I hope you’re enjoying the new website! I’ve taken a break from blogging recently to create the webiste and get it up and running. Today I’m excited to be back blogging! Let’s start the new blog off with a few really vulnerable questions. How might your friends, family, and co-workers answer the following if you asked them?

What is your experience of me? When you think of me, what happens inside you? How do I make you feel? How do you regard me? How have I treated you? How have you understood my words and actions toward you? How have I made you feel in general? After you have spent time with me, how did you walk away feeling? Have I disappointed you? Impressed you? Scared you? Surprised you? What lasting impressions have I made on you? After spending time with me, how do you think I must feel toward you?

These questions might sound self-centered, egotistical, or even narcissistic, but I think we all reach a level in our personal formation where these questions become important for helping us face our own inner needs and for helping us change. In truth, they are vulnerable questions, allowing ourselves to receive feedback that we will likely internalize at a deep and meaningful level. Asking these questions means that we are asking for help with editing ourselves, and we are acknowledging that help will come in the form of feedback from another person. This is the opposite narcissism. This is allowing ourselves to be written upon, shaped, and impacted by the honest input of another person.

This, of course, is a dangerous proposition. It is not an approach to take without great care and tact. On one hand, we could mold and bend ourselves too much to the advice, input and influence of other people. On the other, we could alienate ourselves from the community we desperately need by asking for and then ignoring the feedback. But, I think the greater danger is that we would go through long seasons of life never asking these questions. If we never allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we never get critical feedback. Therefore, while asking these questions may seem narcissistic, it is probably much more narcissistic to never ask these questions.

One of the most important elements of the process of assessment is the question “To whom do I ask these questions?“ Who gets to give me feedback on myself? Who do I trust enough to help me improve my outward facing person? This process changes over time as we develop. Certainly, as children we were all much more impressionable as we learned about the world. Through adolescence and early adulthood, we solidified our world views, our identities, and our selves. So, as we aged, we became less impressionable and less and less likely to allow ourselves to be spoken into. While this is natural and good, it also creates stagnation. A central challenge of being a well-formed person is determining who can speak into our lives and what is appropriate to expect from that speaker.

In these first few paragraphs, I have already lost several readers. Perhaps these are the readers who are more fully formed in their core being, who are naturally more confident, or are simply less open to feedback. However, if you’re still with me it may mean that you are craving personal development and connection. I don’t claim to be an expert on this topic, and I am no expert in the process of spiritual identity formation. (I’m merely a therapist with a blog who has no desire to pastor or to be a spiritual decision-maker.) However, both as a therapist and as a person, I know the healing power of gentle, honest, well-placed words that bring insight and foster growth. 

While we therapists may teach a few helpful skills here and there, our only actual basis for any change is the relationship that we help you to form in the therapy room. Sometimes that relationship involves teaching, sometimes gentle encouragement, and sometimes mild challenging. But, it always involves empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard. I think these same elements help us to carefully select the safe people we want to speak into our lives. If we don’t believe these three elements will be present, we will probably not feel safe baring our souls to the criticism of others, well-intended as it may be.  

Renowned child psychologist, Dr Garry Landreth (87), used to conduct the same group activity anytime he would speak to a group of trainees. I got to see him conduct this activity twice with hundreds of people in attendance both times. First, he’d have us each think of a person outside of our household that made us feel special as a child or teenager. Then he asked us to write down what they did that made us feel special. Lastly, he’d collect the answers and read them aloud to the group. Inevitably, the answers all aligned along a common thread: The people we remembered as making us feel special as children were the people who treated us with respect, gave us their focused attention, and contributed dignity to our lives. Many of the people named were teachers, coaches, grandparents, youth leaders, or other authority figures. But many others were neighbors, family friends, or unrelated church family. They didn’t have to be people with organizational authority, just people who chose to take the time to speak to us or even simply just be present at difficult times. 

Personally, the individual I think of just took time and showed interest in me. It was her attention that made a greater difference to me than her words. She was an adult who found a way to step into the sacred sphere of my teen-aged person merely by being consistent and predictable for me. She allowed me to slowly determine that she was safe, and I allowed her to speak directly to my soul and help it form. Had I known to ask the questions I listed at the beginning of this article, I would have asked her and trusted her to answer!

It’s important to remember here that feedback from others isn’t the end-all-be-all answer, and it won’t change your identity. Most of the little things that we like or don’t like about ourselves are things we can’t actually change. However, we can learn new skills and build our awareness of how we interact with others. This kind of examination requires a careful and calculated exposure to scrutiny in tolerable levels. These critiques have to be sought out willingly by their recipient, not freely handed to others absent of their requests. Likewise, this feedback should not be central to the relationship and is merely an important building block. In fact, it’s probably best that these conversations do not occur often at all.  Still, they are important questions to ask to trusted friends and colleagues if you’re in the business of developing your self.

I hope this post has been informative and helpful. I specialize in working with creative professionals across Georgia who have Anxiety, ADHD, and/or High Functioning Autism. If you’d like to speak more about these or other types of issues, please give me a call at 770 615 6300. You can also schedule a session and learn more about my practice at www.stillwatercounselingatl.com I offer telehealth and in-person sessions. I am in-network with Aetna insurance and Lyra EAP, and I provide paperwork for filing out-of-network claims.