11/20/17

Strengths in your Weaknesses

 

I am like kryptonite to my family, something about me turns them to statues, like Medusa.  By the time I heard, “You’re an Ice Queen,” and “How can I be with you, you’re so cold,” they no longer held me at night, etc., thus I cannot pinpoint any specific event that would cause them to be that statue.  When you hear it more than once, you must turn that spotlight on yourself and ask, I got cold because…?  So, I ran the gamut of questions, like: why did they stop holding me, what did I do that caused it, was the emotion associated with what they did Ego, Projection, Reflection in the Mirror, was it my perception of the situation… Ah, yes Perception.  I took what happened that hurt me so deeply and combined it with all the other hurts.  It built up over time, and got to the point where I got cold.  Ok, so why was it so drastic that even my children cease speaking with me.  Did anyone ever tell you not to stand too close to a spotlight because it will burn your skin? 

 

For me it all boils down to trust.  Standing behind those castle walls, I will not allow anyone to get close enough to abandon me, verbally – emotionally – sexually abuse me, break my moral and value code of ethics, throw sticks and stones at me, or devalue me because it hurts bad enough that I beg god to take me off this planet regularly.  Those individuals who have seen the days with me between my bed and the wall rocking back and forth praying for my release are slim in number.  For most, those moments are overwhelming, while others see them with compassion and empathy (Tenderness).  Without that empathy I begin to lay new walls within the castle between me and another at the slightest sign I am going to get hurt, getting to the point I have no place to go but this small four-foot square.  Either I take the walls down, or stay here.

 

What was the lesson, the take-a-way for me?  We are human!  We are imperfect!  We make mistakes!  We bleed!  We cry!  We hurt!  We hurt others!  I focused on how others treated me, and had gotten judgmental about how they treated others, not once seeing that I locked myself in my own prison projecting those thoughts out to the world and hurting them as well (Acceptance and Acknowledgement).  My weakness turned outwards, was an inner strength (Compassion - Empathy, The Web, along with keeping me out of the same situations I had been in previously) used inappropriately.  What questions can you ask yourself about your weakness that is really a strength?

 

Ask this:

• Was the weakness projection and reflection in the mirror? 

• What caused you to have the emotions?

• Everything has it’s opposite, what is the opposite in the weakness, is it something you covered up or hid behind?

• Where were you strong in that weakness?

 

Like the above situation, I didn’t see this weakness as a strength at first.  I just saw that I was cold, unable to touch my heart.  It may take time for you to discover the strength in these weaknesses.