A woman shares with me her despair regarding her teenage daughter, let’s call her Bella. She is new to the neighbourhood, and Bella is not adjusting well. She wants to make new friends. She tries to reach out to the other girls, but her overtures are ignored by them. All the girls rotate homes, where they share their lunches along with girlhood secrets; their thoughts de jour about fashion and celebrities, about romance and men. Bella is excluded. The phone does not ring. There are no invitations to lunch. She spends lunch periods alone, hurting; craving to hear the sounds and giggles from “the inner circle”.

Pain of marginalization and rejection will likely be remembered by both Bella and by her mother for a long time.

Not only will the young woman not be seen in the way she wants others to see her: how smart, how cool, how funny she is; she will need a strategy to ensure her self esteem is based on factors other than her rejection or acceptance by others.

Seeing is not just seeing. It involves interpreting, assessing, challenging and inquiring.

I am told about a woman named Cheri who suffers from an affliction that affects her in many ways, including her ability to speak in a way that is clearly understood.

Cheri has several degrees and is highly intelligent, yet because her affliction affects her speech, people who meet her at first make assumptions about her without delving deeper. They shout at her as if she is hearing impaired. They gesticulate assuming she cannot understand their words, or the language. They assume she is developmentally delayed. Do they see a capable, intelligent and highly educated woman? No, they do not.

They see only what their filters permit them to see. That doesn’t make these people bad people. It just means that their lenses need adjustment or defogging. Cheri wants them to see her as woman who has accomplished a great deal. She is a creative entrepreneur, a friend, a mother, a wife. Spiritual and grounded. This is how she wants to be seen. She does not want to present to others as only a woman who has a “condition”.

Instead of risking exposing herself to false assumptions and insensitive responses, Cheri has discovered weapons of mass instruction. She uses a Palm Pilot to type messages to those who assume that she can neither hear nor understand the words they have spoken to her and the message that they are sending.

Instead of shrinking, she chooses to bloom with purpose, to sensitize those who assume that different means disqualified. She types them a message that she does understand clearly what they are saying but she has difficulty because of her illness to enunciate in a manner that would make her words understandable by them. Instead of absorbing false interpretations, she has empowered herself to change their view, and possibly also their vision.

That does not mean that she is not frustrated by her disease or by the challenges she faces. That would be senseless and unrealistic. She wears what she describes as “armour”. In this, she means the support of family, an indomitable spirit, an unwavering faith, courage, creativity and a sense of humour.

She has acquired quite deliberately, the right tools to cope and to feel good about herself. She accepts her limitations to a certain extent but chooses not to let them defeat her. She stretches herself and achieves a lot. This fills her up, fuels her self esteem.

Can Cheri’s story help Bella? I believe so. Can this young woman challenge herself and change her mind about herself? Can she believe that she is lovable and friend worthy? Absolutely! It just takes will and determination.

Every obstacle that Cheri faces is treated by her as a challenge which she purposefully takes. She finds strength in telling herself how much she can do, how much she can offer. If life deals out lemons and she is told she cannot make lemonade, she will bake lemon pie. She will enjoy the delicious pie and she will find a community of lemon pie lovers to share a slice with her, gratefully.

Bella could build her self esteem by telling herself a story about herself which celebrates all her good qualities and all of her successes. She needs to surround herself with people like Cheri whose vision of what is doable is never cloudy.

^{• Maureen Bogoroch-Ditkofsky is a Toronto-based consultant, writer and speaker. She collaborates with individuals and organizations to develop and improve leadership capabilities and increase organizational effectiveness and wellness. She can be reached at 416.445.2802 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it For more information, visit www.2golead.com.}