8 Steps to Following Your Inner Diva to Empowerment
Carbon pressurized in the earth’s crust through millions of years becomes a diamond. With continuous buffing its many facets over time and with painstaking care becomes visible. Discovering your self-worth begins with learning to appreciate who you are now, just as you are now, till death do you part now, with all your imperfections now. Even the most magnificent diamonds have carbon deposits within. The journey doesn’t include ridding yourself of these carbon deposits but in polishing your veneer. “Diamonds are forever.” Debeers.
It was T.S. Elliot that said, “We shall not cease from exploring.” If we cease exploring we no longer grow and we die. Exploring our imperfections can be a painful process until we realize that no one wants perfection. Why do collectors pay so much money for handmade originals with imperfections, museums are filled with imperfect works of art, and archaeologist happily dig in the drudge to find a piece of a vase, because they know the value of a gift made by the hands of a master. You are a gift fashioned by the master. Several years ago the Sistine Chapel went through a major restoration project. The paintings in the main gallery after many years of exposure to the environment had yellowed and darkened. The restoration was painstaking, it involved removing years of soot and layers of paint to reveal the original vivacious, celebratory vision that Michelangelo had originally intended.
In the great vastness of our corner of the Milky Way there are over 100 billion earth-like planets and in all of this there is only “one” of you. Wendell Holmes said it best, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Upon closer inspection of a work of art you can see the masters thought process, what strokes he has taken, which direction he was planning and so it is with us. All that we are, all that we hope to be, bears closer inspection, not to scrutinize, but to be inspired by the mind of the master.
Diva Empowerment ACTION Steps:
Diva Exercises Group 1
1. Ask a group of friends and not family to write down 5 personality traits about you they admire? Then ask them to write 5 gifts they believe you possess.
2. Read these statements and put them away for a few days. You need time to digest what is written.
3. After you have waited a few days “gently and lovingly” inquire as to why your friends wrote what they did.
Diva Exercises Group 2
1. Journal about the vision you hold for your life. Do not censor yourself. Do not judge.
2. When you have retrieved the comments from your friends, in a journal write about your past experiences with the gifts and personality traits that were mentioned.
3. Next journal about what you consider to be your unique gifts and compare your friend’s points to your own. Are you living an authentic life? Are you representing yourself in a way that is in harmony with the vision you are holding for your life?
4. Journal about the person you are today. Journal about who you want to be in the next 5, 10 or 15 years. Are there any incongruences in your life scripting? How can you change your present life scripting to be in harmony with your vision? What is the cost of not honoring the vision you hold of yourself?
5. Come back to your entries in a few days or a few months and do the exercises again. Repeat the exercises quarterly throughout the year. Learn to course correct until your life becomes the Diva Maverick Mavens vision you hold for yourself. diamond painting tiere