Today’s question is “Can you mention three of your most damaging weaknesses? What are you doing to correct them?”. And the first thing that comes in my mind is that I can’t say no to my partner in most cases if he wants something. And then it stops. Or maybe my second weakness is eating chips, which I just did (and which makes me fat). But maybe more important is that somehow I mostly lose people, especially in business.

And all of this is very good I think, working through these questions in different ways, this time just answering them in public, writing  them down.

So let’s start with the first one, not being able to say no to my partner. Somehow that is a very hard and strange one, as I often compromise my own values just because I can’t say no. And yes, part of that is his anger, that can be very bad and that anyone would try to avoid. But that is a very bad excuse as often there is a lot more damage with my ‘not being able to say no’ than anything his anger could do. And by not saying no I am also teaching him that he can get anything he wants, which is certainly not healthy, not for me, but certainly also not for him. And also not for other people involved, as slowly more and more people are experiencing damage of my weakness of not being able to say no to my partner.

And recently I have been thinking that there may be many more people and situations I may act the same way, also causing a lot of damage.

So what am I doing to correct this first weakness? Well, at first sight nothing really, as even tonight I kind of gave in to something I don’t really want, something I might have wanted to say no to. On the other hand I am at least starting to realize that this is a very damaging weakness, so at least I am aware and kind of out of the denial phase. And that may be an important step to solve this issue, this weakness. So let’s stick with this for now, as it is still a very difficult issue for me, even though I guess most people wouldn’t understand what is going on and why I am doing what I do. And while writing I don’t even know myself why I do it, as often I just feel stupid and ‘wrong’.

But let’s at least acknowledge I am acknowledging this weakness and that that is a very important step.

My second weakness, eating, makes me very fat and somehow I hate myself for that. And still, I never really made any progress with this. Yes, for a short time, sometimes. But I never pushed through and even tonight I just bought a lot of snacks and started eating them, until right now.

So what am I doing to correct this? Well, actually nothing. I even kind of accepted my eating as something belonging to me, something to compensate for unhappiness and dissatisfaction in other areas of my life. So yes, I know where this eating habit comes from and what causes it. And while writing this I realize it has to do with my first weakness, at least the cause of that. And I don’t feel like writing about that in detail here, but let’s say it’s about the fear of loss of love of someone.

So what am I doing about it? Well, nothing really. So maybe time to at least acknowledge that it is a problem and that it causes unhappiness because I feel so fat. Would that be a step one to a solution?

So my third weakness is losing people. And that is a hard one and I have been trying(?!) to do something about that for a long time. And somehow it seems to pay off, but somehow I often still feel trapped with this, as I still often feel left alone by people, abandoned by them, them not replying to me, them not wanting to meet me.

So what am I doing about it? Well, again, at least I somehow acknowledge that I want to do something about it. And that somehow it is a weakness of me. And that it probably has to do with me not being really interested in people. And that goes back to me not being really interested in myself, me not really accepting myself.

So I am working on self-acceptance.

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