Use your weakness to become strong

We all have a personality - I know, it is hard to believe when we think of some people we know. But, truth is, we all have one. If we understand all aspects of our personalities, the strengths and the weaknesses, we can use that knowledge to our advantage.

We usually focus on our strengths, as we should. But, we have "inferior functions" that pop up and get in the way of what we know to be true. They are the parts of us that develop last; those we seldom use.

I want to give three examples; myself - two friends - three solutions.

One, an INFP friend. (Introverted-iNtuition-Feeling-Perceiving) Her strength is in her introverted Feeling, her 2nd top strength is extroverted iNtuition, tertiary is introverted Sensing, and her inferior function is extroverted Thinking. She is struggling with letting go of something, and it is her tertiary, introverted Sensing, that will help her. She needs to go to her core and identify something negative or unpleasant that she sensed - sight, taste, touch, hear, smell, and use that sensing to help her let go of what she knows is not healthy for her. Whenever she is aware that she is hanging on tighter to what she needs to release, she needs to remember the negative sensing she identified, and notice how it helps her inferior thinking snap her out of her irrational gripping. Her weakness can help her overcome her addiction.

Second, and ENTJ. (Extroverted-iNtuition-Thinking-Judging) Her strength is her extroverted Thinking, her 2nd top strength is introverted iNtuition, tertiary is extroverted Sensing, and her inferior function is introverted feeling. She was struggling on Tuesday with sadness, despair, and depression. She was in her inferior function, feelings that were internal that she was not talking about. Her tertiary, extroverted sensing, helped her get out of her funk. I asked her to focus on all the situations in her life that could give justification to her sadness. They were things in her outer world; what she saw, smelled, touched, heard, or tasted. That helped her get back to her strength of extroverted Thinking. Her weakness helped her overcome something that felt out of her control.
I also suggested she get a good night's sleep. We are never in our strength if we are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

I am an ESTJ. (Extroverted-Sensing-Thinking-Judging) I used my tertiary function to quit smoking. I loved smoking. I would leave work to smoke, sit down to smoke, hang out with friends to smoke. I loved it! It used my tertiary, extroverted iNtuition, to stop the urgency. It worked beautifully. I searched my outside (extroverted) world to find something I valued in the whole big scheme of things. It was my health. Whenever I thought I could not go one more second without a cigarette, I would say out loud, "I want to be healthy!" I could feel the tension in my arms relax and I could go another ten minutes until the next urge came. I would do it all over again. Eventually, the time increased between the addiction craving and I knew it no longer controlled me. Tapping into my tertiary strength, repeating my one-liner over and over, and trusting my knowledge, I overcame an addiction that was truly ruining my health.

Never stop learning about yourself. You are your best, and often your only, true advocate.

Until the next time: Live while you live!

Call 911, without hesitation, if you are in danger of hurting yourself or someone else.