Ask Others, Trust Yourself by Elisa Balabram

Painting by Sandy Ordonez

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US. I encourage everyone, here and abroad to take inventory of your lives this year, and create a list of what you are grateful for.

In 2012, a lot of changes have happened in my life, some I created and some happened unexpectedly. I left an 8-year career in the non-profit sector to launch my own coaching and writing business. Both my sites were hacked and it took about 5 months to at least partially build them again. I got involved in a loving relationship that ended abruptly and it helped me to go deep inward and open my heart even further. I was able to visit Scotland for the first time and it was a wonderful and magical journey – it inspired me to write my second book. I started teaching an undergraduate Entrepreneurship class at Baruch College/Zicklin School of Business and it’s been a rewarding experience.

Who knew 2012 had these many surprises in store? Most people I know have experienced radical changes in their lives this year, some faced it better than others, but it seems like thankfully we are going to make it to 2013.

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Recently I complimented a young lady at work, and she started saying that she didn’t feel beautiful at all, that her friends were much cuter and that she’s always had low self-esteem. Someone else was close to us and she joined the conversation saying the same thing.

I understand a lot about low self-esteem. As I was growing up, I had curly brown hair and freckles. I dreamed of waking up one day with straight and brunette hairstyle. That was before flat iron hair tools, so I would wrap my hair around my head, and it would make it straight for a while, but not too long. It didn’t help it that when I was in first grade, older kids were singing a bad hair song every time I passed by, or that I didn’t know what to do with the curly hair.  In addition, I always enjoyed sun bathing, which increased the number of freckles I had. Since there weren’t many people around with freckles, except in my family, I dreamed that someday I would have so many freckles they will join together and I’ll have a brown skin color and no freckles. I still remember when I was at school in 5^th grade, and a boy asked me if I was really this ugly or if I had eaten a frog. Not a great self-esteem booster, is it?

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The more you are able to love yourself, to appreciate who you are, to own your power, and to value yourself, the further your business can grow.

Here are a few ways to practice self-love:

• Create a self-love mantra you can tell yourself as many times as you like throughout the day, such as: I love myself; I love and appreciate all parts of myself; I accept and love who I am as I am.
• Take time to be in contact with nature: walk in the park; hug a tree; walk barefoot; visit the ocean; go hiking; visit a community garden.
• Start a success diary: list all of your major life accomplishments to date, and then continue writing daily successes. After you list the major successes, the daily updates don’t have to be huge! How about: paid the bills on time, arrived early to a meeting, did the dishes, wrote a blog post?

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