I sat in the audience with 500 people in awe, with a swelling sense of pride. I listened to a courageous woman talk about getting past her own fears and reaching out for help.
What I realized was not only how much courage it took her to leave an abusive, dangerous marriage, but even more, how much courage it took to reach out to strangers and tell her story over and over again. She knew that she and her children were worthy of safety and support. But she had to relive her terrible experiences each time she shared them out loud.
What I saw, as Lisbet shared her story, was how many people it took to help her become safe, emotionally heal, and believe in herself and her own worth and abilities. She got the help she needed for safety, shelter, legal issues, counseling from many different places.
Lisbet Perez, a 2015 Transformation Leadership graduate, is a shining example of inner courage and resilience. And, that it truly does take a village of support to help women and their families become safe and whole again.
Lisbet credits Leap to Success with helping her leap over self-doubt and fear to accept a position as a Program Manager at Alliance for Hope International.
But before developing confidence and learning the practice of self-nurturing, Lisbet might not have found the courage to say yes to her dream job.
“When I was offered the position, I was very happy but didn’t know how to receive it because of the fears that came up,” says Lisbet. The single mother of three has a passion for working with refugees and providing support and education to those affected by domestic violence in the Latino and Hispanic community. But having survived seven years of domestic abuse and the fear of deportation and death, she struggled to believe in herself and the capability that everyone around saw inside her.
The confidence she needed came, in part, from starting her own self-nurturing practice (which she is excited to teach in Spanish one day) and the encouragement of the Leap to Success instructor team. Lisbet believes that her “biggest leap was finding the confidence to take this position.”
When asked what advice she would give to others considering a leap in their own lives, Lisbet answers quickly,
“Don’t let fear stop you. Fear is the biggest obstacle for us taking a leap.”
For Lisbet, fear was connected to self-doubt. “I was feeling overwhelmed instead of feeling good about my success,” she shares. It was difficult to tell herself, “yes, you’re doing a great job” and equally challenging to accept compliments from other people. “I didn’t truly believe what [other people] said. I thought they were being nice.”
But with the support of Leap to Success, the Voices community and weekly meetings with Instructor Kelley Grimes, Lisbet began to accept her true value as an individual. Not basing her worth on a job title or other accomplishment, she gained confidence. Lisbet says it was “just me loving myself and learning how to feel good about myself.”
Discovering how to love and believe in herself was the key to Lisbet pushing past her fear to say yes to a job she loves and the new life she is creating.
