Pride

I'm very proud of a few very odd things at the moment. They may not make sense without back-story, but I want to document them for myself:

1) Asking business questions
2) "Magnanimity" per the President of the company
3) Creating a very safe, open space for others to engage in conflict and clear agreements on a recent project
3) Keeping an extra pair of sweatpants in the car and knowing when to offer them to a friend
4) Recognizing that a litter-sweep makes an EXCELLENT bailing-can
5) Sharing the RIGHT information at the RIGHT time
6) Practicing my shy-Spanish
7) Eating an Apple

I probably don't give myself kudos and recognition as often as I should. Really, we should all do it more often, probably.

Poking People

My friend writes:

I've answered the Johari, but I cannot answer the Nohari because there aren't 6 words there which describe you.

What I can say is that I think our strengths are almost always also our weaknesses. So, I put down "organized" on Johari, which is your strength, but when flexibility is
needed, sticking to the plan would be a weakness.

I general, I find you to be a good friend, able to hold groups together, and interesting in knowing about yourself and others.

I think you are fine the way you are, and I am happy to know you.

Awwwww! I have rockin' friends! I also have WISE friends. I am very much drawn to this idea that our strengths and weaknesses are the same - let's run a test:

Loving / Needy - Yep
Organized / Inflexible - Yep (although I'm not convinced about the 1st part!)
Intelligent / Overdramatic....? (hmm. What's the opposite of intelligent? Naive?)

More to come I'm sure...

Rainy Monday

I was reading my friend Michael's blog and he did this cool exercise online called a Johari Window http://kevan.org/johari.

It is a pretty self-explanatory little tool that assesses how perceptions of self overlap or disconnect with perceptions of others. This may be a good way to explore that self/others disconnect that I am plagued by so often. I'll be sure to process how it turns out here.

(Several hours later)

Beware the Nohari...so let's say you open yourself up and say "Yo! Friends and family. What do you think my WORST personality traits are?"

And you get the list. And well, it's negative because, well, you're asking for the negative. And well, there aren't any mitigating factors...no "why" do you think this, or opportunity to discuss the level at which someone thinks your bad traits are showing themselves. The same people are saying the nicest mostest wonderfullest things about you on the Johari...but the negative is still there, and has some evidence, experience or perceptive validity behind it. And you have no context.

That's my current experience of the Johari / Nohari windows. I want context! Examples! Discussion. A list of forced-choice adjectives is only so useful.

Biggest Shocker so Far: My mother thinks I'm insensitive (!?!). I can only describe this as hilarious. My experience of interacting with my mother is that I always so hyper-conscious of her feelings, my feelings, and maintaining some distance from being consumed by our conflicting "stuff" that that I have to assume the resulting insensitivity of her must be a survival strategy. Probably combined with a honest dose of "not-getting-her" since she's solidly on the introvert side of the relationship wall.

Biggest "Uh-Huh" so Far: 100% of those surveyed find me "inflexible." I agree with that. I like schedules, plans, and boy, do I have opinions. Changing paths is very difficult for me. Changing habits is even harder. Not as hard as it is for some people I know, though...