A Letter to the Woman I Once Was

A Letter to the Woman I Once Was

By Elif Köse – Transformational Confidence Coach | Strategic Business Advisor | Keynote Speaker | Former Fashion Designer

There was a time I walked into rooms full of people and left feeling invisible. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I wasn’t ready to hear myself yet. My voice had become a whisper beneath the expectations I wore like designer labels; tailored to impress, stitched with silence.

Before I ever coached a woman to reclaim her confidence, before I stepped on stages or led transformational retreats, I was a fashion designer with a high end boutique in the UK. I knew how to dress women to look powerful. But inside, I was running on empty. My worth was stitched into the seams of the clothes I created, and the smiles I wore were often held together by pins. I may have stitched a few broken hearts together, and patched broken dreams of others…

I remember the day I didn’t recognise myself. I had lost my father, missed his funeral, and the grief sat like a stone in my throat. My son was a newborn. My business demanded everything. And somewhere between orders, fittings, and financial pressure, I stopped breathing. I stopped speaking. I almost gave it all up.

But silence has its wisdom. In stillness, you can hear the truth.

My truth was this: I wanted to guide women into more than a mirror. I wanted them to feel powerful even when the clothes came off. To find confidence not in the fabric, but in their voice.

That’s where Confidence Magazine was born from a deep ache to amplify the voices of women who dared to transform.

This issue, Owning Your Voice, is about the reclamation of that power. And it’s not always loud. Sometimes it’s whispered on a yoga mat. Sometimes it slips into a new size of trousers with an exhale. Sometimes it’s painted into a mandala or spoken under the stars. But every voice matters.

You’ve read stories of women who dressed their way into visibility, who exhaled their way into balance, who coloured their way back to self-trust. You’ve met women who dared to speak, and in doing so, remembered who they are.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ve seen a reflection of your own becoming.

But I’d be lying if I said reclaiming your voice always feels empowering.

Sometimes, it feels lonely.

There’s a quiet grief that comes when you realise some people only loved the version of you that needed saving. The ones who stood beside your struggle but disappeared at your rise. I’ve known that sting. I’ve lived through the manipulation dressed as closeness, the friendships that fed on my vulnerability then ghosted when I stood tall.

As an empath, I questioned myself. Was I too much? Too fast? Too successful?
The overthinking slowed me down… until I understood.

People’s behaviours are rarely about you. They’re about their own conditioning, their wounds, their wiring, their unhealed fears.
And that’s why I speak now, not just to empower those on the receiving end, but to bring compassion to those unknowingly doing the silencing too.

In our next issue, we’ll dive deeper into this.

Because this movement isn’t about booing the past.
It’s about breaking patterns.
And helping all of us no matter what side we’ve been on learn to rise with more awareness, more integrity, more grace.

Because I believe true confidence doesn’t arrive with applause. It begins in the quiet moments you choose yourself. The first time you say, “I’m not hiding anymore.” The first time you speak without shrinking. The first time your voice shakes but you use it anyway.

That is the voice we honour in these pages.

So, my invitation to you:

Pause. Read slowly. Feel deeply.

Ask yourself:

• Where have I been silent?
• What part of me is ready to speak?
• What would shift if I treated my voice like the most valuable asset I own?

This isn’t just a magazine, it’s a mirror. Look into these stories. Let them awaken yours.

Because the world doesn’t need another woman who fits in. It needs you.

Fully expressed. Fiercely whole. Finally heard.

With love and compassion,

Elif x

“Because confidence isn’t always born sometimes, it’s remembered.”

— Elif Köse