{"id":864,"date":"2012-07-09T15:39:51","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T13:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joannearchibald.com\/?p=864"},"modified":"2020-10-14T10:10:54","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T08:10:54","slug":"seeking-inner-strengths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joannearchibald.com\/fr\/blog\/seeking-inner-strengths\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking inner strengths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>We may not always see the qualities other people value in us, but our strengths are there \u2013 we just need to see ourselves from the right angle.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you had asked me what a manga was nine years ago, before I had lived in France, I probably would have guessed it was some inedible and potentially poisonous cousin of the mango fruit. Or I might have supposed it was an up-and-coming couture house (think Prada, Escada, Kenzo\u2026 Manga would fit right it). Given time, I could have come up with quite a few ideas but I never would have guessed that some day I would be taking life advice from one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affirmative action<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, I was discussing the development of self-esteem with a French friend, Elodie, and the role that affirmations of one\u2019s strengths and qualities could play in helping to shore up a shaky sense of self-worth. Modern life coaching techniques include the use of a positive personal affirmation that you can call upon when tempted to negatively compare yourself to others or minimise your own value. Obviously, the first step in developing such a personal statement is to identify your strengths \u2013 something a lot of people have a hard time doing. It\u2019s often easy to look at others and pronounce confidently, \u201cOh, he\u2019s always so generous\u201d, or \u201cShe\u2019s such an insightful soul\u201d, but when asked where our own strengths lie, we hum and haw, eventually muttering something like, \u201cWell, I guess I\u2019m pretty punctual\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Manga psychology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Why do we do this? What makes us so reluctant or incapable of appreciating ourselves? Well, according to Elodie, mangas have the answer. Now, for those who don\u2019t know, mangas are neither fruit nor designer handbags \u2013 they are Japanese comic books, created for children and adults alike. They are wildly popular in France, and for the last eight years, I have resisted the Beloved\u2019s attempts to get me to read them. I never saw the attraction (partly because his mangas all seem to be about warrior heros fighting with magical forces), but now Elodie has piqued my interest.<\/p>\n<p>As we sat discussing lofty questions of self-esteem and personal growth, Elodie had one of those lightbulb moments, jumping up from the couch and running to rifle through her bookshelves. She returned, triumphant and recounted an episode not from Freud or Jung but from her favourite manga\u2026 and it\u2019s all about Asian fast food. Yes, readers, today\u2019s wisdom comes in the form of Japanese rice balls.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The story of Kyo-kun<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the manga story, there is a girl called Kyo-kun who is deeply kind, but who can\u2019t seem to like herself. One day, a friend of hers tells her that people are just like onigiris \u2013 Japanese convenience food in the form of rice balls. The rice balls are often filled with umeboshi (pickled plums). The balls are formed in such as way that you can only see the filling from one side, the same way you can see the spot where jam has been pumped into a doughnut. Kyo-kun\u2019s friend tells her:<br \/>\nIf you think of someone\u2019s good qualities as the umeboshi in an onigiri, it\u2019s as if their qualities are stuck to their back. People all around the world are like onigiri. Everyone has an umeboshi with a different shape and colour and flavour. But because it\u2019s stuck on their back, they can\u2019t always see it. We think, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing special about me. I\u2019m just white rice\u201d. But that\u2019s not true \u2013 there is an umeboshi \u2013 on your back. Maybe the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people\u2019s backs. I can see them, too. I can see them perfectly. There\u2019s an amazing umeboshi on your back, Kyo-kun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our own sweet filling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to see our own special qualities, often because to us they are just a normal part of who we are, but it\u2019s important to stop and see them for the strengths they really are. Our qualities are our allies, helping us through life\u2019s challenges. When we start appreciating instead of denying them or assuming that other people\u2019s qualities are better, more numerous, or more valuable, we strengthen them and can draw on their full power.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it takes a good friend to help you see the umeboshi stuck to your back, or a manga comic book, or even a 360\u00b0 mirror, the benefits of identifying, knowing and owning your best self are multifold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We may not always see the qualities other people value in us, but our strengths are there \u2013 we just need to see ourselves from the right angle. If you had asked me what a manga was nine years ago, before I had lived in France, I probably would have guessed it was some inedible [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[215,216,180,214],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching","tag-confidence-2","tag-personal-strengths-2","tag-positive-thought-2","tag-self-love-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Seeking inner strengths - Joanne Archibald | Coaching<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joannearchibald.com\/blog\/seeking-inner-strengths\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seeking inner strengths - Joanne Archibald | Coaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We may not always see the qualities other people value in us, but our strengths are there \u2013 we just need to see ourselves from the right angle. 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