I met this woman the other day while I was volunteering for a non profit organization that empowers women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and development tools to help them thrive. We will call this woman Jackie. Each time I volunteer which is on Monday's, I come away inspired by the women I work with and Jackie is one of the most impactful for me so far.
My volunteer supervisor asked me to step in and help Jackie. She told me she thought that Jackie might have a mental disability and due to my mainly calm demeanor and patience I’d be best to work with her. The moment I spoke with Jackie, I knew she didn't have a mental disability. She seemed to have a lot on her mind and possibly trouble focusing on things. I'm not a doctor, but I thought may be she was suffering from ADD or ADHD. Regardless, I was set on having a fun experience with her.
After the formal computer and career prep work she has to do as part of the program, we were able to dive into the wardrobe aspect. I had her try on items that, as she put it “would’ve never been looked at twice" by her. She immediately became comfortable with me and started opening up about how she dealt with low self esteem, body issues and lack of self love. She lost herself in meaningless things and kept sinking into a “black hole”. One day she re-watched a movie her mom watched often when she was a kid, the main character in the film was a woman of structure and tons of self assurance. The character projected her love of self to others she’d encounter so that they would know that no matter what, she loved herself to much to be bothered. Jackie did a reassessment of herself after watching this and she walked to the mirror and said, “I love you, you can be better than what you are now”. She continued to tell me that the weeks following she asked for help in finding a job, which led her to this organization. After hearing this I went all out and picked out about 6 outfits, coats, shoes, jewelry, all the essentials for her to begin her interview process the following day and style her for the first few days at the job once she obtained it.
At the end of my time with her, we went over the last steps of the process and I asked how she felt with everything we went through. At that moment, she became emotional and told me I helped to further instill her self esteem and made her feel beautiful inside and out. She couldn’t believe that just days ago she was sad, had to get rid of clothes and felt like she had nothing to give back to the world. So to come in and not just receive high quality/luxury clothing, but kindness and tools she could take with her on her journey. To think that all it took was for her to ask for help, she felt blessed. Jackie stated that she wanted someone to hear her story and actually listen to her and I was that for her.
After her kind words I became emotional too, I felt the opposite, she was my blessing. Listening to her saying that she had to pick herself up and ask for help, allowed me to see that I need to continue to work on being a better student of life. I can be prideful at times, but asking for help doesn’t make you weak, it takes a strong audacious nature to do so. We should all take away something from Jackie, which is to be more courageous, because who wants to continue to be the opposite? Let’s take that concept with us into 2018.
All we have to do is ask....