“We get trapped in patterns of thinking, including the way we’ve learned to perceive the different aspects of ourselves. We learn what is wrong with us – or rather, what other people perceive as wrong with us. Those external voices get internalized and become the inner voices that we carry around with us until we decide (if we decide) to finally stop listening to them.
What we often don’t recognize is that it’s the things that we get criticized for, that get declared as the ‘weaknesses’ that we must fix and fix and fix (until we fail, give up and watch American Idol), that hold the key to our potential Remarkableness. In our weaknesses lie our strengths (and vice versa). If our brains can only learn to perceive them that way”. -Justine Musk “the art of letting your freak flag fly”
Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between well-meaning alternatives. Sometimes people that think they are doing something to help someone may be doing more harm than good in the bigger picture. As an educator, I find myself in a strange position. There are things that people do that are dysfunctional behaviors. There are also things that people do, that just aren’t the way I would do them. Sometimes I have myself whether my critique of what they are doing comes from an honest sense that what they are doing leads to self-destruction (which I have seen far too many times as a tutor) or if their actions are just not my preferred way the world works.
“Self-discipline needs improvement”: nearly every year in elementary that showed up on my grade card. That’s fine, I was a kid. It turned out later I found that I was a child with A.D.D. The one that strikes me as odd though came from my Art Teacher. Our school had the same teacher for all grades, so I came to know her well over the span of four years. Conversely she thought she knew me. But really, I wonder how that mark would even work in Art. Self-discipline needs improvement in Art?
How does this lead to the quote I posted? Well, I was a talker and a dreamer. I look back and many of my daydreaming times in elementary school were interrupted by times of talking to my neighbors. I loved to talk and to hook classmates into my stories. What was perceived as a dysfunctional behavior for my education, some things that needed to be fixed, have turned into things that are my strengths. What I have learned to do is find the niche where those things work well.
So I guess the point is, maybe there is something that those critical voices you have internalized would have fixed, that may be the best part of your uniqueness. Look closely: is there a way that it could be your greatest strength? How can you develop it, bring it out as a gift, rather than a curse?
When I was younger I daydreamed a lot in school. My second grade teacher informed my parents she felt I was in much need of psychiatric counseling because of it. Luckily, my mother knew her own child and passed on the advice. Seven years later, those daydreams found their way to the pages and my freshman English teacher praised me for my unique look at the world and my talent to put that world to the page. It was at that moment in my life I realized that there is a very fine line between weakness and strength. The trick is to not view anything as either. Why do they have to be strengths or weaknesses? Live and learn and enjoy the madness.
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