Have you ever been surprised by things you have been told about yourself?
Many of us feel we are a wide-open book. We have the same families and most of the same friends for most of our lives and just add new ones to the pack as we go. I have also been with the same small, independently-owned company in daily interaction with the same core team for almost 15 years. Social media has us connected to each other (and some of us waaayyy oversharing) just as often as we care to be.
After ALL of that, we think we know each other pretty well, right?
Well, I am still surprised to find out that this is not always the case!
For someone who has been accused of being too honest, too blunt, too direct more times than I can count (now those are no big surprise), it DOES surprise me when someone has a brand new observation or perception of me that I just never saw coming.
Here are the most surprising (to me, anyway!) things I have been told about myself, all within the past year:
- You are hard to get to know (said to me by new people)
- It is hard to be your friend sometimes, you don’t seem to need anybody (said to me by a good friend)
- You can be very intimidating (said to me by more people than I would have thought)
- You always have a wall up (said to me by my best friend of 30+ years)
I thought I was pretty open and have a lot of people in my life to be hard to know or hard to be friends with – but that last one shocked me right out of my socks. This is a person who has seen me through complete, full-blown meltdowns, who knows everything about me (or so I thought). How does she think I have a wall up with HER? Is it my RBF (resting b!tch face)? Hey, that one is NOT my fault.
And I thought I knew myself pretty well already. I have completed every personality and character identifier known to exist. I know my IQ, MBTI type, DISC profile, Kolbe index, Enneagram number, astrological sign, and what factors birth order play in things. Let me just tell you, EVERY SINGLE ONE of those reports some pretty strong warning labels traits. I suppose it is natural for some feathers to get ruffled along the way!
Random feathers have never concerned me very much, but the ones in my own pack DO. So I am doing some self-reflecting…..
While I am still figuring out how to be better at this whole “human interaction” thing, I have THIS:
NOW I want to hear more about YOU!
What have you heard about yourself that you thought was completely untrue?
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