Celebrating Talents

I find myself acknowledging how talented I am tonight, and feeling appreciative and extra loving of myself. How seldom I acknowledge and appreciate these talents, thank you to myself and the great Consciousness of which I am a part. I notice as I wrote this entry there was a part that kept wanting to butt in with a ‘but’. Which I didn’t allow. This is an exercise of celebrating what I bring to the world.

– The design ability. I am a really good designer. And while I was trained in a particular field, this design ability I’ve applied to other fields that I’m not trained in. I can get by in graphic design, interior design too for example. I have a good aesthetic sense and take good photographs and notice beauty around me and share that sometimes, even beauty in the ordinary in the world.

– I have a high level of people skills. Good at communication, at empathising and intuiting what others experience and able to respond in a caring way. I feel love easily which helps. This and my interest and ability to understand psychology including myself, helps towards making me a great therapist. It also makes me a good friend to have, as I’m also forgiving and loyal for the most part.

In a sense, I don’t exactly feel they are ‘my’ talents, more-like gifts and talents that have arisen as a result of my unique combination of innate qualities with an upbringing, influences and conditioning that allowed for the recognition of those and also the confidence and knowhow to develop these strengths. E.g. got ‘A’ s for art at school, I liked it a lot, and so decided to do a design based university degree. Which was normal in a middle class household. I have also had the determination and worked hard at finding their expression, and often some of my early more negative aspects of conditioning needed to be overcome to develop them, such as a lack of confidence, not feeling worthy. I’m still working on those.

I feel honoured to be the host of my talents. That is not to say I don’t own them too and appreciate and celebrate them as qualities of mine. I am feeling happy that I can produce some things that other people like. What I design, how I manage a company on my own, and in the last few years the type of deep therapy I do which I get positive feedback about from clients.

I feel validated that my talents are recognised by the fact that people are willing to pay me money for them and I am able to earn a living. I’m glad to be doing what I am doing and feel lucky to have activities in the world I enjoy and get paid for.

I’ve named a couple of main ones, design and people skills. There are others too. I am resilient with stress and I am able as a single woman manage a construction company successfully for 20 years. I am a good employer, skilfully navigating personnel management in a respectful, caring and fair way. That doesn’t mean I don’t get stressed of course, which i take as a learning opportunity.

Other achievements facilitated by the above, include buying an apartment and organising the complete refurbing of it while living in another flat and running the business. I had a wall knocked down, the kitchen and bathroom removed, the bathroom and kitchen completely overhauled with new units, sinks, cooker, toilet, electrical sockets, skirting, tiles, ceiling, built in lighting, shower. I had timber flooring put down, new carpets in the bedrooms and living room, new furniture as well as old family furniture, and the whole place re plastered and painted. All this had to be chosen paid for and the work organised and managed.

I got through a very difficult training to become a cognitive behavioural therapist and not only was it a rigorous masters level course, I had the challenge running the construction business at the same time. It also cost £7k which I paid for.

There’s the inner self awareness work, following the ‘truth at any price’ dictum I have a faced a lot of difficult things in myself honestly, and let go of many things. I experience the result of learning to love myself more and more as I face and drop beliefs, defences and habits. That’s perhaps the main one actually, and the hardest as well as the most enjoyable adventure.

So well done Susan, you’re doing great, and congratulations.