My Biggest Strength and Greatest Weakness

If you’ve been following along so far, or know me personally, you already know my biggest strength and weakness: stubbornness.

I can dig my heels in like no other when I’ve set my mind to something.

I like to think of this as an asset. It makes me a fearless therapist, looking ahead of clients to see and face down their fears before they feel brave enough to speak their names into existence in the room we share for the hour. It also pushes me to keep leaning into discomfort. If I can’t lead you through your fears and things that keep you up at night, how can we hope for change at your darkest hour?

I often begin a first session by naming my values as a therapist and how they shape my work. I talk about authenticity, or showing up transparently and directly. And I invite clients to step into transparency and authenticity with me to the best of their ability. My stubbornness allows me to go places others often avoid: modeling that topics like sex, money, and even the therapy relationship itself are welcome here. This insistence on authenticity doesn’t always go perfectly. It isn’t about control. It’s about creating space where therapy can happen, and where hard conversations are safe to enter into together.

Stubbornness also helps me stand my ground. When chaos is swirling in a family session, or there’s a large elephant looming to step on us all, I can find the places in me that stand still while the current roars around me—where the waters rip around my ankles and try to unseat me.

In my personal life, stubbornness has shown up in quieter ways. I grew up as a “good daughter”—quiet and compliant, and doing what I was told. Over time, that shifted. As an adult, I’ve learned to advocate for myself with doctors, to push back when something doesn’t sit right, and refuse to accept explanations that don’t make sense to my body or values. It’s taken time to learn that standing firm doesn’t require hardness—that I can stand my ground and remain kind at the same time.

But, as you may have already noticed in my last blog post, my stubbornness isn’t always a strength. When I make up my mind about something (helpful or not), I can stick with it long past the point of usefulness, until reality insists that I pause, reassess, and let something go.

For a long time, my stubbornness looked like persistence at all costs. I believed that if I just worked hard enough—understood my trauma well enough, did therapy “right”—I could outpace what my body was asking of me. In that mindset, I missed the lesson entirely. Slowing down wasn’t failure or effort. It was the work.

Over time, I’ve learned that my stubbornness is only useful when paired with curiosity. If I stop and ask myself, is this actually helping? stubbornness—be it strength or weakness—can become something generative.

I’m still learning how to hold that balance. Still a work in progress.

In my work with clients we often explore dualities. For example, how something can serve us in one context and limit us in another. I wonder what that might be for you. What strengths do you carry that also become obstacles at times? And what helps you navigate that tension with care?