Everyday Empowered Women Initiatives™ Navigating modern life. Living deliberately.

Last night, certain words from a speech made by the late President Reagan in 1981 came to mind.

Here is an excerpt from his Inaugural Speech in 1981:

“We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are not (sic) heroes, they just don’t know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter, and they’re on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity.”

As an entrepreneur, I don’t think of myself as a hero, yet Ronald Reagan’s words have remained with me for the last 27 or so years since I first heard them, particularly the ones I have highlighted in bold.

We all have the capacity to do deeds that could be seen as heroic even when they are not of the type and scale of deeds that are characteristically considered heroic, e.g., a fireman who rescues people from burning buildings. We can all be the “hero” in someone’s life by being by their side, encouraging them, quietly smoothing the way, taking part of their heavy load on our shoulders for a while.

We can all also be heroes for ourselves. We can make the decisions that move our lives forward. We can follow through on promises and intentions, even those we make only to ourselves about the most mundane things or the most extraordinary. We can take the actions that feel uncomfortable but continue with them to achieve the best outcome.

Being heroes to ourselves in our own lives also means taking responsibility for our lives, being accountable for our actions, doing what is necessary, and keeping ourselves strong for ourselves and for others. Some of this might come in the form of finding constructive ways to get through tough times, taking that horrible-tasting tablet if it will help a health issue, having a clear conscience that we stepped up when called upon to do so.

We all have it within ourselves to take the reins of our lives, make our lives better, reduce our stress levels, be productive, be heroic – to ourselves, for ourselves, for others.

I have been through periods of emotional quicksand that almost drowned me. But I know the hero in me and tapped into that inner power, got myself onto steadier ground, and continue to move forward each day.

I could have stopped there, but I did not. I put what I learned to good use and developed a simple strategy to share with all women who are dealing with their own versions of quicksand.

The Paco Straws Framework for Emotional Stabilization™ that I developed was born of real life and from having spent years listening to and observing how women experience emotional overload and what the consequences are. In situations like this, the presence of a hero is usually welcome.

The broad 3-tier Paco Straws framework created a non-threatening, non-clinical personal check-in for women to get an idea of their stress levels. From there came Tier I of the framework for understanding stress through interpretation and pattern recognition.

There are many ways for us to be a hero in our own lives by taking charge of our stress levels and not leaving our well-being to chance.

Source of quoted article: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/inaugural-address-1981

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