Come back to a good hearted, spirited sense of your true strength

 

We return to a repeated theme that’s one of a few central and vital aspects about personal growth. It addresses a common psychological issue which is a poor sense of self, or one that’s out of balance or lacks perspective. We can often be more focused on our shortcomings at the expense of being aware of our strengths. So, it’s important that we celebrate our own positive qualities, and celebrate them in others. If we aren’t doing this, only noting the shortfalls, it leads to an unbalanced sense of self and fragile self-esteem.

 

For some reason we are more aware of where we don’t measure up to our own or others perceived expectations. This means we can constantly feel less than and assume that we are always inferior to everyone else, that we aren’t worthy. It can encourage a defeatist attitude towards life and keep us in a rut.

 

We can get messages from all quarters that reinforce this sense of being bad, having done wrong, being less than. It may start when we’re very young depending on our conditioning circumstances, and once it’s bedded in, we can perceive negative reinforcement even if there is none.

 

If that wasn’t bad enough, we’ve got the constant barrage of marketing impressing us with impossible visions of ourselves and what we should be, and what about the impact of social media platforms? I’m not against having something to challenge us and draw us forward, fire some motivation to initiate positive change, but if we aren’t grounded in some good old common sense and self respect, then it can affect us negatively.

 

There are two aspects to this practice point. One is about connecting with a good hearted sense of ourselves and shutting down that negatively critical one. That voice is disrespectful and doesn’t have our best interests at heart. Once we’ve identified that voice, we may need to treat it like an enemy, one that wants to harm us. We don’t forget that for the moment, we have to be on point and know that these messages are not serving a healthy self image.

 

Instead we encourage our nurturing voice, the part of us that wants us to prosper and be truly alive and happy, the one that loves us no matter what. This practice is about giving that part of ourselves air, giving it full and free reign, it’s the part that's saying no to being undermined anymore. It’s not going to accept any more bad behaviour by others, nor any more self abuse. Now it’s our time to soar. Connecting to our essential goodness means we won’t let any voice, internal or external entertain any further negativity.

 

The second aspect is a courageous and rigorously honest self appraisal, of both good and bad. This is about self awareness, an open and objective investigation of who we are. Our self view is related to our ego agenda, who we want to be, who we imagine ourselves to be. The only agenda we need here is to get to the truth, whatever that is, as best as we can.

 

When we have invested so much time and energy in an overarching negative narrative, it can also take great courage to challenge that, because we get attached to seeing ourselves as bad. You may have an inability to appreciate yourself, so deep can this self loathing be!

 

The flip side of this is an over confident arrogant self view which is classic over compensation of the very same insecurity. It’s as empty of real strength as it is self defeating, and just as disconnected from reality as low self esteem is, just a different expression of it.

 

Not so long ago, after having been out of work for an extended period of time, I became very motivated to re-enter the workforce. It was a very valuable process as I set about the task of recomposing my resume and learning to write effective cover letters. I became very focused in trying to communicate all my valuable qualities as truthfully as possible.

 

This forced me to do a rigorous inventory of self, especially of my positive qualities. The effects of this were quite profound. In the attempt to communicate as succinctly and accurately as possible my positive attributes, I was able to rediscover and truly acknowledge these positive aspects about myself, to celebrate them. I could no longer deny or ignore them, it powered me to use this new awareness to encourage myself when I was suffering self doubt and negativity.

 

This brought a great deal of confidence. I stand taller now because I absolutely know who I am. Failure to win interviews, people’s negative opinions of me and other obstacles in life don’t affect me anymore because I know what I am about.

 

Seeing our positive qualities and strengths is not easy, but the simple truth is everyone has them, even the worst of the worst. Our strengths and the way in which we view the world are revealed in our actions. We can see ourselves writ large on the world through them so this can be a way to acknowledge them.

 

Also, there can be positive aspects to what we perceive as negative behaviours. For instance, we can often be judgemental because we hold high ethical standards and uphold integrity. We can be brutally honest which can hurt people but it means we have a strong ability to see the truth. These are great qualities, we just need to shift the intention behind them to one of support and encouragement.

 

Another point is about staying grounded, we're not trying to delude ourselves here. This isn’t about pumping our ego, it’s about commitment to honesty and the real. In this way, we know exactly who we are, we cease to have any fear of the parts of ourselves that we keep hidden either consciously or unconsciously. We are grounded in the certitude of self knowledge. We know our value and that if others can’t see or acknowledge it, this isn’t a reflection on us, but a lack of clear perception from them.

 

This completely frees us from other people’s control, of their superficial opinions which may just be a reflection of their own poor psychological state, we aren’t fearful that they won’t like us anymore. This can even evoke a compassionate response from us, realising that they might be trapped in the same painful cycle that plagued us in the past.

 

Due to this fearless confidence, we also consider all feedback we get. We can be realistic about where our weaknesses might lie and not be so swayed by them, not take criticism to heart, but genuinely welcome it. We can confidently ask ourselves if these observations have any truth, not perceive them as an attack on our ego. Instead, we get invigorated by the possibility of another thing to work with, understand or overcome, to bring further growth and strength.

 

This whole practice point is about abiding in our strengths and sense of self empowerment, not allowing difficult or negative situations to bring us down, but returning to a genuine awareness of our true positive qualities and internal resources, to tackle whatever is unfolding, and doing it like a boss!

 

Once we start directing our mind in this way, we cease to want to entertain negativity in ourselves or others. This change of heart and mind feeds into our new vitality and vigour about transforming ourselves, coming into our greater potential, not becoming something or someone else but becoming truly and fully ourselves.