Respect - starting with yourself

Respect, Kindness and Nurturing are Feminine qualities according to Margi Ross author of the book 'The Conscious Feminine'.

I think this is really important to talk about – these three qualities, and many of us women have them within us naturally - and it's time to bring these qualities out, to make sure that these are more accepted and, yes, respected in our society.

I often hear that women want to feel more feminine and attractive. The first thing that springs to people's minds is probably the outer feminine look, but I'm not talking about that at all, even though I do think it is also important. I'm talking about the inner feminine qualities.

Struggled to be heard

I used to work in a big male-dominated company in Sweden as a communication officer. For about ten years I really struggled to be heard, to be seen and respected for my knowledge and interpersonal skills and expertise that I had (and still have…) about improving the communication and relationships in the teams.

I knew that I had a lot to contribute in my work, to really help teams, getting managers and leaders to communicate and work better together to make sure that they delivered better results in the business, and as a bonus, they would most likely have felt better about themselves and the other team members as well.

People told me how much they liked me as a person and when they had personal problems they often turned to me to seek help, which I liked, but they never really asked for my help when it was about the business.

We need the feminine qualities

So – what is this thing that people liked and still like about me and all the other women that are liked like that? It's the internal feminine qualities, Respect, Kindness and Nurturing that shine through and we all need these qualities around us as humans, frankly to feel better and possibly happier in life.

If you as a woman want to feel more feminine, you can do something about it. What you first need to do is to work on the Respect towards yourself.

What I generally mean by the word Respect is to respect people's qualities that they have as a person, for example, caring, loving, creative, warm, etc.

The first step to take is to start to practice to Respect your self:

• Make a list of your inner qualities, don't worry if you find it tricky, give it time. You can also ask someone that know you, see what they think.

• Each morning as you look in the mirror, take a full minute to say to yourself, "I respect you". Mean it. Get used to hearing yourself say the word respect. It will be easier to say and show to others if you can first learn to say it to yourself.

• Then take one of your good qualities and add that to your sentence when you practice in front of the mirror, it could go something like this: "I Respect You for being such a loving, caring, warm, considerate, creative etc.

• To practice Respect a bit more - add to the list other people's good qualities that you see in them. When you feel ready you can start to practice to say to them, "I Respect you for being so…"