Happy Holidays, and I hope your season is going well. In today’s video, I told you about the gift you can give yourself. I’d like to expand on that video here to talk about something I kept saying in that video: be the hero to your strength, and the villain to your weakness.
STRANGER THINGS SPOILER ALERT:
I was motivated to do the video and blog based on Season 5, Episode 4, where Vecna reveals that he chose the children he took because they were weak, and wouldn’t resist him. All along we thought it was something special about them when in fact, it’s the opposite: they aren’t special, they’re ordinary in ways that are easy to prey on.
Well! Typical bully!
Unfortunately, we didn’t leave that in middle school. How often have you had people tell you that you can’t do something? That you need to stay in your place? To stay out of the way and let better people do it? Or worse yet, how often have you strangled yourself with the fear that you can’t stand up to this? That you let an opportunity pass? That you declined an invitation change because you just couldn’t?
Weakness is a trap. But in a world of yin and yang, it can also be an opportunity if you are the villain to your weakness.
How?
By getting fed up with being held down and confronting it. Admit it. Look it in the eye. And tell it to piss off.
Through those four episodes of Season 5, I kept saying, “Hey Will, guess what you can do?” And like all of you, I nearly jumped out of my chair cheering when he FINALLY was honest with himself, angry over Vecna’s revelation, and ready to rise to his potential and make it a reality. I cheered because I had to do this over the past few years, dealing with grief over Dad’s passing and Rick’s subdermal hematoma and resulting health issues. I didn’t think I could handle it, or that I’d ever rebuild life on the other side of this mess. It wasn’t until I was barely functional that I realized I was being strangled by something I’ve probably had my whole life, but never addressed: anxiety disorder. I knew it ran in my family, but thought I escaped it. Not so. It was a humble and humiliating admission, but I was so miserable that I had to do something to get out of the pit and back on my feet. I didn’t want the rest of life to be a cloud of dread and misery, and knew that bold action was the way to escape. So I talked to doctors. I talked to therapists. I journaled. I found exercise programs suitable for me and cleaned up my diet. I made sleep, rest, and self care a priority. I learned how to meditate. I stored my “toolbox” with wise mind methods fight that demon when it reared its ugly head. And now, three years later, I realize that I’ve survived 100% of what life has thrown at me. It wasn’t always pretty or graceful. Some were bad, messy, and ugly. I didn’t bust through the ribbon in victory, I crawled through, bloody and busted. But that’s a perfect track record, and now I realize that if I could do this, I can probably do a lot more and am setting goals that I never imagined before at age 50.
That’s how you’re the villain to your weakness. You admit it, face it, and challenge it. You get tools to fight it off when it tries to come back. And you move forward despite it. Don’t be study in that wall vine. Be Vecna to that. Use it to motivate you to enhance your strengths and do the impossible.
You’re stronger than you think. You just have to get mad enough at what’s holding you back to unleash righteous rage and knock it the hell out.
That’s all today. Take care, and have a great weekend!
Bye!
STRANGER THINGS SPOILER ALERT:
I was motivated to do the video and blog based on Season 5, Episode 4, where Vecna reveals that he chose the children he took because they were weak, and wouldn’t resist him. All along we thought it was something special about them when in fact, it’s the opposite: they aren’t special, they’re ordinary in ways that are easy to prey on.
Well! Typical bully!
Unfortunately, we didn’t leave that in middle school. How often have you had people tell you that you can’t do something? That you need to stay in your place? To stay out of the way and let better people do it? Or worse yet, how often have you strangled yourself with the fear that you can’t stand up to this? That you let an opportunity pass? That you declined an invitation change because you just couldn’t?
Weakness is a trap. But in a world of yin and yang, it can also be an opportunity if you are the villain to your weakness.
How?
By getting fed up with being held down and confronting it. Admit it. Look it in the eye. And tell it to piss off.
Through those four episodes of Season 5, I kept saying, “Hey Will, guess what you can do?” And like all of you, I nearly jumped out of my chair cheering when he FINALLY was honest with himself, angry over Vecna’s revelation, and ready to rise to his potential and make it a reality. I cheered because I had to do this over the past few years, dealing with grief over Dad’s passing and Rick’s subdermal hematoma and resulting health issues. I didn’t think I could handle it, or that I’d ever rebuild life on the other side of this mess. It wasn’t until I was barely functional that I realized I was being strangled by something I’ve probably had my whole life, but never addressed: anxiety disorder. I knew it ran in my family, but thought I escaped it. Not so. It was a humble and humiliating admission, but I was so miserable that I had to do something to get out of the pit and back on my feet. I didn’t want the rest of life to be a cloud of dread and misery, and knew that bold action was the way to escape. So I talked to doctors. I talked to therapists. I journaled. I found exercise programs suitable for me and cleaned up my diet. I made sleep, rest, and self care a priority. I learned how to meditate. I stored my “toolbox” with wise mind methods fight that demon when it reared its ugly head. And now, three years later, I realize that I’ve survived 100% of what life has thrown at me. It wasn’t always pretty or graceful. Some were bad, messy, and ugly. I didn’t bust through the ribbon in victory, I crawled through, bloody and busted. But that’s a perfect track record, and now I realize that if I could do this, I can probably do a lot more and am setting goals that I never imagined before at age 50.
That’s how you’re the villain to your weakness. You admit it, face it, and challenge it. You get tools to fight it off when it tries to come back. And you move forward despite it. Don’t be study in that wall vine. Be Vecna to that. Use it to motivate you to enhance your strengths and do the impossible.
You’re stronger than you think. You just have to get mad enough at what’s holding you back to unleash righteous rage and knock it the hell out.
That’s all today. Take care, and have a great weekend!
Bye!
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