Confidently Love Yourself: How My Hardest Season Became My Most Important Lesson
By Dee Davidson, FDN-P
For a long time, I didn’t realize how far I had drifted from myself.
Like so many women, I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I put my marriage first. I put my husband’s needs ahead of my own. I poured everything into raising my two boys, supporting my family, managing life, and holding everything together.
Somewhere along the way, loving myself slipped quietly to the bottom of the list.
I told myself it was temporary. That I would get back to me “when things settled.”
But life doesn’t usually pause long enough for that moment to arrive.
The Moment Everything Shifted
It wasn’t until I found myself navigating an unexpected divorce that the truth became impossible to ignore.
I was sitting in a therapy session — emotionally exhausted, physically depleted, and deeply disconnected from myself — when my therapist asked a question that stopped me in my tracks:
“But what about you, Dee? You matter too.”
No one had ever asked me that question.
And if I’m being honest, I hadn’t asked myself either.
That question cracked something open. It became the starting point of my self-love journey — not the trendy, surface-level version of self-care, but the kind that requires honesty, boundaries, and real change.
Learning to Love All of Me
One of the most meaningful — and unexpected — parts of this journey was learning to love all parts of myself, not just the ones that felt easy or admirable.
The parts that stayed too long.
The parts that ignored red flags.
The parts that put everyone else first and myself last.
For a long time, I carried guilt and shame around those choices. I replayed them. I judged myself for what I “should have known” or “should have done differently.”
But healing required something deeper than self-criticism.
I had to release guilt and let go of shame — not by pretending the past didn’t happen, but by making peace with it.
I also learned that forgiveness is not about excusing behavior or reopening doors. It’s about freeing yourself from carrying emotional weight forward. I chose to forgive the people who hurt me — not for them, but for me. So my body, heart, and nervous system could finally rest.
That forgiveness had to extend inward, too.
I learned to offer compassion to the version of myself who was doing the best she could with the information, tools, and capacity she had at the time. And in that compassion, something powerful happened: I softened. I healed. I reclaimed my energy.
Loving myself meant honoring my past without letting it define my future.
Self-Love in Action: What Changed
Self-love didn’t begin with affirmations or spa days.
It began with daily actions — choices that slowly rebuilt trust with myself.
Here’s what shifted:
I Made Exercise Non-Negotiable
Not as punishment — but as respect for my body.
I committed to moving my body regularly, even when life felt heavy or inconvenient. And just as importantly, I modeled this for my boys. I wanted them to see that caring for yourself isn’t selfish — it’s foundational.
I Set Boundaries (Even When It Felt Uncomfortable)
I began setting boundaries with:
Clients
Toxic family dynamics
Relationships that drained more than they gave
Each boundary was a quiet declaration that my health, nervous system, and peace mattered.
I Chose Nourishment Over Convenience
I stopped surviving on fast, convenient meals and started prioritizing real, nourishing food — food that supported my energy, hormones, and emotional stability.
Not perfectly. Not rigidly. But intentionally.
I Created Morning and Evening Rituals
I stopped pouring into everyone else first.
Instead, I began starting and ending my day with myself — gentle rituals that reminded my body it was safe, supported, and allowed to slow down.
I Continued Therapy, Mindset Work, and Emotional Healing
Healing wasn’t a one-time realization.
I stayed in therapy. I worked on mindset shifts. I became more aware of emotional and energetic healing — and how much the body holds onto what the mind hasn’t yet processed.
Confidence Was the Byproduct
Here’s the part that often surprises people:
Confidence didn’t come from doing more.
It came from honoring myself consistently.
Each small act of self-love rebuilt trust with myself.
And with that trust came confidence — not loud or performative, but grounded and steady.
That is where the name Confidently Love Yourself was born.
Because confidence isn’t about perfection.
It’s about showing up for yourself — again and again.
Turning My Journey Into a Tool for Others
Along the way, I realized how powerful simple daily reminders can be — words that gently bring you back to yourself when life pulls you in a hundred directions.
That’s why I created my Self Love Affirmation Card Deck — inspired by my own journey and the practices that helped me reconnect with myself during one of the most challenging seasons of my life.
They’re designed to be:
Simple
Grounding
Easy to use daily
A reminder that you matter
Whether for yourself or as a gift for someone who needs encouragement, they’re an invitation to pause and come back home to you.
The Heart of Confidently Love Yourself
This brand is more than a name.
It’s a reminder — to my clients, my community, and myself — that your health, your boundaries, and your well-being matter.
You don’t have to wait for a breaking point to choose yourself.
You’re allowed to love yourself now.
And when you do, everything begins to change.
About Dee Davidson, FDN-P
Dee Davidson is a Board-Certified Functional Health Practitioner, hormone and thyroid specialist, and the creator of the Confidently Balance Your Hormones podcast. She helps women in midlife and beyond uncover the root causes of fatigue, weight gain, anxiety, gut issues, and hormonal imbalances using functional labs, science-backed strategies, and nervous system regulation.
Dee’s work centers around empowering women to finally feel safe, seen, supported, and confident in their bodies — without restriction, overwhelm, or confusion.