Published: May 7, 2026 | Last Updated: May 7, 2026
Welcome to the Community Spotlight — a series where I sit down with real women who are doing the quiet, unglamorous work of becoming their best selves. Not overnight transformations. Not perfectly curated comebacks. Just honest conversations about the seasons that shake you, the habits that pulled you through, and what it actually feels like to come back to yourself.
This week I am featuring Antoinette Tovar, 33, a registered nurse at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and a marathon runner who completed the 2025 LA Marathon. She is currently training for the 2026 TCS New York City Marathon. Antoinette is one of those people who gives everything to everyone around her — her patients, her family, her friends. For a while, she was giving so much outward that she stopped giving anything back to herself.
Her story is not dramatic. There was no single breaking point. It was a slow drift — a season of comparison, pressure, and disconnection — that she quietly and honestly found her way out of.
What Is the Community Spotlight?
The Community Spotlight is a Layers of Beauty series featuring real women building confidence through personal growth, not perfection. Each woman shares a turning point, a habit that helped, and how it changed the way she sees herself. These are unfiltered, honest conversations — no agendas, no products, just real stories.
The Short Version
Antoinette Tovar stopped comparing herself to others, went back to the things she had always loved — running, hiking, coffee with her sister, quiet time at home — and slowly started feeling like herself again. Confidence, she says, is not something you build by doing more. It is something you find by going back to your roots.
What You Will Take From This
- Comparison is one of the fastest ways to lose yourself.
- Going back to simple personal habits can reset your entire sense of self.
- Running came back as a physical, mental, and emotional outlet after a 3-year break.
- Protecting your peace is not selfish — it makes you better for everyone around you.
- Rest and grace are not optional, especially when you give everything at work.
- Confidence is not about doing more. It is about feeling like yourself again.
Meet Antoinette Tovar
Antoinette is 33 years old and was born and raised in Los Angeles. She left home to go to college in New Jersey, then spent time living in Arizona before making her way back to LA — and back to herself. That kind of path takes something. Moving across the country, building a life somewhere new, then coming home — it shapes you in ways that are hard to explain until you are standing on the other side of it.
Becoming a nurse was not easy and she will be the first to tell you that. She worked hard for it — the school, the clinicals, the grind of building a career from the ground up. Today she is a registered nurse at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, one of the top pediatric hospitals in the country, where every shift asks something real of her. She also just crossed the finish line at the 2025 LA Marathon, the 40th anniversary race.
What drew me to Antoinette’s story is how ordinary the hard part was. There was no crisis, no rock bottom, no dramatic moment. Just a slow drift away from herself that probably looked fine from the outside. She was busy. She was working. She was doing all the things. She just was not doing the things that actually made her feel like her.
As of May 2026, she is training again, sleeping better, and reconnected to the version of herself she actually likes. We sat down and talked about how she got there.
When Did You Stop Feeling Like Yourself?
"I think I go through seasons in life when I feel this way. The times I feel least like myself or overwhelmed is when I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself — like I need to be doing more, working more, catching up in life with everyone else."
Antoinette describes it as a slow creep. Not one bad day but a week of scrolling, a month of comparing, a season of quietly measuring her life against someone else's. And somewhere in that process, the things that filled her up got dropped. Morning runs. Weekend hikes. Slow coffee dates with her sister. Time at home with her family and her dogs. Gone — not because she decided to stop, but because comparison has a way of making you forget what you even wanted in the first place.
"When I start comparing myself and I stop doing the things I love, that's when I start to feel overwhelmed," she says. The pressure felt especially heavy because she holds a lot. Being a nurse at a children's hospital means showing up emotionally and physically every single shift. When you are already pouring that much into work, the outside noise of comparison can push you past your limit without you noticing it happening.
What gets me about this is how quietly it happens. There is no alarm that goes off. You just slowly stop being yourself and start performing a version of yourself that is trying to keep up with everyone else. And one day you look up and you do not recognize your own routine anymore.
What Habits Helped You Cope and Grow?
"One thing I try to be mindful of now is making time for myself — whether it's setting aside time to read, going for a run or walk, or even just decompressing in the car after a rough shift at work."
Antoinette did not reinvent herself. She went back to who she already was. Running had been her therapy for years before she stopped for about three years while other things took over. When she started again, the shift was almost immediate. "It's a physical, mental, and emotional outlet for me," she says. The 2025 LA Marathon was not just a race. It was proof of what comes back when you let it.
She also took a long break from social media, which she calls one of the most beneficial decisions she has ever made. "It's so important to protect your peace — nothing is worth losing it." That hits differently when you hear it from someone who has watched comparison slowly hollow out her sense of self. It is not about being disconnected. It is about being selective with what you let in.
The third piece is giving herself grace. Literal rest days. Time to reset. As a night shift nurse with a scattered sleep schedule, one full day to do nothing is not laziness — it is survival. "One day to recharge is huge for me," she says. Her return-to-herself list is simple and deeply personal: running and being outside, hiking on the weekends, coffee dates with her sister, quiet time at home. No program. No overhaul. Just the small things that reminded her of who she was.
I think we underestimate how powerful it is to go back instead of forward. We are always told to level up, add more, optimize. But sometimes the most radical thing you can do is just go back to the things that were always yours.
How Did It Change Your Confidence?
"When I put effort into filling my own cup and doing the things that make me feel good and happy, then I feel confident. I don't just want to go through the motions in life. I want to show up for the people I love and be a good nurse for my patients, and I want my body to feel strong."
Antoinette does not describe confidence as something she performed or projected. She describes it as something that came back quietly when she started moving, resting, and reconnecting. It was not a mindset shift first. It was a behavior shift that eventually changed her mindset. She did the things and the feeling followed.
One of the most honest things she said in our entire conversation was this: she stopped comparing herself to everyone else and started comparing herself only to who she was last week, last month, last year. That single reframe is one of the most practical things I have heard. It works because it makes progress personal and measurable in a way that social comparison never can be. You cannot compete with someone else's highlight reel. But you can absolutely show up better than you did in January.
"When I start to get into these funks I take time to reflect and see how far I've come," she says. "Sometimes you just need a new perspective." She is not talking about toxic positivity or forcing gratitude. She is talking about the honest act of looking back at yourself with some kindness and recognizing that you are not where you were — and that matters.
What I Took From This Conversation
What Antoinette's story reminded me is that confidence is not a destination. It is a practice. And the practice almost always involves going back to something you abandoned when life got loud and busy and comparison-heavy.
For her it was running. For you it might be painting, cooking, journaling, or walking somewhere with no destination. The activity is not the point. The point is the act of choosing yourself consistently enough that you start to remember who you are again.
I think what stays with me most is that Antoinette is not someone who had it easy and stumbled. She worked hard for everything she has. And she still had to remind herself that she was allowed to take up space in her own life. That part is for all of us.