Women Inspiring Each Other
Written by: Sabine Roggermeier; Gluecklich Im Sein
Women are fascinating me. I have searched them for role models all my life. It was rarely a conscious thing, but it’s natural to look at other women when you question yourself as a woman, when you wonder who you are and what you should and want to be. Also, women have a natural tendency to collaborate. I see that with the things that are ccurrently in my life. I talk with my mother and my female friends about things to see if they have ideas I haven’t found yet. May the topic be about organizing and decluttering my home, creating a garden, dealing with emotional breakdowns or new business ideas. I love that we give each other a hand. I see it as a continual line of women inspiring each other.
As I read the topic two women immediately came to mind:
One is a good friend of mine with whom I worked with for a while teaching college-aged kids a few years back. She is a mother of four and married to a man who, due to his line of work, has to move every few years. A short while before moving from Paris to Munich she had lost her oldest son in an accident, in which her son had saved someone’s life at the cost of his own. Naturally, the whole family was in deep mourning as they had to settle into a new place. I got to know her only a while later as we started our teaching experience together. Often we had the opportunity to have deep conversations, each time profoundly moving and life-enhancing for both of us. I learned about her experience with grief, with the bereavement she had suffered. I got to know her deep faith and trust and soaked up any wisdom she had to share. Now, years later, she is a well-renowned author and speaker and inspires men and women alike with her story. She is a role model for me for many reasons, one of which is that she has used her loss and her grief to move her towards more love and more compassion for others, which allows her to have a lot of integrity and such influence on the people around her!
The other one I thought of is my mother. I have shared with you last week that she came from a broken home. From an early age on she didn’t have support from her parents. That had her miss out on certain opportunities. But instead of allowing that to put her down she fought for herself. Despite not having a great school education my Mom is a fountain of knowledge, wisdom and kindness. She’s learned mostly through practice and has developed a great sense for how to solve problems hands-on. And as I have mentioned before she is one of the most caring people I know. It fascinates me how she did not let herself and her approach to life be determined by those first few years. I think it shows her resilience and strength.
It’s important to look for role models, people we can emulate. By choosing them wisely we set ourselves up for success including being a great role model for someone else!
