Women Empowering Women Journey
This initiative started in the 90’s with a young group of diverse women on an Army base in Germany. Women being the minority, our ambitions were trivialized, yet our experiences were vast. Living on foreign soil, we were apprehensive of sharing life issues, personal / professional, growth or conflicts, “what if” concerns & doubts, being motivated or just surviving the grind. This isn’t an exhaustive list but an insight of not knowing that togetherness brings about empowerment and knowledge brings about wisdom to plan accordingly. .
A small group of us would gather after work and after talking we realized some of us had the same issues, or we learned from each other on protecting ourselves to survive and thrive. Our external families became each other. We naturally extended the support to other women who sought a safe and inviting environment to be their authentic selves.
The group expanded and retracted as life happened. It became harder for the initial group members to commit to the goal of empowerment. I believe in what we started organically; therefore, I continued segueing with others that were interested in being empowered. I started developing methods to keep members minimally engaged from group newsletters, weekly virtual meetings, weekly gratitude acknowledgement, monthly face-to-face luncheons, to quarterly virtual meetings.
The group was always open to all women, regardless of their background, age, creed, sexual orientation or color. The mission of the group progressed into a means to engage women to provide an environment that is discreet, safe & encouraging in which women are able to provide and receive advice from each other that is enriching & fulfilling. This was not an easy task organizing women to help other women for the reward of paying forward lessons learned. Yet there was always small groups with interest in spurts.
Fast forward right before COVID started. I became ignited to try another approach to continue on with this mission because it is a beautiful thing to see others flourish. This time it was going to be by invitation only with a selected group of women who could initially commit for one year. They were asked to become an advisory group. Their task for the year was to focus on setting personal goals they wanted to accomplish within the year and within their schedule for themselves.
For the first time it wasn’t about helping others, rather, it was about giving back to yourself. We reported on our progress, received support as we tackled our journey.
When you are always doing for others, you become entrenched in the goal and sometimes you lose sight of your personal endeavors. Each of the women have a different perspective on what those last few years meant or did for them. Nonetheless, we can each attest to how empowering it can be to be empowered without a motive.
The time has come to open the door to assist you with your experience in whatever has been holding you back from taking the steps to move forward to meeting a goal. It’s a journey, but it will be your journey and you are worth investing in you.
