Understand Yourself
As I began to take small steps to overcome my welfare dependency, I found I had a real advantage in that I understood myself. I understood my strengths. I understood my weaknesses. I had spent the previous 20+ years really digging into understanding who I was.
But it hadn’t always been that way. Because my formative years were so wrought with instability and abuse, I had spent up until my 20s attempting to survive. And up until that point, my methods were helpful. Obviously because I am still alive! However, all those coping skills did not translate well to adulthood.
During college and the early years of my marriage, I was very very focused on myself. I was self-absorbed. Selfish. Demanding. Hyper-emotional. And difficult to live with in general. My ex-husband described me, and accurately so, as: Shelley would rather argue than breath.
I look back remembering my bad behavior. One memory that stands out is that the dishwasher had to be loaded in a very specific way. Cups went here. Plates went like this. In the silverware basket, each piece of silverware had to be oriented in a certain way and there had to be an equal distribution of the various types of silverware. Wow. And that’s just loading the dishwasher. I’m sure there are many many other situations in which I was that compulsively controlling. Attempting to order my life. I have a lot of compassion for that girl. I’m sure that kind of structure served her well back in the day. But now, it was destructive on many levels.
I got married in May of 1991 and within seven months found myself pregnant. I remember how shocked I was. I didn’t even really like children. I had not grown up babysitting. I would not have called myself a nurturing individual. However, when Ty was born my whole world changed. I’m sure many of you reading this can relate. This is when my initial growth started. When that sweet bundle of joy arrived, it was as if blinders fell off my eyes. I began to see more clearly who I was. And I didn’t like what I saw. I realized how demanding I was. I wasn’t gracious to the efforts others made. Everything had to be my way. This was the start of my life long journey of self improvement.
With this realization, I initially I turned to christian books and women in my church. Looking for guidance and women to emulate. This was extremely helpful! But it just wasn’t enough. Because of all the pain of my upbringing. The abuse both sexually and verbally, the wounds ran so very deep. So deep that I felt absolutely no self-worth. I didn’t even realize how deep the wounds were until out of the blue I yelled at my husband one day saying: I know you don’t love me! I literally was unable to receive love or believe I was worthy of love. This was another wake up call. And I told myself: I don’t care what it takes, but I’m finding help. This is my problem. Not someone else’s. This is when I began to seek out a therapist.
The journey to healing is a painful one. No one just wakes up one morning and understands who they are and why they function as they do. And before I could clearly understand myself, I had to begin the healing process.
Andy Miller. I’ll never forget him. A good therapist becomes like family. He came to know me better than anyone had ever known me. Andy was my guide to healing and beginning to see that I wasn’t all bad. My whole life I had struggled with feeling as if I needed to apologize for myself. I was too talkative. Too loud. Too enthusiastic. Too energetic. Too…too…too. And at the same time I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t smart enough. Good enough. Quiet enough. Too much and not enough all at the same time.
Through therapy I began to see myself differently. I worked on rewiring the thoughts in my brain. Those thoughts (recordings of my father) that told me I was too much and not enough. I began to see the truth about myself. I wasn’t all bad. I certainly wasn’t all good and had “my stuff”, but I was all bad either.
Now, here is the most important thing about understanding yourself. Having a balance. From my experience, we live unhealthily when we are not in a balanced place. No one person is all good or all bad. Do you fall predominantly into one of those camps? I fell into the “all bad” camp. But I’ve known some who, at least from an outward projection, act like they have nothing wrong with them. Everything is someone else’s fault. The truth is, we are somewhere in the middle. And until we begin to attempt to know ourselves, we will struggle overcoming any issue, including the fear that is dictating your life.
Do you know who you really are? Do you seek to look at yourself in the mirror clearly. Are you willing to find out what in your life is broken and what is working? Will you choose to turn off the negative voices in your head? Will you begin to acknowledge the good within you? That’s the first step. Being willing to be transparent and honest with yourself. And I believe anyone who wants a balanced and healthy life can make a choice to do this.
I truly believe understanding these things is foundational to a successful life without the oppression of fear keeping you from the things you dream of or the life you wish to have.
Questions:
What does a balanced perception of yourself mean to you and do you agree that this is important?
Have you taken a Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, Big 5 or some other personality test? If so and you are willing to share, what would you say is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.
How are you capitalizing on your strengths? What measures are you taking to improve your weaknesses?
Homework: If you have not taken a personality test recently, do so. I recommend UnderstandMyself.com. Test costs $10. You can also go in with others to purchase in bulk at a discount. Once taken, depending on what camp you fall in, journal about your strengths and/or weaknesses. Write specifically how you see your strengths exhibited. Write specifically one step you are prepared to consistently take to work on a weakness. Begin to think about finding someone you can trust who you can be transparently honest with.
Recorded discussion via 52 Living Ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLoTxL4W_UQ&t=6s