We all have a soft spot. And I don’t mean *a soft spot for someone else*—something that causes us to overlook their weaknesses. I mean our own tender fragile spot that shouldn’t be touched. Maybe that soft spot is trying to come together and become strong. Maybe it never will. That soft spot is usually a leftover of some emotional injury that has left a weak area. Your personal poached egg that can become an ooey, gooey emotional mess if someone applies too much pressure.

What do you do about these weak spots? How do you strengthen them?

Bringing Things Out Into the Light

Everything needs a little air especially those things we cradle and protect–certainly those things have proven to be our weaknesses in the past. we’ve hidden them in our emotional attic–up there with the cobwebs, they wait for us knowing that we don’t know how to throw them away.

Share the part that makes you feel weakest with a close friend. Talk about it. You will find that everyone has their own little fontanel. There is comfort in know that it’s not just you. You’ll also find discussing your injury takes some of the hurt out of it.

Unnecessary Girding of the Loins

Maybe all that protection you’ve been doing is superfluous. You don’t always need to wear a hard hat–sometimes all a hard hat does is make your hair look weird.

“There is a muscle that protects the injury.” I heard this sentence once and it caught my attention. Of course, this was on some medical show I’d crossed paths with—it wasn’t talking about our exposed, emotional areas. I understand what they meant though, having 12 pins in my hip. I also understand that the muscle can go on protecting the injury way past what’s necessary. It’s called a habit and fear. And this kind of habit causes other muscles to be unnecessarily tense, occasional flinching in expectation of an awkward touch, reticent to certain movements.

I will reinforce: 9 times out of 10 this level of protection is completely unnecessary. Just an old habit that is no longer useful. You’re just afraid that it’s going to hurt so you become needlessly cautious.

Dragging Around the Rotting Corpse

Here we are– at an uncomfortable yet natural progression. So you’ve got your old injury and it’s very real. Especially when it happened. And I bet it taught you a lot about yourself and being strong and being a better version of yourself the next time something like that happens in your life.

If it ever does again.

But you can put it down now. Let go. You have painstakingly protected yourself, meticulously guarded your previously injured area. But I’m afraid you’ve nurtured it beyond what is called for. And this care you’ve given it—it’s allowed it to grow and develop into something larger than what it originally was. Don’t get mad…but you may have turned it into a bit of a treasure and allowed it to define you. I said don’t get mad. It’s just all that shit– it makes a thing grow.

Just put it down and leave it here. Man, that’s gotta be heavy.

Well, Now What?

I know. You were so accustomed to it. But this will be easier. Distract yourself from the need to check where your injury once was, like your tongue searching constantly for the cut in your mouth. Try focusing on someone else. Doing something good for someone else will make you feel good too. Be a friend to yourself. It can be that simple, really.

Nothing’s impossible. Not even making your soft spots into a strength.

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by Jill MacGregor


We all have defunct mental treasures that we hold close, whether they are outdated or never ever served us at all. But we clutch tightly because they’re OURS, and we’ve made them such an extension of who are that we forget that they’ve ceased to function for us, if they ever did at all. Why do we cling to the useless?

Let’s burn the fields.

I wrote about *knowing when to say when* in a previous post, 10 Life Changing Lessons I Learned From Painting. I wrote, “Everything has a natural stopping point. Jobs, paintings, hobbies, relationships, our lives, the extent of our feelings, patience, energy—everything has a natural stopping point. And, that is not the same thing as giving up. It’s about observing something in a particular state.”

What ideas or beliefs have you been clinging to that have stopped serving you? A lot of times these worn out beliefs stem from a situation when we felt mistreated, unappreciated, ignored. We allow ourselves to become imprinted by these feelings and drag them through the future as if these feelings no applied to every situation. Simply because they applied to one in the past.

Rube.

Think of one of the stories you’ve created– we usually have more than one. Think of how you’ve allowed the story to leech into situations and color your perception of how you are being treated or will be treated—think of how it’s even kept you from trying.

What if, starting today, you could throw away that old, useless burden—because if it’s no longer functioning, it is simply a burden. What if today you could stop dragging around that rotting corpse–stop forcing people in your life to pay for the sins of others? What if today you could stop assigning value to the useless ideas that no longer serve you?

I believe you can. I know you are clinging to these stories as if they were important. I do it, too. When was the last time it served you—instead of you serving it? It’s like cleaning out your closet—if you can’t think of one situation when these negative thoughts ever did you some good, get rid of them because you need the space for new ideas.

Today I’m going to clean out my emotional junk drawer. I’m going to be merciless about what I get rid of. I’m going to throw away the stories that sit on my shoulder like an evil monkey and whisper, “Its not going to work” or “I can’t believe you said that” or “You will always be alone”. Drama monkey. I’m going to make room for more “I can do that” and “Just try again” and “Other people get to be right, too”. I feel like having more of those plot lines building my stories will create this endless loop of kindness and patience—some for me, some for you, some for me, some for you.

Write down 5 of your useless, go nowhere plot lines that you’ve allowed to negatively color your life. Just jot them down–they don’t need to have a lot of detail. You know them all by their nicknames.

I’ll wait.

Ask yourself, when was the last time each of them did you a service—and the last time they screwed everything up. If your old useless stories were employees, you would fire them. Create some new awareness around these stories during the next couple of weeks—what’s going on when they appear? Why do the old, tired themes become your fallback even if you realize they accomplish nothing? Just bad habits, I think, so give yourself the opportunity to establish some new patterns to take their place. Take things apart and put them back together without these stories. It will feel awkward at first. Something will feel like its missing. It will just be the crap you’ve let go of.

I believe you can do it.

Just try.

Everything you do today is the right thing.