It's time to decide how your role in life cause others see you. Most importantly, how do you view yourself?
This is important for it will color your relationship with a Mentor greatly.
Make a large circle on a piece of paper. With a pen or pencil, divide the circle into different segments, like
a pie that is being cut. In each of these segments, write the role you fill in life that has to do with any other
people.
Sister, daughter, wife,
mother, friend, aunt, niece,
neighbor, teacher, club member, church
activity, any job you hold, etc. (write every description you can, see yourself differently in these roles.)
Now write each responsibility you have toward each description. Place a plus+ or a minus - along side of each
of these according to how you feel your performance level is perceived by any you have contact with in these rolls.
Keep this paper for your own future use. Did you notice that you may not have consciously thought of
the responsibilities of most of these rolls except toward the one which may be a paying job. ? What we are PAID
for, we know those consequences....otherwise we get absorbed into the name of who we are to others.
You may be the wife of a spouse and you wrote that down, but you are a woman who:
You may be the mother of children, but you are a woman who:
You may be the teacher of a school, but you are a woman who:
You may have a career, but you are a woman who:
You may be a neighbor to many but you are a woman who:
Does it surprise you at the answers which come to your mind ? Some women have become so shocked at the answers
they hear coming from themselves when they ask that they bust out crying with shock. A shock to see truth
seperated from what we perceive as a reality is very startling and can change a whole perspective of self.
I may be a_________ to _______ but I am a woman. And I have value. Speak this sentence out loud. Speak it
out several times. How does this make you feel ? I hope you say 'empowered'....for you ARE empowered when the truth
sets you free.
Many times in life women are judged who they are by the roles they fill in life. It is possible
to know a woman as sister, mother, or _______, without being known as 'woman'. It is the
hearts cry of women to want to be known for whom they are, not because of what they do. When
a woman is known by what she 'does' and the roll in life changes (i.e.) children leave home, woman retires, job changes, then
the identity crisis, "Who" I am becomes "Who Am I".?
When our role changes, we must change to fit the next roll. We do have to become careful that we do not allow the
role we fit to mold us in the reality of whom we are. We have to work diligently at being who we are. If
you can be whom you are, 100% of the time, you have mastered the identity crisis.
Whether at home, in social gatherings, in church, with neighbors, friends or acquaintances, never discount
yourself to make others feel comfortable. Note I said 'discount' yourself to make others feel comfortable to be
near you. You have as much right to be who you are as others have to be whom they are. Why should you have
to put on a false face to make someone like you today who may not like you tomorrow. It won't work.
When you are whom you are, hopefully you are accepted 'as is' without having to lose any part of yourself which
make you uniquely you. If you have not been accepted for whatever reason, the sad truth is that you would eventually
not be accepted had you demeaned yourself by discreditation.
This means that person is the loser - not you. For you know 'Who You Are' and I hope you are beginning
to like the very uniquely You ! You cannot like anyone any more than you like yourself. Write down the things
that make You - You !
Write down what you do well. In looking over what you have written, could you see how having a Mentor could help
you to be more of who you are so that in any roll you occupy, or when changes occur, you are ready ?
Fill in the following:
I am ready for:
I am a Woman of:
I am a Woman who has:
I would most like to:
Now think of ways you want to be described as that have nothing to do with your roll in life or any hat you may wear.
I want people to see:
Do you believe this description of who you are would be viewed with incredibility from those who know you in certain
rolls ? Who would be most surprised and why do you think so?
What would you believe could be better resulting from the roll(s) you fill than where you are today. ?
Knowing who you are, and what you need to become what you want to be is not sad. It's smart. And it's about
time to eat the smarter pills and to realize there is someout there who is not only willing to help you become more of who
you are and likes you but also wants to help you out very much. They just want to be asked. !
Quote: "If I am constantly having to put on a face of who others want me to be and I continue
to do so, I have given more power to others than what I deserve to have for myself and I have diminished who I really am".
..........................Marcia Kendall
