Pastor Jeph Oluwagbemiga, a life coach, has urged women to look beyond the general labels and roles of wives and mothers the society has assigned to them and reach out to achieve more.
He said this on Sunday in Abuja, during a conference organised by The Winning Women (TWW) Initiative, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that caters to women and helps them to attain their goals in life.
The conference was themed: “Adorned in His Beauty”.
Oluwagbemiga said that women were creative and were enhancers, who should first of all own and appreciate themselves so that others could appreciate them.
According to him, culture and religion have put women in a cocoon with so many rules and regulations they are to live by men and not apply to the men.
“I want people to see themselves beyond the roles that have been given to them by society, they should see themselves beyond the labeling that is given to them by society.
“Let them come out and say, I am first of all a woman and being a woman means I am in the image of God and of creativity which means that anything that touches my hand increases in creativity and size.”
The life coach added that women were enhancers and when they see themselves the way God ” is seeing them”, they were better off relating with people who probably would not have appreciated them if they did not know themselves.
He said that women should make themselves understand issues that pertained to them and be ready to learn new things.
Mrs Fola-Seyi Rojugbokan, a family life therapist, said that there “is a capacity for greatness and achievement deposited in every woman.”
She, however said that the ability to showcase that capacity was dependent on the type of people a woman surrounded herself with.
“So one of the things that I will advise women is that the kind of people that you surround yourself with matters a lot.
“When you surround yourself with people who everything they see and perceive about life is negative, nothing will work around you.
“As a woman, whether a Christian or Muslim, ask yourself, since you have been complaining, since you have been dwelling on things that are negative, have things turned out well for me.”
“Yes, we are complaining that Nigeria is difficult but it is still working for some people. So what are those people doing that you also need to do?
“But when you just say that things are difficult and then you are complaining my husband is not giving me money, you also have the capacity to bring in money.”
Mrs Worshipper Isaac, a participant at the conference said it had opened her eyes to the place of womanhood in society.
Mrs Doreen Damisah, the convener of TWW, said that the theme of the conference was biblically inspired.
According to her, the beauty of a woman is more internal than external and they can only exhibit what is on the inside for the world to see.
“Our beauty is not just on the the outside, our beauty is mainly on the inside because what you have on the inside, is what comes out on the outside.
“I just felt there was something on the inside that needs to come out.”
She said that TWW was an initiative created in 2019 to attend to the spiritual and emotional inner desires of women to attain greatness.
The conference also featured games and medical outreach. (NAN)