Gratitude Turning Weakness Into Strength!
Happy Thanksgiving!
This year I thought of a different perspective on the power of gratitude in your life—being grateful for your weaknesses so you can turn them into strengths, and at the same time, help others by setting the example for them to follow. By now you have information overload on the benefits of being grateful, what it can do for you, why it works. etc. There is a ton of information on “how to” be grateful, the steps to…, and who hasn’t heard of a gratitude journal?
Each Thanksgiving we sit around the table before eating and express our heartfelt thanks to family and loved ones. This can be a memorable experience for families, filled with love.
An attitude of gratitude has far-reaching effects on people’s lives, causing ripples for generations, often in ways that you might not initially comprehend.
When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears - Tony Robbins
Gratitude opens your heart to love and clears your mind. So it seems, miracles manifest in the presence of love. Are we not to be grateful in all things? I have found in being grateful for your weaknesses as well as your strengths opens up some profound truths for you, enabling you to have a 360 view of yourself. Accepting your weaknesses helps you in doing something about them. It is a learning process filled with possibilities for growth and development. In doing so, you will be able to connect to, help, and strengthen others in your life as you make changes that result in you taking charge of your life, in the gratitude of self. The only hindrance to building weaknesses into strengths is in the denial of them. We are all human beings, filled with flaws, weaknesses, and frailties. Too many try to hide their infirmities, thus spending a great deal of time and energy trying to prove themselves perfect and getting lost in the process. Arrogance and the ego take over in the comparison game of worrying over what others are thinking, causing them to only be concerned with gaining the approval of the people around them. Would it not be much easier to love and accept who you are born to be as you strive to make choices in every moment that reflects your desires? I know the notion of facing your imperfections, and being grateful for your shortcomings, may at first appear as an unsafe choice, filled with rejection. But in the end, I promise you that you will be stronger and happier than you ever were before. Let’s take a look at some basic weaknesses we all have that we can accept as humans here on planet earth 2019, and how we can turn them into our strengths. Remember, you have to first acknowledge and accept them before you can overcome them and turn them into strengths. Not to worry, though, we all have them, and each one has a beautiful lesson to teach us.
CORE WEAKNESSES:
Arrogance, Pride, and Ego
Arrogance, pride, and ego are core weaknesses that usually result in smaller weaknesses like judging others harshly, acting irrationally, being blind to your shortcomings, being selfish or greedy. We all have experienced these weaknesses in different aspects at different points in our lives. They can teach us the lesson of humility, for it is in the blinding presence of our ego that often we fall and are quickly humbled by the many unexpected challenges of life, but only if we choose to listen to the lesson!
That’s why what’s most important is that you are aware of this fact and can identify the lesson that life is trying to teach you from this humbling experience. For no matter the hardship, there will always be a silver lining.
Afraid of What You Are Not Able to Control - The Unknown.
Being afraid of the unknown or what you do not have control over is a core weakness that other weaknesses build from, such as being stubborn, unwilling to change, closed-minded, and stuck doing the same thing, not progressing in life, and perfectionism.
Change is an important part of any individual’s happiness, and that is why it is so important to embrace change as a part of your day-to-day life. The more you learn each day, the happier and more fulfilled you will be. It may feel uncomfortable at first, like something that you don't wish to do. That is only because of the natural human instinct you have inherited from your ancestors, to stray away from things that you deem unsafe or unfamiliar to you. As soon as you persist through the initial fear, you will be welcomed by a feeling of fulfillment that you only receive in overcoming a challenge and discovering new knowledge. Be Grateful for the lesson this weakness can teach you!
Lack of confidence.
Having no confidence or low self-esteem are core weaknesses that usually create other weaknesses such as self-critical/sensitive, not standing up for yourself, lazy, passive-aggressive.
Often in life, someone who has no confidence is someone that has felt deeply rejected for who they are as an individual, either by a close family member, a partner, or close friend. This results in them taking responsibility for the rejection that they received—thinking that there must be something wrong with them; otherwise, they wouldn't have been so harshly rejected by someone who's opinion they held with such high esteem, someone that they loved. In the end, they must learn to give themselves the love that they seek from other people, and only then will they be fulfilled enough to have a healthy relationship filled with love without expectations.
Be Grateful for this lesson, for it will teach you how to be confident in who you are, no matter the opposition.
Envy
An envious or jealous person is someone that isn't fully accepting all aspects of who they are. It’s their dissatisfaction with themselves that causes them to be jealous of you. They are also usually an impatient person, the procrastinating type, for they are too busy paying attention to other people rather than to themselves.
We all have been envious at one point in our lives. Still, we can be grateful for the lessons it can teach us. If you're being jealous of your neighbor, simply ask yourself what aspects of your personal life or your identity do you feel ashamed of or resent? This way you can learn to feel worthy of fulfilling your desires and dreams rather than resenting those that dare to do it themselves.
Lust and Gluttony.
Lust and gluttony are essentially pleasure or instant gratification, over-lasting happiness. People generally are pleasure-seeking because they haven’t had the opportunity to experience real fulfillment. They are addicted to instantly receiving validation rather than having to sacrifice any time or effort to then be rewarded with the prize. They end up being easily bored as a result of being desensitized by over-stimulation. Thankfully there is a bright side! Herein lies the lesson to Be Grateful for. The weakness of lust teaches you what you don’t want and gives you the contrast needed to recognize and experience true happiness. The carnal nature of man does not exist for you to succumb to it but so that you may learn from the challenge of overcoming it, to discover what you must know to be truly fulfilled in life.
My hopes are for you to learn as I have learned from my many weaknesses and how to be grateful for them. You will discover a new perspective on the profound power of how to Be Grateful for your weaknesses, so you can learn how to turn them into your strengths!
Want to find out more? How to Turn Your Weaknesses into Strengths? - Why You Lack Confidence? - take the free Belief System Analysis.
