On October 18th, we hosted our first ever Girls Night In. We had a wonderfully powerful discussion with our friend and coach, Vicky Martinez Dorr, who has guided us through the labyrinth of our past and current selves.

How much does who you were matter in who you are? And how much can you influence who you were raised and told to be?

That’s what we worked on finding out together.

We started the evening by listening to the personal journey of one of our founders. Some of us know her for a long time, some others met her for the first time. We were all inspired by her story of rebellion, power and courage. Vicky asked us to give  feedback in little colourful notes, that our founder keeps close to her desk and heart.

 

With a series of custom-made exercises, Vicky led us along a beautiful journey of figuring out why we are where we are in our lives, what shapes us and our thoughts and how to dig deeper into our self-set motivations.

We were asked to write down what we wanted to be when we were little. Soon we realised that most of our answers were either related to what our parents were doing (doctors, teachers) or to what we were experiencing visually. Someone wanted to be an ice-skater, because she had a poster of one in her bedroom. Someone else wanted to be a princess. Guess where she got that idea from? 🙂 (iceskaters, princesses). Actually, not many of us have spent time trying to figure out who we really wanted to be, based on what we played with, what we did unconsciously when we were little. That’s serious homework: ask mum & dad to remember all that for you!

Vicky then asked us to write down what or who we love most in the world. Some of us wrote about parents, some of boyfriends, husbands or friends, some of holidays, sunshine and nature. Interestingly enough, absolutely no one put anywhere on that list: “myself”. No one. Needless to mention the big “oh yes, of course” in the room, when Vicky then explained to us why this relationship with ourselves is probably the most important we’ll ever develop.

For the rest of the evening, we started digging deeper into what stops us from doing what we really want to do or being who we really want to be. Vicky guided us far and wide, into our own fears, insecurities, justifications. We thought, we wondered, we asked and answered, we laughed, we cried, most of all, we learned. From Vicky, from ourselves, and from each other.

We were left inspired, motivated, thoughtful. Some of our members sent us pictures of their desktops in this office or walls at home on which they stuck a note with “I love myself”, some others started asking mum and dat what on earth they were playing with when they were little, someone wrote down what she was afraid of and started working on crossing those things off her list.

Thank you, Vicky, for your warm and eye-opening guidance!

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