Becoming Superwoman

Mother’s Day weekend I had the opportunity to go to Mother’s Day tea with a group of friends. It started off with us all dressing up to go to tea. One of our friends had a gorgeous hat, but she felt silly wearing it. We all encouraged her to wear it because it looked great and we were going to tea after all! We all sat down and had tea and the most delicious treats Morgan had made. She had invited a guest speaker to speak with us that changed my outlook on how I viewed how I could become superwoman.

According to Google, superwoman is “a woman with exceptional strength or ability, especially one who successfully manages a home, brings up children, and has a full-time job.” I thought this to be interesting, how do we define superwoman and how do we become her? Am I superwoman? Am I anywhere close to becoming superwoman?

As I think about it I think of all the people that are superwoman. I think of my neighbor who raises four kids, serves everyone who needs help, works at her husband’s office, and still keeps a perfectly clean house, the list as to why she is superwoman can go on and on. I think another mom who wrote this amazing book, has the most beautiful well-mannered kids, has taught them to clean and be respectful, and volunteers at every opportunity she is given. There are so many more people I can think of that I can add to this list of superwomen. I look at them and wish my house could be half that clean, or my kids could be half that good, or I could serve half the people they do, or my makeup could be half as good as the lady I saw at the grocery store. After doing this I quickly realize that I can never be superwoman because I can never measure up to what they do, or can I?

Our guest speaker Karen gave us the number one secret to becoming superwoman and I am going to share it with all of you! Ready for it? It is finding your identity! This might seem easy to some, this might seem like the impossible to others! So how do we find our identity and then in turn become superwoman?

I recall last December when I finally graduated from college! I had devoted the last 4 years to being a full time student, a mom, a wife, and a lousy housecleaner because I simply didn’t have enough hours in the day. School all of a sudden ended and I felt like I had nothing. Sure I could clean all day, but who wants to do that? I had no job, but I didn’t really want one because I wanted to stay home and raise our kids, but I felt empty inside. I began to look back on my life as an adult and realize that I had spent the entire part of it to being a wife, a mom, and a student, and had forgotten to take care of myself and continue to develop my identity. So how do I gain this identity? How do I discover who I am?

So when Google sets the rules as to what superwoman is we can laugh and know that we are superwoman, especially to those who love us the most, our family and ourselves and isn’t that all that matters?!

Determination
The first step to finding our identity is determination. We must really want to find it! Remember when you were a child and you really wanted to learn how to ride a bike and you kept getting on that bike no matter how many times you fell off it? That is determination! You know when you really want to convince your husband that you need those new designer jeans? You might do just about anything to get him to admit you really need them! That’s determination! When you make cheesecake after cheesecake and no matter what you do they keep cracking, but yet you keep making them determined that one day you will make one without it cracking! That’s determination!

Stop Comparing
We all do it! We look at one another and compare ourselves. She is prettier than me; I am skinnier than her. Her makeup always looks better than mine. With social media plaguing our worlds it is so easy for us to spend our days comparing us to everyone else. We compare us to our friend’s filtered pictures that it probably took them 15 pictures to take to get just the right angle and then 15 minutes to edit it to look their best. We see their child hitting a homerun in their latest video they posted when our child struck out every at bat, but we don’t think about the fact that our son has only been playing for two years and their son has been playing for 6 and takes private lessons once a week.

Just this week I stumbled out of the car at 4pm after picking my son up at school with no shoes on, no shower taken yet that day, pajamas still on, 8 months pregnant with a diet coke in my hand only to see my superwoman neighbor outside looking so cute as her kids played happily in the yard. Boy was I comparing me to the fact that I just couldn’t get it together that day! But what I forgot was that I got everyone off to school, did all the laundry, had happy kids, spent the whole rest of my day organizing and cleaning my house, and only ate one piece of the most amazing chocolate rather than the normal 5 or 6. Before I started to compare myself to someone else I felt great about everything that I had done! We must stop comparing ourselves to others. We are our own worst enemies when we start comparing ourselves to others!

Discovery
We need to discover our identity. We need to figure out what makes us happy and who we are. How do we do this? Karen related this to looking for dimes around the house. If there were a hidden camera in our house what would we see on the video if we were searching for dimes? Would we be turning over seat cushions, looking in the laundry baskets, searching the toy bins? Most likely we would be searching high and low to find all the dimes we could. We need to have this same method to discover our identity. We need to search high and low. Try sewing, do you like it, what about baking or cooking? Maybe you try out running and find your identity as you pound the pavement.

Remember when I finished school and I felt like I had nothing? I had lost my identity. If someone asked me how I like to do my hair I would say, I’m not sure because I have had it in pony tail I swear everyday for the last 4 years. If someone asked me what I like to do when I had a few moments of not helping my family I would probably stand there with a blank stare on my face because I no longer knew what I liked to do. We must discover our likes our dislikes. We will figure out through trying things who we truly are and we will discover our identity.

As we discover our identity, we will find happiness. We will become more self-confident in what we are doing and we will become our own superwoman. We will bring joy to those around us, which in turn will bring us more joy and happiness. As we become determined to discover our identity we will no longer care about comparing ourselves to the girl at the grocery store or the edited Facebook picture. We will become our own superwoman to those around us as we perfect our own identity. Having our own identity and developing that makes us all become superwoman! So when Google sets the rules as to what superwoman is we can laugh and know that we are superwoman, especially to those who love us the most, our family and ourselves and isn’t that all that matters?!