The Gift and The Thorn | When Struggle Strengthens Your Superpower

You know those things about yourself that you wish you could change?

For me, it’s always been anxiety—ever-present right beneath the surface.

I used to beg God to take it away—to free me from it—because I thought it was holding me back from stepping fully into who I was meant to be.

But over time, I started to see something different.

I realized that the parts of myself I wanted to fix were often just the flip side of my greatest gifts. My anxiety was deeply connected to my intuition. My sensitivity wasn’t weakness—it was strengthening my gift. My struggle wasn’t something to be ashamed of—it was proof of my superpower.

The Flip Side

This week, we’re exploring the beautiful, complicated, sacred tension between your gift and your thorn.

I call it the flip-side of your gift—how for every strength you carry, there’s often a struggle that mirrors it.

We’re exploring:

Why your biggest frustrations might be the doorway to your calling
How to reframe struggle as part of your design
The divine purpose of your “anti-gifts”

This is about honoring the full picture of who you are—not just the shiny parts, but the thorny ones, too.

The Gift & The Thorn

For every gift, there’s a thorn or an anti-gift if you will.

An equal and opposite resistance is trying to keep you from walking in your purpose.

• Discernment? Often walks hand in hand with self-doubt.
• Intuition? Often paired with anxiety.
• Wisdom? Feels like overthinking or overanalyzing.
• Deep empathy? Brings overwhelm and energy drain.
• Creative expression? Imposter syndrome.
• Giving? It can leave us with burnout.

The things we struggle with are strategic counterforces. 

They keep us from living in the true freedom we already own.

The Shift in Perspective

I share how I stopped seeing my thorns as flaws and started seeing them as part of my gift—not something to get rid of, but something to understand, work with, and learn from.

The truth is that the struggle and the gift are woven in our DNA. You can’t have one without the other.

Just like we can’t have light without dark, we can’t have gifts without thorns.

Shifting our perspective from our thorns being a problem to something that helps us can make all the difference.

What I’ve learned is that our thorns remind us: 

We’re not doing this alone.

They remind us to lean on grace.
They keep us humble.
They keep us curious.

And most importantly?
They keep us connected to the Source.

Reflection as Action

Take a few moments of quiet reflection this week and ask yourself:

• What if you stopped running from the struggle and started listening to what it’s trying to teach you?
• What if your anxiety is really your spiritual radar, highly attuned and deeply sensitive, for a reason?
• What if your fear is guarding the threshold of your breakthrough?
• How can your thorn help you to grow?

Key Takeaways

✨Your gift and struggle are often two sides of the same coin.
✨The thorn doesn’t disqualify you—it develops you.
✨Things you wish away might be the very things that make you powerful.
✨Freedom comes when we stop hiding our struggle and embrace our whole self.

Final Thoughts

We are each uniquely wired—our gifts woven into us, not separate from our pain, but stitched right alongside it.  Your thorn isn’t the enemy. It’s a teacher.
And your gift?
It’s already inside you, waiting to be seen, nurtured, and shared.

Here’s to honoring who you are as a whole: the gift and the thorn.
Because both matter. Both are sacred.
And both are part of the freedom you already own.