Hello everyone,
Here's a post I shared in my Facebook group, Getting to Be Yourself. It just seems so appropriate to the time in which we are living just now, I thought I'd share it a little further afield.
(also if you find this post helpful, please feel free to apply to join the group)
Week 9 Strengthening Our Strengths
Yes, I’m sure we all feel like sending out an SOS at some time or other just now. We are indeed living in trying times.
If you haven’t got the virus and you find you have more time on your hands, it is the perfect time to engage, enliven and breathe life into your strengths.
Other creatures, like the eagle pictured don’t have to know their strengths to be them, they just are. From eagles to elephants to ants… cockroaches even, they are their nature. They don’t put on airs, graces or acts, they just are. I also love seeing people living to their strengths – being their nature. It’s so easy on the eye, because it’s natural. I don’t know about you, but I want more of this in life.
In this hard yards life, it’s not as easy for us humans to be our nature. Let’s do something about it.
Let’s make it easier.
The problem with our natural strengths is they get buried, lost or diluted. We are really good at dwelling in our failures… focusing too much on our weaknesses. Especially when you’ve had years of being a shrinking violet behind barricades of modesty, being belittled or as is the case for most of us, practised at living out of necessity rather than freedom.
I was speaking to a chap the other day who talked at great length and with such emotion about his love of music and all the things he had tried to bring it to life… and, his words, 'failed'. He spoke with so much intensity it was almost impossible to find any chink of light in the morass of inability, despair and sheer negativity. ‘Do you sing?’ I asked, ‘Oh no, can’t string two notes together… ‘ However, something must have been bubbling up under the surface, because, ‘… but I do dance!’ was quick to follow.
All of which turned my mind to you guys breathing life into your strengths… exactly what we need when we are living through difficult times – strong people, being strong as naturally and easily as possible.
Let’s begin to pop those self-limiting bubbles!
The only way to start living these for real is to get them out in the open. However, we need to recognise them free of attachment. When we attach too much to them, and this could be identity, intelligence, passion, emotion or activity, there is a good chance of tipping over to being arrogant… and we don’t want that. Self-defeating comparisons aren’t helpful either. If you’re good at cooking and you get some enjoyment out of it, just be good at cooking. No need to be ‘better than…’ or ‘not as good as…’ All that competitiveness is misdirected, wasted energy. Energy that can be much better spent taking your foot off the pedal and exploring, building and living your strengths further. If one of your strengths is cooking, just celebrate it for what it is… one of the many diamond strong facets that make you shine. So, go for it… what are your strengths? What do you enjoy doing? What comes easily and naturally to you?
Also, be open to signs that enliven these characteristics, skills and talents. Let the inner recognition light a spark then spread throughout, dispersing negativities, breathing life into everything you actually are.
Good luck everyone x
Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash