Some Lady Came for My Squat Form, and I Remembered the Difference Between Confidence and Healing
I have been lifting weights in a gym since 2005.
That was at a time when it wasn’t trendy for women to lift heavy weights. I had little five-pound dumbbells that I stored under my couch, but my main form of exercise was running.
Excessive, self-inflicted, torturous, long-distance running.
Some people use alcohol and drugs to numb their feelings. Some people run marathons. This is a whole separate topic that I could write about all day, but I won’t (this time). Because my point is, I was running to fill a huge black hole in my heart.
Because I ran until I was in physical pain, it should come as no surprise that I developed a stress fracture on my foot during the summer of 2005.
At the time, I didn’t realize I was addicted to running because it gave me somewhere to put all the feelings I didn’t know how to feel. Maybe you’ve done that too with impulse shopping, dating, or work. Staying busy enough that you never had to sit alone with yourself.
I couldn’t handle the injury because I wasn’t able to numb my feelings through running until it healed, and didn’t want to use alcohol because it was too many calories.
My Work Mom, Nula, was a bodybuilder because her husband was a bodybuilder. She knew I was antsy from not running, so she introduced me to weightlifting.
When I first started lifting weights in the gym, I was the only female in the weights section for years (Nula had a home gym). The first year was the worst because I lived in constant fear of the men bullying me out of the weights section or mansplaining things to me.
Neither of those things ever happened. The men were actually really friendly to me because they were lifting much heavier, so I was never in their way, which was all they really cared about.
Imagine my surprise when 21 years later, I was critiqued on my form last week.
My least favorite exercises are old school squats and deadlifts. I used to only do them if I was working out with someone else and it was their idea (to prove that I’m not a little bitch).
For that reason, when I do them by myself, I call them voluntary squats and deadlifts.
I was doing voluntary squats when I noticed that the lady working out on the squat rack next to me had stopped what she was doing to blatantly stare at me.
I was curious, but too focused on my workout to give a shit. After a few sets of me ignoring her, she encroached on my squat platform and stood directly in front of me.
I was wearing earbuds, and I don’t take out my earbuds for unwelcome conversations. Usually what happens in these situations is that the other person will say something and then I’ll be like, “I can’t hear you,” and go back to whatever I’m doing.
But she just stood there without saying anything. We stood in silence for about five seconds, which doesn’t seem like a long time, but standing in awkward silence with a stranger on my squat rack platform with solid eye contact was uncomfortable.
I don’t have time for this shit with her.
While maintaining eye contact and not saying a word, I took out my right earbud. The music cut just in time for her to speak, “Your form is bad, and you are going to hurt your knees.”
Oh hell no.
You know that version of you who has the comeback ready before the other person has even finished their sentence? Mine’s called Chicago Angie.
Chicago Angie was internally triggered and ready to pounce.
And here’s something I’ve learned about being triggered. You are immediately taken out of your Functional Adult Self and thrust into Little You or Teenager You and react from those wounds. The wounds formed as a little girl who learned to people-please for love or the teenager who learned the safest thing to do was fight back and prove herself.
With total outward emotional composure, I broke eye contact.
Like a snobby teenager, I looked at her eyebrows, which were tattooed on. I’m not talking about microblading. They were tattoos of eyebrows.
Then, I looked at her physique. If she were Miss Olympia, I might be open to some advice. But there were no visible muscle striations at all. She definitely wasn’t overweight. But she did not have an athletic appearance. At all.
Chicago Angie was about to fully embrace bitchy teenager mode and tell this lady what I thought about the situation, but then I looked at her knees, which were adorned with big, black knee braces.
Ahhhh, there it is.
She was projecting her knee injuries on me. This had nothing to do with me at all.
Functional Adult Angie took the wheel. I regained eye contact, said with total emotional regulation, “I’m fine, thank you.”
She immediately became extremely submissive and apologetic, “Oh, I am so sorry!’ She scurried back to her own platform and resumed her workout without ever looking at me for the rest of our time in the squat racks.
I felt somewhat flustered as I tried to process the situation. I could understand her reaction if I had gone off on her like Chicago Angie wanted to, but I was uncharacteristically not reacting from a wound and was very respectful and polite about it.
Also, encroaching on my personal space and staring me down until I took out my earbud was quite a power move, so I couldn’t believe how quickly and passively she backed down.
That’s when it hit me.
The most powerful person in the room is the one who no longer lets childhood trauma run their behavior on autopilot.
For most of my life, I would’ve called that confidence. But now I call that healing.
Confidence says, “I don’t care what people think.”
Healing says, “What other people think of me is not my business.”
There’s a massive difference. Because confidence still depends on the outside world and healing doesn’t.
And that’s why I don’t spend my time trying to teach women how to be more confident. Confidence disappears the second someone criticizes you because confidence is often built on being perfect or “getting it right.” Healing is built on knowing you’ll be okay even when someone else thinks you’re wrong.
I teach women how to become detectives instead. Because every reaction, trigger, urge to defend yourself, people-pleasing moment, anxiety spiral, or voice in your head asking, “Was I too much?” is evidence of a story your nervous system learned a long time ago.
And stories can be investigated. Most importantly, they can be rewritten. Not because you lit another candle, bought another crystal, started another Monday, or told yourself, “Okay… THIS is the week I become the woman who has her shit together.”
But because you decide to take accountability for doing the inner work and changing the story that’s creating the behavior.
Once you understand why your brain decided that staying small, keeping the peace, or settling for “good enough” was the safest option, you stop trying to bully yourself into changing, and you start giving yourself self-compassion to choose differently.
This is exactly why the O in my GLOW Method stands for Overcome External Validation. Because healing is learning how to stop handing other people the job of deciding your worth. When you stop outsourcing your worth to other people’s opinions, inherited money stories, or society’s definition of success, you finally have enough energy to build a life that feels like yours, instead of just checking off the boxes of life.
The goal isn’t to become someone nobody criticizes. Every trigger is a clue. It tells you who’s driving.
Younger You?
Or Adult You?
The goal is to stop letting the younger versions of You run your life on autopilot and let Adult You take the wheel.
Glow Tip:
This is something simple you can start implementing in your day-to-day life.
The next time someone criticizes you, disappoints you, ignores you, or says something that makes your stomach drop, pause and ask:
“How old do I feel right now?”
Not how old are you. How old do you feel. Because chances are, it isn’t the capable woman you are today who’s reacting.
It’s the younger version of you who learned that criticism meant rejection, mistakes meant you weren’t good enough, or that disappointing someone meant you weren’t safe.
Then ask yourself:
“What would Adult Me do here?”
Not to ignore your feelings or pretend you aren’t hurt (it’s okay to feel however you feel), but to remind yourself that your younger self doesn’t have to make today’s decisions.
Every trigger is a clue.
And every clue brings you one step closer to the story that’s really been running the show.
And that’s what it means to shine from the inside.
Enough already. Charge the damn price. Stop softening every sentence. And for crying out loud, stop bracing for impact every time something good happens.
If you are done making adult decisions with childhood beliefs, I introduce: The Overflow Society.
You’ve probably spent years trying to…
…make more money without feeling like you have to work twice as hard to deserve it.
… say what you actually think without immediately softening it with “maybe,” “I don’t know,” or “this might sound stupid…”
…read a short email from your boss without convincing yourself you’re getting fired.
But what if you’ve never actually been solving the right problem?
Because if today’s reactions are driven by yesterday’s stories, no amount of willpower is going to create lasting change.
You don’t need to become a different woman. You need to uncover the stories that convinced you the woman you already are wasn’t enough.
That’s exactly why I created The Overflow Society, an intimate coaching circle where we stop blaming you for your behaviors and start getting curious about where they came from.
Because you’re not “too sensitive,” “bad with money,” “terrible at relationships,” or “just an overthinker.”
Those are stories that you inherited.
And together, we’re going to figure out who taught them to you, decide whether they’re actually true, and replace them with stories that let you trust yourself, boldly use your voice, charge what you’re worth, and build better aligned relationships.
Imagine raising your prices without apologizing for them, saying what you actually mean without softening it with, “I could be wrong…” or your partner saying, “Can we talk later?” and your nervous system not immediately planning the breakup.
That’s what overflow feels like.
I’d love to invite you to join the waitlist. Because every behavior tells a story, and I can’t wait to help you rewrite yours, even if you’ve already tried to out-journal it, out-affirm it, out-manifest it, out-therapy it, out-boundary it, out-positive-think it, or simply out-willpower it.
You were just trying to change the behavior instead of the story.
Join the waitlist here: https://www.runninginslippers.com/theoverflowsociety
And because this is our founding group, I’m only inviting five women to come inside first.
I don’t want this to feel like another online program where nobody knows your name.
I want to know when you finally raise your prices.
I want to celebrate when you stop apologizing for existing.
I want to be there when you realize that email from your boss wasn’t actually the beginning of your unemployment era.
Because we don’t let our inherited beliefs run our lives on autopilot anymore.
PS: Need some help right now? Here’s a link to a helpful YouTube playlist that will help you make progress right now! Because if nothing else has worked, this will.
With Love & Fire,
Angie
https://www.innerglowbyangie.com/
I help you rewrite the subconscious money stories behind overworking, undercharging, impulse shopping, and waiting for the other shoe to drop, so you stop letting childhood beliefs make you adult decisions, know your worth, use your voice, and create a life that feels as good as it looks.
Because you deserve to feel excited about your own life.
Through my signature GLOW Method, I combine money story rewriting, identity work, practical money strategy, and real-time action to help women stop playing small, use their voice with confidence, and become the kind of woman who naturally attracts more money, opportunities, visibility, and fulfillment.
I’m the author of Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about life kicking me in the a$$, and, in hindsight, I needed it to.
I have moved from Chicago to Hawaii on my own, jumped out of a helicopter and into the ocean Navy SEAL-style, bungee jumped, skydived, and cliff jumped, yet I am still terrified about allowing myself to be seen.
