After major life changing events, I like to be a hermit. I get overwhelmed so easily and my inclination is always to draw back and inward.
The last time I did this, I didn’t really come back out of hermitville… I’m still working on that part.
When I am around the same few people all of the time, I find it easier to know myself. But as I start showing up for life again, and the more people I’m interacting with, the more I can feel how their energy and opinions affect me.
This is where relationships get interesting. Different people bring me new situations, conversations and feelings. This is all great, but I have found myself in new territory responding and reacting in new unfamiliar ways.
It makes it hard to “be yourself” when you don’t know yourself in that situation.
Someone called me quirky not that long ago.
Huh.
I can be frightfully shy. I never knew that about myself before. Thank goodness for the brave souls that still approach me to talk when I’m paralyzed by my own shyness.
Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” I get it now.
As I soften to the world, I am realizing we are far more fluid in who we are than I understood. That might be the only thing that is consistent.
Just when you think you can hang your hat on a particular personal trait or label… along comes someone or something who might show you otherwise.
That’s both a blessing and a curse.
But it sure keeps life interesting.