What are your weaknesses telling you?
By: Liyeree Stathopoulou
Tags: Psychology, Self Improvement, Strength, Acceptance, Self Love

How to twist them to your benefit.

I may have invented procrastination on planet earth. Last minute tasks say I’m the best friends they ever had. Avoiding to do things — study for school, deliver work projects, have serious conversations — used to be my everyday normal.

All my life I wanted to fix myself from my shortcomings. The self-rejection is not fun though; it is more harmful than being rejected by others, even if we don’t realize it that we attack ourselves like sneaky bastards.

On my journey of self-improvement I decided to listen to what my procrastination was to teach me. I decided to back up myself, because if I’d do something that I dislike that much, well, there must be a reason. So, I listened. I listened with an open mind and an open heart. I listened when meditating, journaling, to my body senses and reactions. I listened with self-care and I neglected my own judgment every time it would kick in, as well as the judgment of others when they complained I was late of even trusted friends telling me off well-intended.

And I got the answer. It doesn’t matter what it was exactly, because it was a different reason for each task. Having a meaning to my so annoying behavior felt like a relief. A whole new world opened in my eyes showing me my fear behind things, the fact that I didn’t not ask for what I wanted, prioritizing others constantly and the lack of trust in myself and the world.

Did I like the answer? No! The relief would be so much shorter than the disappointment and sadness of realizing how I’ve been harming myself. For example, I would prefer strict bosses because that’s how I would manage to be on time. I would ask subconsciously for all the sternness, the micromanagement and the mistreatment, because I would only deliver under pressure and hard conditions. Isn’t that sick?

The reason though why I was able to go deep was because I decided I was done with the self-judgment. This is not to imply that I was careless with my faults or mistakes. But, in order to move on you have to know what’s keeping you chained at the ankle. We are trained to see the wrong in us — and others — waiting at the corner. We have normalized blame labeling it as raising the standards high. All to make us close up internally, lose sight of what’s really causing us any problem and end up looking for positive feelings outside of us.

Please, go easy on yourselves. Try to understand what’s going on behind the scenes with not a single drop of judgment. Listen to your body for headaches, pain, injuries, sense of instability, hand weakness, gut and skin issues or whatever else. We feel our feelings in our body so we embody all negativity; all positivity too, thank God. Educate yourself on what feels how and take care of the issue. Be proactive; no need to let things go out of hand and more importantly don’t normalize health problems even the smallest ones. Our body is constantly giving us messages for the problems that we decide to ignore.

It would be so easy to tell you typical health guidelines like eating clean of sleeping well, but before you promise yourself you will do so, it is way more beneficial to realize the reason behind your lack of the respective action. Needless to say that the same goes for substance abuse, pushing hard all the time, having codependent relationships or commitment issues.

We all know what’s wrong for us. The point is to find out our reason why. Respectfully. Acceptingly. Forgivingly. It’s the only way out of vicious cycles of repeating the same mistakes over and over. My procrastination — among others — issue could be your perfectionism issue or codependency or whatever else you wish you didn’t have. The typical negative root feeling behind is fear. So what are you afraid of? What bad thing would happen to you if you didn’t have you limitation? What’s your weakness helping you for? What is it that protects you from?

It is not easy to carry the same weaknesses forever. It is extremely disappointing, discouraging and makes you feel inadequate. We want to get rid of them because we are simply sick of them. We imagine us not having them at all. I used to daydream of me being so eager and motivated and fearless. The moment I felt the simplest resistance at doing something I was frustrated. I wanted it to end and never be like that again. But, with an open mind you see that your flaws are actually your biggest guides.

Every flaw is part old wound, part skill that you developed over time. Once you deal with the unresolved problems you are left with an amazing tool that makes you sharp and uniquely capable. We developed our weaknesses — insecurities because we had a reason to. We needed them to protect us from harmful situations and they did so. We were smart enough to find a way to protect us, as twisted as this may sound. The thing is that we probably don’t face similarly unsafe circumstances anymore, but we are left with the beautiful gift we once developed for our own good.

What procrastination has gifted me with is an extremely intuitive mind. I am the best at crisis situations because I remain calmer than a robot. I am extremely efficient with tasks of short notice, I can multitask like no other and I can think 20 moves ahead. I prioritize very effectively, so I never lose time on unimportant things. I am very selective to what I want to do and who I want to please. I am at ease.

Every pain is a seed for a strength. I came to accept who I am and let go of any judgment and criticism. I am my biggest supporter no matter what now. That is what shifts you from always investigating — and therefore focusing on — the problems, basically letting your point of attention to be negative towards looking on how things really work inside you, what your true needs are and how to use your negative experiences to your advantage.