It’s not the dog in the fight, it’s the fight in the dog!
Where do you capitulate? Where does your resolve weaken?
It’s interesting that many athletes actually don’t want to know. They’d rather look away and pretend that weakness doesn’t exist. But strength comes calling when you are fully present with the full force of your own weakness.
Being willing to know is an act of real strength!
The knee-shaking hidden aspects of yourself that we don’t want to acknowledge or want others to see is superman’s kryptonite as long as it stays hidden. So you have to harden up and be the opposite of what we are told we ought to be, we need to be vulnerable to ourselves.
Yep, soften inwards, harden outwards…
To explore your weaknesses, look them in the face and not run away. Let it turn your stomach, and sit and feel that nauseous reflection. Find out for ourselves that the brittleness we don’t want to feel is the root of the weakness.
What you aren’t willing to see will stay unseen and come out and rob you blind when you are down to your last pennies.
So it’s to stand up and be a willing witness to the chinks in your own armor, so you can know yourself better. To become more intimate with yourself.
When you know the weakness, and you are willing to feel it, then and only then, can you start to realise the strength of the one who stands behind all that.
That resilient little bastard who has the audacity to witness his own stuff.
That’s power, that’s strength, that’s a personal integrity growing that no one else can teach you and no one can take from you.
True resilience stems from your own vulnerability and integrity. That’s where the figs to fight will come from.
At that moment when the chips are down, and you really need to fight, you are going to need the full backing of your self-knowledge and self-understanding, because no one is coming in here with you.
As the old saying goes:
Now is the time to fight like you are the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s arc… and Brother, it’s starting to rain.
Gilesy