Show the world your superheroine story: Celebrating International Women’s Day with comics, storyboarding, and origin stories
Celebrating women power through comics and storyboarding? Yes, please!
I checked the calendar for my next meeting. When I saw what the event was, I grinned.
Storyboarding Workshop: Comic Origin Stories w/ the Women ERG
For the next hour, I would get to craft my superheroine origin story to celebrate International Women’s Day, and I could not wait.
The exercise
After a warm-up exercise where we shared a rough description of the origin story for our individual superpowers, we were given a blank storyboard and 15 minutes to visually represent our origin story. We could be as creative as we wanted to be. Draw. Use emojis. AI (several women used AI, which was awesome.)
My storyboard
A few years ago I picked up an art habit, so I already had several images from over the years that captured pieces of my origin story. I brought them into this exercise.
When it was time to share our stories, I volunteered to go first. I’ve developed a habit to be an early volunteer because I know if I wait too long, I won’t speak up. I’m also willing to be vulnerable. My hope is that I give other folks license to be vulnerable too.
So here I am, excited to share my origin story with you!
The Before
In The Before, I was a perfectly content little happy face. Life was good. I was feeling good. I had two kids (I still have two kids). My job was going well, and I loved the people I worked with. Everything was good.
The Challenge
Then my work situation shifted, and I found myself in what some could call a toxic work environment. Small situations ignited prickles of confusion or annoyance and gathered together to form bigger balls of frustration. These giant snowballs of frustration combined together into full blown angry snowmonsters that growled and festered with resentment, anxiety, and other bad things.
The mix of the situation and people in it, including myself, became unbearable. If I were in a real superheroine story, I would have withdrawn into the Batwoman cave to lick my wounds and take care of myself before finding my way. Instead, I did the closest thing I could do in real life and took a mental health leave.
The Discovery
After The Challenge, I worked with coaches who walked beside me through a journey of deep self-discovery. I got myself a therapist for the first time. I realized that I hadn’t realized how much I sought reassurance from sources outside of myself that I was enough. Those outside signals that I wasn’t good enough through became so loud, I imploded.
The good thing about challenges and implosions is that they force you to evolve who you are and move from a time of The Before into The Now.
The Now
Because of The Challenge, I learned how to embrace myself and get fully grounded in the belief that I am enough. That I can be human and flawed, successful and tired, happy and frustrated… and still be wholly and completely enough.
Now, in The Now, I live every day with the goal of showing the world I’ve got that fire. And I use my superpowers to support other people to show the world they’ve got that fire, too!
In fact, this is one of the main reasons why I became a leadership coach. I know how hard it is to share your fire and harder still to even feel like you have a fire sometimes! Luckily, if we share our stories with each other, even if they are kindling, we can blaze bright together.
The beauty of this event is that we didn’t just hear from one story; we heard from many stories. The virtual room was filled with women superheroines. Our stories were surprisingly similar with challenges circling around themes of being buried in work, clashes with colleagues, and then the turn toward a light that led to the development of superpowers and a new life because of them.
Now let’s hear from you! What’s your origin story for how you developed your unique superpowers? What was a challenge you had to overcome that turned you into the superperson that you are?
As a leadership coach, I partner with individuals that want to achieve personal and professional balance and fulfillment through growth and resilience. If you are interested in working with me 1:1 to explore how you can create your best life, please leave me a note at the link below!