Challenges you have been blessed with?

[Brittany]

Low self esteem has always been my greatest challenge. I've always been a perfectionist in every aspect of my life, and never lived up to my own enormously high standards. It is very easy for me to slide into a cycle of self-deprecation, lethargic depression, then some sort of snobby ego trip that is supposed to somehow patch everything up. I've fallen to the temptation to victimize myself many, many times as a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that I don't really like myself, which only brings further shame, as I feel like I'm required to be mature and stable at all times, which is of course ridiculous.

Some other challenges:

-Being an empath and learning how to shield myself so I don't constantly take in other people's crap. Also, learning that I'm not responsible for the behavior of other people and there's no reason to constantly worry about what other people are thinking/doing.

-Being too left-brained and trying to rationalize every aspect of my life, including those parts which are entirely intuitive. At the same time, sometimes I can be impulsive and throw logic to the winds, operating entirely on instinct and displaying a severe lack of wisdom in my actions. I seem to swing back and forth between these two extremes, while rarely finding the balance between them.

-Getting lost in my vivid imagination and living in a fantasy land. So many times I've gotten obsessed with past lives or conspiracy theories or obscure esoteric literature to the point that my daily life goes neglected, and I usually end up making a fool of myself before I'm jolted back to reality. It's also easy for me to slide into the escapist mentality, fantasizing about the mother ship coming and taking me away instead of dealing with the notion of personal responsibility for my own life. (I still wouldn't complain if the mother ship showed up. :p)

-Dealing with abandonment issues from my childhood. This has caused me to develop the tendency to attach myself to other people in a very clingy way, and I go to pieces if I'm not constantly showered with attention and praise. A part of myself I really don't like to look at. Also, sifting through all the other effed up stuff from my childhood, which I spent many years simply trying to forget.

-Trying to be a better listener. I've realized that often when a person is talking to me I'm simply waiting for them to stop talking so I can say something else. I tend to talk about myself a lot and be very self-absorbed, then I wonder why a lot of people stop talking to me after a short period of time. As one of my good friends put it: "I realized that nobody gave a sh!t about what I was saying. This was followed shortly by the realization that this was because I didn't give a sh!t what they were saying."

-Having an acute sensory sensitivity that makes bright lights and high-pitched noises painful to me (the sound of whistling or clanking silverware has just about brought me to tears), along with skin that bruises at a firm touch and very picky eating habits. The world always seems too loud, too bright and too busy, and I'm constantly in a state of sensory overload, which makes irritability and the tendency to seclude myself prominent factors in my personality. Quiet, solitary settings are my favorite type, though this can get very lonely, so it's a matter of deciding which form of discomfort I'd like to experience on any particular day.

-Accepting all of the above in unconditional love for myself. That is a challenge I face daily.