Building identity: The courage to define yourself
“Listening to your heart is not simple. Finding out who you are is not simple. It takes a lot of hard work and courage to get to know who you are and what you want.”
That is a quote by Sue Bender, author of Everyday Sacred: A Woman’s Journey Home.
Mena Suvari
According to a Page Six Magazine article [by Stephanie Trong], Mena Suvari was raised in an affluent family in Rhode Island, and “the 28-year-old actress says her upbringing was so sheltered, she never even learned how to take out the garbage.
“Then, soon after achieving stardom in 1999’s American Beauty, the then-21-year-old married cinematographer Robert Brinkmann, 17 years her senior.
“During that marriage, which lasted five years, she remained insecure and dependent. ‘I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t capable of doing things,’ she says. ‘I felt as if I were waiting for someone to validate me.’
“After her divorce, she moved into her own home for the first time and began to see herself as an individual, not as someone’s wife or daughter. ‘I’ve gotten to the point where all the love that I need, all the support that I need, the confidence, I can give myself. It’s empowering and freeing.’
“She also takes great pride in her ability to accomplish such tasks as building her own bookcase or hanging her own holiday decorations. ‘One year I was like, I am going to put up those damn Christmas lights outside by myself. My guy friends would ask, Can I do that for you? and I’d be like, No! I have to do this, because to me it’s an accomplishment.’”
Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank has commented about achievement: “As in life, your mind can be the hugest obstacle or tool, depending on how you choose to use it. And I find that a lot of people who are successful in life say, ‘I can do this, and I will do this.’
“Their minds don’t get in their way; whereas people who wake up and say, ‘Oh, I can’t,’ their mind is in their way, and it’s going to stop them from doing what they need to do to achieve their dream.”
[Photo: as boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby.]
But various fears and anxieties can get in the way of realizing our dreams.
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington points out, “Fear is universal; we all have fear.” Certainly men can experience as much self-limiting fear as women, overall.
But, Huffington adds in her book On Becoming Fearless, some fears “do tend to be more prevalent among women than men, including fear of staying single; fear of imperfection; fear of failure; of ugliness; of loneliness; of growing old; public speaking; ridicule; being alone; getting wrinkles.”
From a post on the Developing Talent site: Judy and Hilary Swank on courage – getting through your fear to your creative potential .
Eric Maisel on meaning
Psychologist and creativity coach Eric Maisel addresses in his work and books the issue of how important meaning is for creative people in defining themselves, engaging their talents and maintaining mental health.
He says, “Even before you can make meaning, you must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your own life and fashion a central connection with yourself, one that is more aware, active, and purposeful than the connection most people fashion with themselves.
“Self-connection — understanding that you are your own advocate, taskmaster, coach, best friend, and sole arbiter of meaning and that no one else can or will serve those functions for you — is crucial.”
From Eric Maisel’s “Van Gogh Blues” Explores Connection and Meaning-making as Treatments for Depression, an interview by Janet Grace Riehl.
Hillary Clinton on Eleanor Roosevelt
Hillary Clinton, in her Commencement Address at CUNY Honors Graduation May 31, 2005, said one of her great personal heroines was Eleanor Roosevelt. “The more I know about her, the more I admire her.
“A woman who may have come from privilege but had very little support in the family in which she was born. Who in a very American way invented herself.”
Clinton quoted Roosevelt: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things which you think you cannot do.”
[From the page Courage / confidence.]
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