{Guest Blog Post} I am not as good as…

I like to bring new women into the Get Your Girl Back conversation by having them contribute guest blog posts to the website.  We can learn so much from each other!  I met Angie last week at the Younique conference and we hit it off right away.  She has such a powerful story.  Without further ado, here’s Angie!

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I am not as good as…

I was walking the track the other day with my son when a woman ran by us. Immediately, I stopped listening to my son and started an internal dialogue comparing myself to this woman. “Why am I not doing that?” “Wow, look at her figure!” “She is amazing and, because I can’t do that, I am not.” “I wish I could be like her…” Then, the realization of what I was doing hit me! I was doing exactly what I had just told my son to stop doing!

The conversation that I lost with my son was all about being judgmental. He was talking to me about comparing himself to others – either for the better or the worse. I had told him that judging others and ourselves only makes us unhappy. It makes us unable to see the beauty in both ourselves as well as other people. And here I was doing exactly that! As soon as I started comparing myself to this amazing woman on the track, I stopped seeing what was beautiful in me. I began judging myself and believing that I am not as good as she is. Of course, that is simply not true! I am amazing, too! We all are!

Don’t get me wrong, looking at what others have and are able to do can help us aspire to be able to do or to have the same things. However, when we judge ourselves as less than because we aren’t at the same level, we lose the ability to ever have or do those things. We also put a barrier between ourselves and them. When you look at someone else and judge them to be better than you, you create a situation where you cannot learn from them. You put them up on a pedestal and aren’t able to hear their teachings. As a middle school teacher, I constantly tell my students that we are equal, that my position as a teacher doesn’t change the fact that we are all human beings. The students who believe this are the students who learn the most and have the most fun doing so! They are also the students who teach me the most!

Here I was again in a situation to learn from a fellow human being and I was creating that barrier. I put this woman on a pedestal and suddenly put her teachings out of my reach. I decided right then and there that was not okay with me! I decided that I needed to ask her to come to my girl group and talk to all of us. I wanted to learn from her! I will have to do that another time, though, she breezed around me a couple of times while I was musing and I couldn’t find her by the time that I was ready. I look forward to seeing her next time! Of course, now that my eyes were open, I was able to see the beauty in so many men and women around me; I also was not afraid of them!

As I moved into the next activity with my son, stretching out those sore muscles, I saw a beautiful woman on the weight machines. She was tall, muscular, absolutely gorgeous, and covered in inspiring tattoos. I just had to talk to her! I waited until she had finished her sets and then introduced myself. I learned that she started working out 2 years ago, that she had not always been able to do what I saw her doing today, that she had not always felt amazing. She had a story to share. She had once been where I am right now! She agreed to come to my group and talk to me and the girls – yes, we are all women, but we all love and embrace our girl! I am ecstatic to have met her and cannot wait to hear her story so I can learn to do what she has done and then do it myself! I AM as GOOD as!

Written by Angela St-Germain, middle school ESL teacher and founder of Mascara and Muchness. Follow Angela on Facebook (Mistress of Muchnesss or personal profile Angela St-Germain) for more inspiration and ideas on being muchier!

FB: Mistress of Muchness ∙ Instagram: Mistress_of_Muchness ∙ Twitter: @AngieSt_Germain

A Millionaire’s Confession: I Don’t Feel Worthy

I recently blogged on Savor Magazine’s site about a moment recently where I didn’t feel “worthy” enough.  Yes, it still happens.  Well all I can say is WOW! Your responses were so moving.  I’m sharing the article again here in case you didn’t read it.  One thing is very clear: the power we have to lift each other up is amazing and I’m thankful for my working mother sisterhood.

Here’s what I wrote:

In a Savor mastermind meeting today with a group of women I regularly meet with in New York City, I felt the blood drain from my head, my fingertips go numb and my eyes fill with tears. My mentor, Angela Jia Kim, had challenged me to a moment of truth and I was not ready for it.

We were discussing my brand when she said, “Your brand is about giving people hope. Throughout your life you’ve had different individuals tell you that you weren’t good enough, and as a result, you’ve worked your ass off to prove them wrong. Traci, you are still trying to prove your worth.”

Having known me for two years, it was no use to try to pretend she was wrong. Sitting in front of nine business peers, I almost collapsed on the floor in tears.

The fact is, I’m 44 years old and still holding on to the words of my ninth grade English teacher who said, “You’re just not a good writer”; the college classmate who out of nowhere said, “I don’t know why you are here. One day I’m going to be your boss”; the fellow cheerleader in high school who came over for pre-game pizza at our apartment and said, “Yuck, you have roaches in your cabinet.”

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Today, my armor of accolades offered no protection. The successful business, published books, and spoils of success were shattered by the raw truth:  I don’t feel worthy. I was busted.

Despite my discomfort, I needed this moment of vulnerability. The grown woman, Traci Bild, has spent the last 25 years trying to rescue the young girl, Traci Shafer, who was trying to prove her worth to the world.

I took a deep breath, wiped the tears from my eyes, and for the first time in my life acknowledged this truth. While difficult, it was incredibly liberating. I’ve been in prison for years and today, thanks to my mentor, I was given the keys to freedom.

It is now up to me to decide whether to stay a prisoner of these limiting thoughts, or to set myself free, and I choose freedom! Going forward, I will speak, write and work not to prove I’m good enough, but for the purpose I believe so powerfully in – to help women find THEIR all versus IT all.

Words are powerful and can impact our lives in tremendous ways. Perhaps it’s time to consider your own truth – what beliefs are you holding onto that are limiting your ability to step into your destiny? While not easy to ponder, the truth will set you free.

Homework Assignment:

Answer these questions in your journal:

1. What labels have you picked up that need to be shed?

2. Journal about this today and see where it leads you.

– See more at: http://blog.savorthesuccess.com/dream/worthy/#sthash.IEc6OWw5.dpuf

UPDATE ON LAST WEEK’S POPULAR BLOG- HOW MY 10 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER LOST PART OF HER GIRL

Paris on bars- Being a champion is about ability and character, both must be built.

Paris on bars- Being a champion is about ability and character, both must be built.

Sharing the story of what happened to my ten year old daughter Paris last week on my blog, http://bit.ly/1djkyGQ was really difficult. It’s not always easy to open up and share your wounds with other people. Yet it seems that her experience resonated with our readers in a powerful way. I’ve had many questions from wonderful people about “the rest of the story,” so here it is.

If you have not read the blog yet, please do so now http://bit.ly/1djkyGQ and then come back to this one.

In response to Paris’s experience at gymnastics, I scheduled an appointment to go in and talk with her coach. However, I would not be doing the talking, Paris would. Dave and I asked the coach to sit down with Paris and explain to her personally what was going on. When we picked Paris up from school she asked why both Dave and I were in the car and why we were going to the gym with her. We responded that she had an appointment with her coach and that we were simply there to support her. That she needed to find out why she was being yanked from her team workout, ask as many questions as she had, and decide what she wanted to do going forward. This was her deal, not ours. The important lesson we wanted to impart, no matter how hard it was on our hearts was that as a girl of ten, she needed to start handling her own problems and learn how to resolve them, communicate and process her emotions versus daddy and I swooping in to save her!

The Truth Hurts…

While very difficult to admit, her coach was probably correct in moving Paris to another group. Coming from a different gym two years ago, with different methods, Paris was still catching up at this elite gym. Loving gymnastics for the sport, not the competition, she was falling behind in comparison to the girls “there to win.” The coach explained everything and apologized for the way she informed Paris, in front of her peers-that she would no longer be part of the group.

I asked Paris, who was devastated just a day prior, what she wanted to do. Her options were to quit, move to a different gym, go into a group that was not competitive or press forward and show people what she was made of and fight to get back into the group she loves. She chose to stay right where she was, in the group her coach moved her to. I was so proud of her. Through my pain as a mom, watching my little girl face the trials of growing up, I prayed she would make this choice. We’ve faced tough things before and I’ve tried to make sure she knows that it is not what happens in life but how you respond to what happens that matters.

On a Mission…

The night we got home from the gym, Paris moved her balance beam up from the garage to the living room. Is this love or what? I now have a floor level beam in my living room and a gymnast on it around the clock. Yet I know this time will pass… and if this is what it takes to show our love and support, we’ll keep that darn balance beam in the living room for as long as it takes.

The next six months will be hard for Paris, she will feel many emotions as she watches her best friends all work out together four days a week while she is in a group with girls she doesn’t know. She will deal with her humiliation, feelings of inadequacies, (perceived) failure and embarrassment. Yet those emotions, I have a strong feeling, will begin to build a new part of her character, strengthen her resolve to prove she is capable and just might produce a champion who  was lying within; waiting to be awoken!

What I Learned….God Help Me!

As a mom it was so hard to not jump in and fix this problem for Paris. I was literally screaming and crying inside, having never seen her in that emotional state before I wanted to go into the gym and demand they put her back into her regular team practice group, with her teammates that she loved- tell them they were wrong, or had made a mistake. Yet in my heart, I knew this would not prepare her for the world. So moms, when the going gets tough and you face a moment like we did, which you will, remember this story, reach out to us for support, and know that a caterpillar cannot become a butterfly if a person helps it break out of its cocoon. It must struggle and fight to get out and in doing so its wings strengthen; which in turn allows it to fly. If you want your child to fly, you must let her (or him) struggle to grow her wings.

If you’d like to get the daily blog post by email, sign up at http://bit.ly/1j2ol3s.  If you’re reading this post through the daily email and want to become an Ambassador for Get Your Girl Back, where I’ll ask for help from you from time to time, email me at Traci@GYGB.com and I’ll share what we are up to.

Written by Traci Bild, Founder of the Get Your Girl Back movement & expert on Women’s Issues