"Confidence doesn’t live by itself. It lives next door to courage": Monica Lewinsky on her rise from the darkness of the Bill Clinton affair
Monica Lewinsky's life hit hard when she had a very public affair with former president Bill Clinton and despite all these years, she is still trying to fix her life. Speaking to InStyle, Monica revealed that even after achieving a lot in her professional life, there are still different ways that she tries in order to ensure that her confidence is intact and she maintains her calm. "My newest thing is that I mutter mantras to myself. Sometimes I mutter them aloud. They're things like, ''I got this'' and ''This matters.'' she said.
Monica has a lot of trust in the effects of crystals and color energy she believes it helps her to stay positive. "I have a really beautiful deep fuchsia velvet ribbon that I carry in my wallet. When I need a boost of confidence, I'll tuck it in a pocket or my bra and that color brings me an energy, which will give me confidence. And I have crystals in front of me right now," she said.
However, it was not always easy for her to reach the place she is now. "It was a very slow process and a result of all the different healing modalities I’ve used over the years. Now I know to check in with myself to make sure that I feel in alignment with whatever choice I’m making," she said. Meanwhile, Monica hinted that her confidence wasn't always to the point that she had wanted.
"Confidence is not something that has come easily to me, and I’m not even sure I have it now," she said. "I’ve had a lot of confidence in some areas and maybe even too much at times, but then simultaneously I’ve also had a lack of confidence in other areas. It’s proved complicated for me not only in my own personal experiences but also when I unwillingly became a public person. And then, of course, any confidence I had was certainly shredded at that point."
However, this is a thing of the past as Monica hints that she has had a better mindset towards what it means to be confident. "I pivoted. The morning I was graduating from the London School of Economics with a master’s [in social psychology in 2007], I found myself not excited about the day, and I couldn’t really understand why," she said.
She added, "All of a sudden this idea slid into my head. If I ran into someone else and I said, “Oh, what are you doing?” and they said, “Oh, I’m actually going to graduate with my master’s from the London School of Economics,” I would’ve walked away thinking, “I could never do that!” Reframing my thinking allowed me to move into what was happening that day. That is connected to confidence. Confidence doesn’t live on an island by itself. It lives next door to courage. It’s got to be present in certain experiences. It’s having pride in yourself, in your accomplishments, which is not something that women, in particular, have been socialized to do. But I think that’s changing."
