Challenging Narratives L4: Embracing Your Strengths and Super Powers

When an “antagonist” shows up, you can help prepare to tackle them by becoming consciously aware of the emotional and mental muscles that help you rise to the challenge.

Antagonists trigger us because they hit old wounds.

Identifying Emotional and Mental Muscles

-As in a workout, you can tend to lean on your stronger muscle groups to support you when challenged

-Examples include intelligence, creativity, persistence, resourcefulness, discipline, social skills, and a good sense of humor.

Reflect on the emotional/mental strengths you associate with your story’s protagonist

-Resilience – bouncing back after really trying shit happens – affair, divorce, dad’s death, staying grounded and strong and not wasting away in the grief and trauma

-Cleverness – learning super quickly, putting two and two together, expanding upon a concept to other parts of life

-Creativity – softening stress by becoming focused in art, drawing, painting or writing

-Authenticity and appropriate vulnerability – Owning the parts of myself that I have come to terms with and accepted, kissed, and loved

-Positivity – seeing really great things in situations a lot of the time

-Kindness and gentleness – wanting to be soft and sweet and hold space

-Loving – really seeking the “Love narrative” in all spaces

-Leadership – am strong and determined and can take the lead without struggle

-Gratitude- I can be grateful for a lot of things really easily

-Ability to detach – I am getting so golden at separating what is MY shit vs what is DREW’S shit and navigating myself through it

-Patient – I generally can listen to a lot of nonsense before I push back

-Spirituality – I can get in touch with the Universal spirit

-Firm – I can set a hard boundary and demand my needs

-Loving – I don’t know if this is truly a strength or more of a hope, but I am always seeking love.  The love side of it – whatever it is.

1. What are the protagonist’s strongest emotional/mental muscles (remember, the protagonist is you)? How is it that he, she, or they have come to know these strengths? Explain.  Meh.  I’m kind of not doing this again.  It can be inferred from my list above.
2. How can each of these muscles help her navigate the primary antagonist in the current chapter of their story?  Well.  They do in so many ways.  Kate is able to be patient and gentle, but firm and certain in getting what she wants or needs a lot of the time.  Kate is generally positive and can sift out the love narrative in her situations well.  She is clever so she learns concepts to propel her further in her journey quickly and can reshift and reshape to adapt and progress.
3. Imagine that your protagonist is a superhero. Describe his, her, their primary superpowers. Kindness.  Gentle firmness.  Love.

Kate