. We have to be passionate about being confident. And to be passionate is to be willing to suffer for something. Confidence won't always come easy, but when you can lean on the Lord for strength, it feels very different. The hills and valleys will be just as high and deep, but at the end of the day, we can remind ourselves it's not even about us. The suffering. The passion. The confidence.  It's for something so much greater than us. Ask yourself: "Do you care more about what other people think of you or do you care what God is trying to do with your life?". 

Confidence As A Practice

Confidence is a practice, not a personality trait. You have to practice confidence. You have to choose it every day. You have to decide not to let the opinion of someone stop you from taking action in what you know is true. Practicing things like confidence, love, and freedom takes work. It's a daily choice to wake up and choose those things.  The enemy has been defeated, but he hasn't been destroyed. It's a daily battle and it's a good battle that's worth fighting. And through this fight, we can experience so much joy, peace, and love and all the fruits of the spirit. Thank goodness we have the Holy Spirit.

Once cultivated, confidence needs to be nurtured. It's something we can lose. For Rebekah, all it took was a relationship to end to remind her that her confidence needed to be found within. It's extremely humbling when you have an experience that reminds you that you can lose it. If you're someone who thinks nothing can really get them down...nurture that part of yourself and make sure it exists unconditionally.

If confidence is your biggest struggle; that one thing you just can't figure out, then you need to hit Rebekah up! She has private coaching spots available with 3 different options. Also, don't forget to tune into her podcast, Confidently She...you might even find me on there! ;) You can connect with Rebekah on Instagram @rebekahbeuge or check out her website. 

P.S. Did you know that I have a FREE business coaching Facebook group for women who are wanting to start or build up their businesses? I do a coaching here every Thursday at 12.30pm EST on live video. Join now if you want to be coached for free, to post and share with the other amazing women and to be held accountable. I just love this little group because I genuinely love and feel called to build up leaders in this world. 

P.P.S. You can still enter my GIVEAWAY where the winner gets a copy of my favorite NIV journal Bible + 45 min health & spiritual coaching call with me + 1 week of Voxer (free walkie talkie/text app) coaching following the call to help with accountability and momentum. BOOOOM! To enter, 1. go and listen to episode 81 of The Chasing Freedom Show podcast, 2. screenshot you're listening and throw it up on your IG story and tag me @trainertanner and #chasingfreedom, and 3. leave a written review on the podcast and give it how many stars you think it should have! You can find it on Spotify, iTunes, or SoundCloud. Winner will be announced on 23 Jan, 2020. 

Xo,

Tan