Hello, Sparkers!

Today is an awesome day: my BF and I are celebrating our 5th anniversary as a couple (dating, not married). I feel incredibly lucky: things are going so well and we're both really happy together.

But.

I managed to start a fight last night. We rarely fight, and I'm angry with myself for starting one the eve of our anniversary. The gist of it was me misunderstanding something and then blowing it way out of proportion as if our relationship were on the line. I'm so mad at myself for not handling the situation more calmly and with level-headedness. But the heart of the problem was that I still feel insecure in our relationship, not through any fault of my fella (he was like "what am I doing? what can I do?" and there was nothing I could think of). It's just because I'm really insecure in general, something he has repeatedly noted and tried to encourage me to overcome.

I hate being like this. It's embarrassing and shameful. I just have very little confidence in myself and very little respect for myself. I'm very shy around people, to the point of having a hard time having conversation at all with anyone. This has hurt my friendships, my relationships, my sense of self, my career potential - everything. Nothing in my life is untouched by my insecurities. And it also definitely contributes to my bad habits that have resulted in my 20lb weight gain over the last few years. I find comfort in food by binge eating when I'm feeling particularly hopeless. I hate how I am.

The thing is, I just don't know what to do. I don't know how to move forward with my life. I love Spark's emphasis on specific goals, but I have no idea how to tackle this. I was hoping jogging would make me feel better because I've read of links between exercise and confidence and mood. My mood IS better, but my confidence is still in the gutter.

So, Sparkers: any ideas for how I can put this into my past? how do you deal with insecurity? where do you find confidence?