If you’ve read my blog you’re going to wonder how I chose the topic of a First Lady for tonight’s post. And also wonder why I am even attempting to compare any part of my life with hers.
Well, you may know that I’m going through a mild plot twist in life and am staying the week with some lovely friends in their historic home.
The amount of things I feel grateful for are profound as I lay in bed. The most obvious is my family and friends. I have never felt more support and love in my entire life. From texts, calls, hugs, and even being able to stay with friends. I realize how much I am loved and supported. It’s revitalizing. Sometimes when we’re at our low points we forget about all the good in and around us. Thank you all for the reminders.
The not so obvious thing I am grateful for are the women who have come before me and exist beside me. How did you do it? How do you do it?
A great friend and I were eating lunch and discussing life and how we get through it. Somehow we started talking about a quote that I’m going to butcher because I can’t remember the exact verbiage. “When we were little girls, we were told we could be anything we wanted to be when we grow up. But we heard we have to be everything to everyone.”
This is a concept so many women I’m friends with battle. We all try to do whatever we can, whenever we can with everyone we can. We give so much that sometimes we forget to save anything for ourselves which leaves us feeling like we’re not enough.
Another friend of mine sent me this image:
Ladies, we are enough. We just have to start thinking and acting like we are. I’m guilty of it. It sucks because it feels like a lack of self-love. And we all know that we have to love ourselves or we won’t have the ability to truly love anyone else.
The person I am going to be inspired by this week is a lady who has slept in the very room I am sleeping in tonight and for the next few days, Eleanor Roosevelt.
As you know, she was a writer, activist, and wife of 32nd United States President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Using her intellect and influence, she redefined what it meant to be a female member of the upper echelons of society, First Lady of New York, First Lady of the United States, and ultimately she expanded the role of women in society.
Here are my favorite quotes by Eleanor that I’m going to keep with me for inspiration:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”
“You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.”
“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well lived.”
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do …”
“We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.”
“Do whatever comes your way to do as well as you can. Think as little as possible about yourself. Think as much as possible about other people. Dwell on things that are interesting. Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
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