I'm a firm believer in the idea we all need personal cheerleaders along the course of our life to keep us believing in ourselves when our own doubts creep in.
Each generation has its own symbolic representations of what it means to have self esteem and to believe we are each worthy of everything.
I watched a movie the other night "Believe in Me" with Jeffrey Donovan who plays a coach who has moved to a small town to train the boys team. Upon arriving he find its the girls who will be his coaching duty and he is not happy about it. The time is 1964 and girls and sports were not thought of as something to be valued. Title IXX hadn't been passed and resources were just hand me downs.
But what this movie is about is not the man as a coach, but a man who finds his real purpose in life is not what he thought it was. And by following the path life showed him instead of fighting to show life the path he wanted, he changed lives in ways he could never have believed he could.
He didn't cheer the girls on as much as he believed in them so that they could then believe in themselves. You have to remember in 1964, the country girls highest aspirations were mostly limited to being a farmers wife and raising the kids.
High school was their peak for living their own life before they turned it over to their assigned roles.
But it's also about the idea that when we stand up for what we believe even in the face of certain failure or fear, life has a way of bringing those to us who will help clear the way for a higher truth. There is a lot of power in believing what your heart tells you over what you fear does.
It's worth a watch to get inspired by some young girls who lived a life most of us don't remember and see what it meant to them so we can remember what it means to us to have someone believe in them.
