Achilles’ heel, everybody has one. But, do you know yours? Your soul also chose it for you along with the other overlays. This is your main character flaw, the dominant, negative attitude. A destructive pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. A limiting factor or a personal obstacle in life. Defense of the ego. The part of You that you do not want to admit even to yourself. The dark side of your personality.
In this article you will:
- Learn the 7 main character flaws: self-depreciation, arrogance, greed, auto-sabotage, impatience, martyrdom, obstinacy.
- Learn how to recognize them in yourself.
- Know their positive and negative pole.
The task of your dark side is you sabotaging your soul’s achievement of your chosen life goal. Why? That you would experience your life goal fully. Which means in both poles, positive and negative. So, for instance, if acceptance is your life goal, your soul will desire to love everyone unconditionally. In order for you to be able to do it fully, your heels of Achilles will cause you to start begging others for your acceptance.
There are 7 main character defects:
Self-depreciation or minimizing your own merits, underestimating yourself.
This attitude comes from fear of scarcity or imperfection and concerns people who have a very low opinion about themselves. This is a classic inferiority complex according to psychoanalysis. A person devalues and discredits themselves. They apologizes for practically everything they does. Most often it comes from unfulfilled high expectations of parents.
How to recognize it in yourself?
This feature manifests itself through:
- Avoiding the attention of others. Whenever possible, you will try to distract others’ attention from yourself by focusing their attention on other people or things.
- Managing expectations of other people. You will apologize in advance for any upcoming defeat and act in such a way that no one would expect something else from you.
This attitude limits the development of the soul due to low self-esteem. It does not allow you to externalize your talents, see yourself as unworthy love (relationships), knowledge, truth, energy (money) or feel unworthy of the benefits of spiritual growth.
In the positive pole, it is humility, while in the negative it is humiliation. It results from the fear of imperfections.
Arrogance.
This attitude comes from fear of defencelessness and being judged. People, do not want to admit to themselves that they are imperfect, nor do they want others to discover it. It is often based on shyness.
It is an exaggerated self-esteem egotism and conceit. People with this attitude believe that they are extraordinary, that they are better than others. They perceive themselves as noble and wonderful. These people have an unrealistic assessment of their abilities, intelligence, and talents. They are often pretentious, haughty snobbish and conceited.
This attitude usually comes from negative experiences of disapproval or open criticism from important people in childhood, especially parents, but also siblings and others. It results from fear of vulnerability.
How to recognize it in yourself?
This feature manifests itself through:
- Paying attention and exaggerating your own strengths, successes, and specialties while concealing the reduction and denial of your own weaknesses, failures, and ordinariness.
- Paying attention and exaggerating the weaknesses, shortcomings, and ordinariness of others, at the same time reducing, hiding, and denying their strengths, successes, and uniqueness.
This attitude limits the soul’s development because of judging both itself and others. It is the main obstacle to experiencing agape.
In the positive pole it is a pride and in the negative vanity.
Greed.
This attitude is due to the fear that you do not have enough, no matter how much you have. It is a desire to have emotional and spiritual experiences, praise, and physical ups. A person with this trait thinks that they has the right to possess what they wants and that it is the duty of the rest of the world to provide it. They always need another slaughter, money, or a new lover.
This attitude comes from the absence or unavailability of a carer in early childhood, long enough for the infant to experience a lack. And also substituting for example when the parent provides gifts to the child instead of care.
How to recognize it in yourself?
This feature manifests itself through:
- The obsessive search for a substitute for the original lack.
- Compulsive acquisition.
- Compulsive collection.
- Preventing others from getting it.
- Criticizing what is available (hoping to do something better).
- Blaming others for insufficient funds.
In the positive a pole it is ambition, a big appetite for life, and in negative greed.
It results from the fear of lack.
Self -destruction, and self-sabotage.
This attitude comes from fear of worthlessness and loss of control. People with this feature are always aware of their disadvantages. They feel unworthy to exist or have what they really want. They believe that others can not love them. These people believe that others can not love them. They do not like and sometimes even hate themselves. They are always self-critical and condemn themselves for their faults.
In auto sabotage, a person may become suicidal or self-destructive.
This can manifest itself in the form of the actual end of life or auto-sabotage habits like (alcoholism or drug addiction), diseases (severe depression, eating disorders), or general inability to persist (monetary or emotional). It can also be expressed in self-injury.
The need for self-destruction does not have to be literal or physical. In fact, there is a spectrum of self-destructive behaviors from mild to risky and lethal.
This attitude is most often the result of childhood violence or trauma over which the child has no control. In addition, most often it was helpless to do anything and lonely in their horror because one or both of the parents were unable or did not want to give her love, care, and attention.
In the positive pole, this is sacrifice and in negative suicidal behavior. It results from the fear of losing control.
Impatience.
This obstacle consists of the fear of losing something important, this is the famous FOMO. A person with this feature sees themselves as the creator of the action. It annoys everything that causes delays.
It is the result of negative experiences focusing on the omission of activities. Probably, the child was not allowed to participate in important events or decisions of the rest of the family.
How to recognize it in yourself?
This feature manifests itself through:
- Go through actions as fast as possible and run from one activity to another.
- Perceiving others as an aid or obstacle and pushing disturbing people out of the way.
- Intolerance of slowness, delay, or failure in others, in themselves or in life itself.
- Constantly preparing for the offensive.
- The aggressive response to all observations.
In the positive pole is boldness and in negative intolerance. It results from the fear of missed opportunities.
Martyrdom.
It results from the fear of being a victim. The feeling that a person has given themselves over to the power and control of another person, situation, or authority. They acts as if all power has been deliberately taken away from them. A person with this characteristic has a habit of complaining about endless problems and blaming anyone and anything other than himself for these problems.
This attitude is the result of treating the child as the source of all parents’ problems. Usually, such a child was punished for being wrong and constantly blamed for everything that failed.
How to recognize it in yourself?
This feature manifests itself through:
- Continuous moaning, complaining, talking about your problems.
- Exaggerating the level of suffering and difficulties.
- Avoiding any form of relief in this therapy, so as not to end such important suffering.
In the positive pole, it is selflessness and negative sacrifice. It results from the fear of uselessness.
Obstinacy.
Attitude resulting from the fear of change. A person with this feature opposes external influences, prefers to follow their own path, and follow their own instincts. They rarely asks for advice, follows an internal stimulus that has no behavioral, emotional, or rational justification. Resistance to change. It is a mechanism that inhibits the process of soul growth.
It stems from early negative experiences of instability or shocks requiring the urgent need to deal with new situations. Situations that caused such stress could often be beyond the control of parents. But it could also be situations such as frequent change of residence or appearance of a new family member. These changes were imposed without warning against the will of the child causing enormous stress.
How to recognize it in yourself?
This feature manifests itself through:
- Refusal to change or accept new situations when you are asked to do so.
- Blocking the emergence of new unknown situations.
- Perception and anticipation of any change or novelty in order to block it.
- Denying that there is a need for change.
- Counteracting internal pressures or impulses to change yourself.
In the positive pole, it is determination and in negative persistence.
It results from the fear of change.
How to deal with your disadvantage?
- Recognize it by observing yourself in action.
- Try to catch yourself in action under its influence.
- Try to penetrate yourself and ask yourself where the fear comes from, how you have been hurt.
- Ask yourself if you can let it go.
- If you need to ask a therapist or friend for help.
- When you are more aware of your fault try to take control of it using your consciousness and act through a conscious choice at a given moment.
Source:
Barry „Character flaws: The seven chief features of ego”, personality spirituality.net
JP Van Hulle „THE SEVEN OBSTACLES”, michaeleducationalfoundation.com
Phil Wittmeyer and Others „Self-Deprecation”, The Michael Teachings, michaelteachings.com
Phil Wittmeyer and Others „Arrogance”, The Michael Teachings, michaelteachings.com
Phil Wittmeyer and Others „Self-Destruction”, The Michael Teachings, michaelteachings.com
Phil Wittmeyer and Others „Greed”, The Michael Teachings, michaelteachings.com
Phil Wittmeyer and Others „Martyrdom”, The Michael Teachings, michaelteachings.com
Phil Wittmeyer and Others „Impatience”, The Michael Teachings, michaelteachings.com
Phil Wittmeyer and Others „Stubbornness”, The Michael Teachings, michaelteachings.com
Jose Luis Stevens, Simon Warwick-Smith „The Michael Handbook: A Channeled System for Self Understanding”, Warwick Press, 1994
