Sue Patton Thoele - The Courage to Be Yourself

The Courage to
Be Yourself

an updated

guide to

emotional

strength

and

self-esteem

Sue Patton Thoele

Coral Gables, FL

Copyright 1991, 2001, 2016, 2022 by Sue Patton Thoele.
Published by Conari Press, a division of Mango Publishing Group, Inc.

Cover Design: Katia Mena
Layout & Design: Carmen Fortunato
Interior Illustrations: Sandie Turchyn
Author Photo: Luke Landin

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The Courage to Be Yourself: An Updated Guide to Emotional Strength
and Self-Esteem

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2022913384
ISBN: (print) 978-1-68481-026-0, (ebook) 978-1-68481-027-7
BISAC: SEL023000, SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Self-Esteem

In memory of my wonderful mother,

Virginia Faris Patton,

who had a special talent for listening,

and

my dear friend,

Kate Wagner Landin,

who had a special talent for living and giving.

Your courage, humor, and love in the face of
death blessed and inspired me beyond my
ability to describe. Thank you both from the
depths of my heart and soul.

Table of Contents

M y heart swells with gratitude as I revisit The Courage to Be Yourself, to revise and update it for this Tenth Anniversary Edition. Im grateful for all the people who from the very beginning encouraged me to write when I didnt have a clue how to begin or the confidence to believe that I had anything worthwhile to say. And most of all Im grateful to the women who have read the book and,in doing so, have given it a life o f its own.

Receiving letters and talking with these readers has been a continual and invaluable reminder to me that no matter how diverse we may seem, women share very similar journeys. In essence, we want and need to gather the courage to be whom we were b orn to be.

As is often the case, we teach what we most need to learn, and that was certainly true for me in writing The Courage to Be Yourself. The book emerged from my own struggles with fear, feelings of limitation, and the unrelenting criticism I heaped upon myself. Because I needed to practice the art of loving and being myself, this book was born. But it has survived and thrived because of you, the readers. Thank you from the depths of my heart!

Many of the women who first read the book are now mothers and grandmothers, and its my hope and prayer that this revised edition will become a legacy they will want to pass on to their daughters and grand daughters.

The idea of writing The Courage to Be Yourself first occurred to me in the small groups and seminars that I and a dear friend, Bonnie Hampton, led for several years. As we explored womens issueswhich included hopes, dreams, frustrations, fantasies, and fearsI was struck by the fact that whether married or single, stay-at-home moms or career women, old or young, the women in the groups struggled with similar anxieties and were saddled with comparable limiting beliefs. Amid both laughter and anguish, we helped each other transform common fears into the courage to express our authentic selves. Bonnies and my goal was to provide simple but powerful tools for helping ourselves and participants enhance self-esteem and tap into our elusive but ever-present core of emotional strength.

Im hoping the true stories and examples shared in The Courage to Be Yourself will act as a group experience for you to help you overcome any tendency you may have to undervalue yourself and to encourage you, instead, to fully love and appreciate how wonderful you really are. Sharing our journey with other women can uphold and sustain us as we find the courage to be uniquely ourselves and realize that emotional strength and self-esteem are, in fact, our birthright, our privilege, and our respo nsibility.

Finding
the Courage to Be Yourself

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming. This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, its no longer so. I feel happydeep down. Al l is well.

katherine mansfield (last jour nal entry)

B ecause we have learned so much, finding the courage to be ourselves may be easier for some of us now than it was fifteen years ago when I began writing the first edition of this book . Easier because many women are reveling in a greater sense of personal freedom and embracing a more expansive vision of themselves. While we can still fall prey to fears and beliefs that limit us, we have also become more psychologically aware and therefore better able to understand, move through, and overcome challenging feelings and circ umstances.

Thats the good news. The flip side is that finding and sustaining the courage to be ourselves continue to be a challenge for many women, myself included. Why is it still so darn hard? One of the main reasons is that many of us were weaned on subtle and not-so-subtle innuendos regarding a womans role and, as a result, were well trained to put ourselves last, if at all. Old, familiar habits and expectations such as these are not easily or quickly changed. Another deterrent to authenticity is the seemingly endless and ever expanding demands upon us. Over-commitment robs us of the time, energy, and interest necessary to ponder who we are and what we wan t or need.

Its true, we women are becoming increasingly independent and strong while continuing to love and support our friends, families, and communities. Ironically, the difficulty of being ourselves continues to be a common topic among women. Why do we so easily give ourselves away by doing more than were comfortable doing? Why do we often succumb to the habit of devaluing ourselves and putting ourselves down? While no one is totally immune to the charm of outside approval, many of us are periodically mystified by the seemingly tenuous stability of our self-esteem and emotional we ll-being.

Most of us have spent a lot of time and effort redefining ourselves and discrediting inhibiting stereotypes. Given our hard and dedicated work to improve our feelings of self-worth, why is it so hard to hold on to a belief in ourselves when people react less than positively toward us? What causes our emotional strength to ebb away in the face of disapproval? Why does it take such effort for us to express what we really think and feel?

Faced with speaking my truth, especially if I fear it will lead to rejection of either myself or my ideas, often causes a lump to clog my throat and a heavy weight to settle on my heart. Am I a slow learner? Am I actually afraid of equality? Worse yet, am I an imposter?

No, I dont think so. And neithe r are you.

As the saying goes, weve come a long way. However, our training and socialization to accept second-class citizenry runs deep. And why wouldnt it? For millennia women have suffered punishments, ranging from denial of affection and support to being burned at the stake, for stepping out of their rightful places. Given our history, it makes sense that a deep-seated fear of speaking our mind, being ourselves, and living our dreams is woven into the very fabric of our being. We now have the unprecedented opportunity to courageously recreate and reweave our lives and, consequently, the lives of our daughters and grand daughters.