March 8th, 2017

March 8th, 2017


Affirmation: I express anger in appropriate ways.


Word of the Day: portmanteau (n):

1. Linguistics. a word made by putting together parts of other words, as motel, made from motor and hotel, brunch, from breakfast and lunch, or guesstimate, from guess and estimate.

The Lame Goat

You have seen a herd of goats
going down to the water.

The lame and dreamy goat
brings up the rear.

There are worried faces about that one,
but now they're laughing,

because look, as they return,
that one is leading.

There are many different ways of knowing.
The lame goat's kind is a branch
that traces back to the roots of presence.

Learn from the lame goat,
and lead the herd home.

____


Knowing Your Strengths

Now that I have written a bit about self-awareness when it comes to our Achilles' heels, I want to switch gears and write about a dimension of self-awareness that I believe is arguably even more critical: knowing our strengths.

We often spend entire lifetimes in a never-ending crusade for self-improvement. People at the end of their days often wonder what it was all for. I believe that challenging ourselves and going through a process of growth and evolution are all important and worthy endeavors. However, we often seek to better ourselves by focusing on what we are not and what we lack. We spend years and decades trying to change things about ourselves and fix ourselves into being acceptable.

What we fail to remember in those times when we are stuck on our faults is that what we place our attention on grows. Scientifically speaking, when we "attend to something or someone, we initiate a flow of energy and intelligence."

I'm sure you've experienced this yourself. When you think a certain thoughts or pattern of thoughts, for example, don't they tend to become stronger and more powerful and more ingrained in your brain?

In Sanskrit, there is a word that describes this: Soma. Put simply, soma is "expressive of the flowing effect of consciousness." So if you put your attention on me, for example, your soma - your consciousness - is flowing towards me.

Research also backs up the strengths-focused (rather than weakness-focused) approach. Indeed, studies show that people who worked on enhancing and growing the positive rather than resisting and eliminating the negative were:

- Happier
- Experienced less stress
- Felt healthier and had more energy
- Felt more satisfied with their lives
- Were more confident
- Experienced faster growth and development
- Were more creative, agile, and flexible

On the other hand, focusing on our weaknesses causes our brains to believe that we aren't good enough. Author Ilka Emig puts it this way:

"Spending every day being reminded of what we’re not good at is frustrating. And it stresses the brain. So all of the brain’s functions are reduced to one simple activity: surviving the present situation.

The brain does only what guarantees survival and uses only what it knows. In no way is the brain able to use all of its areas and capacity to visualize and be creative at this stage. Stress reduces and blocks all that."

Ultimately, then, by obsessing about our weaknesses and directing all our attentions towards correcting them, we might end up wasting our time trying to get rid of a bad habit when we could have focused on cultivating good habits that could crowd out the bad ones. For example, in spite of many people’s best intentions, New Year’s resolutions often fail. These failed resolutions often target weaknesses that are really hard to change. Rather than “I’m going to give up eating processed foods entirely,” might it be more beneficial to resolve to “enjoy at least 5 servings of the healthy fruits and vegetables I enjoy eating every day”?

“False hope syndrome” is a term that psychologists in the field often use to describe the way people are overconfident in their ability to change, which can lead them to set unrealistic (and ultimately discouraging) goals for themselves. Someone might decide that they want to get in shape, and vow to spend every morning at the gym before work. When they are tempted to sleep in or meet a friend for breakfast instead, they may throw in the towel and give up on their goal entirely. If they’d set more reasonable goals (for example, to go to the gym 3 days a week or to take 2 ten minute walks a day), they might have been able to stick with their plan for self-improvement.

On the other hand, what opportunities might we miss out on if we simply accept the existence of our strengths and constant and unchanging? Neglecting “the practice of strengths” – that is, failing to work at our strengths – could overlook a source of deep and lasting happiness in our lives.

I want to mention that focusing our strengths doesn't mean that we can do whatever we feel like. It doesn't mean that we should ignore our weaknesses or not acknowledge and accept our limits. It's certainly not an excuse for avoiding hard work or discomfort. Indeed, developing your strengths requires patience, dedication, hard work, and tolerating discomfort - much like developing your physical muscles does.

This post doesn't cover how to uncover and figure out what your strengths are, but I'm guessing that you have a lot more self-awareness of this than you probably realize. You can also leave a comment if you would like more information on strengths identification, and I'd be happy to help. There are also a variety of assessments you can take; you can ask close family, friends, and supportive people in your life; you can work with a therapist or coach; and you can take note and be mindful of your own experiences and observations.

What are some of your strengths? How can you develop them?

Are there things about yourself that you have tried to change unsuccessfully? Why did you want this aspect to change? What got in the way? How might you reframe this change from a "getting rid of" to a "moving towards"?