How Admiration and Affirmation Enhance Our Intentional Energy

5 Women I Admire & Affirmations I’ve Created From Their Lives

Marcela Gómez (left) and beloved cousin Westray Marie (Bernal) Corradine (right) playing together when they were younger. Photo by author.

What does it mean to admire someone? To me, the admiration of someone is not to put them on a pedestal and make them living idols. To admire someone is not to say, “Wow, this is a person that I admire 100%.” I’ve learned we have to be careful that we don’t put people in places where they can fall from and disappoint us, whether they know it or not. 

You risk suffering a broken heart or even dismissing a person completely when something inevitably happens (we are all human anyway). Then, they fall from grace (aka the imagined pedestal you put them on) and you don’t like them all that much when they’re on the floor. I don’t do that to myself, and you shouldn’t either. This is why my golden rule is to admire the characteristics of people, but not necessarily the entire person. 

Just as we carefully choose the aspects of every person we admire, we should also carefully choose the words we bring into the world. There is power in the mind and in the body. Your words start as your thoughts and as you create words out of them, they carry energy through you into someone else’s ear and head. You can positively impact your life and many others’ simply by intentionally choosing the right words—and the opposite is true, as well.

There a several places in the Bible that talk about our voice and energy—you don’t have to believe in God or the Bible to absorb the wisdom provided. Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” We have the power of words in our mouths and heart so that we are able to distinguish between life and goodness, and death and disaster. So it is through our words that we create or feed life or death in our daily life and in our world. 

The five women below have imbued powerful energy into me and my daily life for years past and I’m sure into the future. The affirmations I have created from each of their unique insights are worth thinking twice about and incorporating into your own lives. 

1. Shakira

Shout out to the Colombianas! Shakira is a kickass businesswoman and an iconic trailblazer. Even after finding much success and renown in our home country of Colombia, she decided to start from almost zero in the U.S. While that’s truly wonderful and inspirational, what I admire most about her is that she gives back to her community. 

Years ago, I watched a 2014 CBS Sunday Morning show interview that guest-starred her. They asked her why she was opening schools in Barranquilla, Colombia. She replied: I want my life to be relevant. Mic-drop moment. 

I have never forgotten thinking, “That’s such a beautiful way of looking at how you want to give back.” I believe when we define success for each and every one of us, we won’t feel less than or that we haven’t accomplished anything. For a woman who already had so much success, global fame and international success being just two of them, to strive for her most important definition of success in her own terms is one of the most important lessons I keep with me to this day. 

Powerful Affirmation:  I want my life to be relevant. My life is relevant. 

2. Joan Rivers 

Joan Rivers is infamous for her no-holds-barred comedy—I mean, we all know she said the most outrageous things! There was no way to hold her back, and although I watched her all-out persona on T.V., it wasn’t until I watched the 2010 documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work about her life that I really took a moment to step back and see her fully. The doc gripped me and moved me as I watched how she stayed steady through becoming a widow and single mother; the grace with she survived public scrutiny and gossip; and how she chose to go out looking for work to look after her daughter and herself. Through all of the waves that life had just slammed her with, Joan always chose to give back to others. 

I remember watching the documentary at Belcourt Theatre in Nashville and how I left the screening crying. I kept thinking of the strength of a single mother, the strength of a woman, and the strength of a woman in business—in entertainment!—which is harder than we can ever imagine. 

One of the most impactful moments from the documentary was this: Joan had a written calendar full of to-do dates and a visibly packed schedule, even in her 70s. When she was asked why she works so hard, she replied, “Because I have a lot of responsibilities.” She meant that she paid for the private education of all the children of all of her employees and she donated and helped deliver meals to the elderly in New York City. 

Like Shakira, Joan was a woman who was famous in her own right and had accomplished high levels of success for her and her daughter, but a big part of her life was serving others and giving back. I admire her resilience in face of life’s tragedies and her decision to never stop giving —even choosing to continue working so that she may be able to give! 

Powerful Affirmation: I am blessed.

3. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

We could all admire Mother Teresa for her work with the poor, needy and sick, but what I specifically admire her for is her stance on the way you choose to show up in the world. In an interview I read about her she said: I don’t want people to invite me to march against war or poverty or drugs. If it’s anything I have to fight against, I will not march. I will march for peace or hope. 

This taught me the importance of the energy that everything holds. She was against standing or marching to fight against something, and instead chose to stand for something. It is crucial for us to know the energy behind something as it lays the foundation for whatever you’re participating in. 

I am a firm believer in the energy that words create so being attentive to where you show up, and the words to describe yourself and the world around you is essential to which energy you show up with and how you act because of it. Every word has the energy to create something, so be careful about which words you are using. This stood out to me the most in her life, and I have followed this insight ever since. 

Powerful Affirmation: My voice matters and my words are powerful. I have the power to choose life. 

4. Westray Marie (Bernal) Corradine 

This might be the only name you won’t recognize on this list—Westray was my beloved cousin. The true hero on this list, Westray had a faith that could stay still in the midst of a hurricane. We knew she was living on borrowed time, as the odds were stacked against her after they diagnosed her with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Nevertheless, she went on to live with cancer for 11 years. Eleven. 

As she passed very recently, I find it incredible that Westray very rarely, if ever, complained to any of us cousins about her cancer. Every time I texted her how she was doing, she would reply, “I’m doing great Marcelita! How are you?” She lived with faith in her words and decidedly created life out of them. She was intentional about living life to the fullest in a positive way, traveling around the world with her husband and two daughters.

Westray never went into remission, and yet she lived this way for eleven years. I admire her for choosing to live with hope and faith. 

Powerful Affirmation: This is the day that I have made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it. 

5. Myself 

Trick answer: I admire myself! I have taken these women, the characteristics I respect about them and the attributes that have impacted me and have melded them into lessons and affirmations for my own life. I have grown in confidence and wisdom looking up to my favorite aspects of these women from different areas of my life and I am proud of myself. I am not the person I once was, and I am sure I will change again in the years to come.

I am Marcela, and I admire myself for who I am and for trying my best with the tools I had and the ways I knew how. 

I believe every woman, and person, should admire themselves—not to the point of vanity and Evil Queen-style narcissism, but to truly acknowledge and celebrate your wins, your losses, your life. In metaphysics, there is a story that every drop of water in the ocean makes the ocean, but the drop of water doesn’t say, “I’m a drop in the water.” It says: “I am the ocean.”

We have to understand the power we have to create and to create with others, together. These women reaffirm my beliefs that all energy moves through life, especially impactful words that flow with us and land in our lives when we need them most. 

My own powerful daily affirmations include: 

• I have a voice.

• My life is relevant.

• Everything I work on and everything that I am involved in prospers and succeeds.

• I have everything that I desire and plenty more to share with others.

 I think these affirmations bring together what I admire about each of these women, and myself. 

At Culture Shift Team, the cultural and DEI firm I co-founded,  we strive to keep impactful personal and collective mantras that strengthen us as individuals and as a team. We know the difference it makes to voice your desires out loud. We can listen to you here, and discuss what’s the best next move for you and your company.