The Importance of Role Models

The importance of role models struck me rather poignantly recently and led to a happy surprise and heartfelt moment with my Aunt.

I was cleaning the house, dusting the furniture and the little trinkets, keepsakes and crystals on top of the furniture when I came to these Guatemalan Worry Dolls.
In a moment of pure consciousness, I realised I have carried them with me, through countless house moves, for the last 35 years!

In this moment of awareness, I also realised the Aunt who gave them to me, my Mother’s Sister, is the person who was my role model for travel.

There was absolutely nothing like these Worry Dolls in all my little girl’s possessions, living in suburban Australia in the mid-80s. No soft toy in my teddy bear collection was like these in any way. Even the container they came in was so unique and unusual.  And that’s part of what made them so special. Sitting amongst the cut crystal and pretty ceramic jewellery boxes atop lace doilies on my duchess.

And I loved that their soul purpose was to take care of my worries for me.

You see the way it works with Guatemalan Worry Dolls is, at night before you go to bed, you tell each doll a worry and while you are sleeping, they take care of that worry for you. Importantly, you only get six dolls, so that’s only six worries per day.

So there’s lots of lovely lessons in this gift for a little girl who worried.
But the gift was even more than this.

In giving the gift, my Aunt also shared stories of her travels. She did show-and-tell for us kids with all the bizarre and unusual currencies she used while away in far off places – and this was pre-European Union so that was lots of different coins!. But the piece de resistance for us kids was the amazingly decorative, varnished timber coffee table that transformed (just like a Transformer!) into a felt card table, Backgammon board and Roulette wheel, complete with little white ball and chips! All of this curious and unusual stuff inspired me to travel; to go where these interesting things came from.

Noone I knew had been anywhere before my Aunt.
And it seemed like she had been everywhere!

Travel, discovery, exploring, adventures, other cultures and their languages, clothing and food – these are the things I LOVE. Things that inspire me, spark my curiosity. These are the very things upon which I spend my hard earned. When I picked up these dolls to dust them recently, I was struck with how such a small physical item, held so many memories for me and so much inspiration for creating more memories.

So I put down my dusting cloth and decided to call my Aunt and thank her for being such a great role model.

And would you believe it?
Turns out it was her Birthday!!!
Classic!
Gotta LOVE how The Universe works don’t you?!
We had a great chat that day – it had been a while.

I gave her thanks for being my role model for travel as a Birthday gift and she shared more of her travel stories with me. Because these Worry Dolls sparked curiosity and memories within her then:
Where had she bought them?
What year had that been?
Who was she travelling with at the time?
It was lovely being included in her reminiscence of past adventures.

And being a bit of a brutal de-clutterer myself, I vowed to think and feel very carefully the next time I am clearing my things. Hearing my Aunt piece together part of her history through connecting with these Worry Dolls was very special and as the years pass, I am already getting a sense of how important such keepsakes will be for my memory of my history.

So are you getting a sense of the importance of role models?

Our role models for life and living are so important.
We form the fundamentals of who we are and how we will live between the ages of zero and seven by absorbing the modelling around us. Makes you think twice about your children’s early childhood teachers and day-carers doesn’t it? Because the role models we choose aren’t always our parents. Maybe they’re teachers or even movie or rock stars?

One of my role models, as we now know, was my Aunt.
Upon realising her role modelling in my life, through dusting my Guatemalan Worry Dolls, I realised more about what I value and more about my self and how I live my life. And how lots of all that has blossomed from my Aunt’s modelling of curiosity, a sense of adventure and saying “YES” to opportunity.

Becoming aware of the elements that make up our life and our values and then gently noticing where we picked these elements up has been an enlightening process for me.
I highly recommend it.

It is, afterall, up to you and you alone to decide what elements you combine in creating your life. If you find there are elements of your life you don’t enjoy or benefit from, you can always stop doing them, leave them out.
Ask yourself: What would I rather do instead?
How would I rather BE living?

And there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here.
Once you figure out how you’d rather BE living, ask yourself: Who do I know who does this well?
Then model them.
Ask them about their strategies for living the way they do.
And make those strategies part of the way you play the game of life.
Knowing it’s your choice to make – who to BE, what you value, how to live, fulfilling those values and BEing happy.
Your choice.

Let me know what you come up with?
I am always curious and interested.
Always.

LOVE
Rachel x
Your Life Changing Coach
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