Harness what defines YOU
In the past months I have reflected a lot what really defines me. Due to the two breast cancers, I lost both of my breasts … key signals of womanhood. During chemotherapy I lost my hair, my eye brows, my eyelashes, …. So important beauty elements, one would assume. But with a twinkle in the eye, I concluded very early in the process: I am really glad that I am not Pamela Anderson who is famous for being a blond bombshell. It’s so vain to think that outer beauty defines you. And actually no one is 100% perfect anyway. Once you lose key beauty attributes, you are challenged to rethink and be clear what really defines you.
Some time ago, I saw a documentary about a woman who lost her smile due to face paralysation. This loss of facial mimic impacted her interaction with others tremendously, and also her husband had difficulty “reading” her. The way out was continuous open dialogue to compensate for this lack of non-verbal communication. I can only try to imagine how hard and difficult her life is, how many misperceptions she has to face. On the other hand, I can also imagine that she has as a consequence so much deeper connections with the people she communicates with – not easy but that’s life. It always requires energy to overcome hardships and it is so worth it!
I was reminded by the many positive mails and messages I received from family and friends that my positivity and my laughter are what really makes me special.
Though, in my weakest times I felt like losing myself, losing the sparkle, the laughter, and I was then too exhausted to be outwardly positive. These times were very tough because my body and mind were on such low energy levels, so exhausted, that I spent many hours in bed without being able to engage with my environment. I encouraged myself by reminding me that it was only a phase that I had to go through, that better times were ahead of me, that it was all necessary to continue living …. but losing my outer identity was disturbing.
Luckily my innermost identity remained intact: I split the hard days full of pain into morning/afternoon/evening/night and was sometimes even grateful for every hour that was behind me. And this gratefulness led to such peaceful joy, that sometimes tears of joy were simply running down my cheeks, absolutely unstoppable.
So my learning is: Harness what makes you special & unique because it’s your Unique Selling Proposition, your brand, your legacy.
