The Real You

Related posts: Find Your Strengths, Learn to be Self Aware, Know Yourself, Personalities Help the Family-a very brief audio

“This above all – To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
– Shakespeare, Hamlet

I’ve enjoyed being in Shakespeare country. He is the greatest playwright of all time. Did you know that Hamlet is being performed somewhere on earth as you read this? This one quote (above) is more profound and meaningful and yet not so easy.

I believe in authenticity, from the heart. I really do. It’s just that how can you be true to yourself if you don’t know yourself? Authenticity means being real, true to what others believe you to be. But first, I must be true to myself. How can I do this if I still have parts of me that are a mystery to me?

This is a hard one for me. As a tough old bird now, I look back on some of my life experiences and realize that I lived by default because I didn’t know my own mind, or maybe it was because I didn’t have the courage of my convictions. Yet just the other day, my Spiritual Director told me I was brave. I’m still chewing on that one.

When I was in college, I studied theatre and loved it. I gravitated to drama and the arts like a fly on rice as we say in Texas. Every waking moment, I was consumed with the play. It was what I did, what I knew, and what I was exceptionally good at. What were my plans after college my dad asked one day. Uh-oh. I had not considered that. Well, maybe I’d dreamed about joining a professional group in Dallas. Dad said I would get a teaching certificate. Not my choice, but of course I did as he said. And of course, father knew best.

One of the moments that keeps coming around like a scratch on an old LP record is when I was about to walk down the aisle on my daddy’s arm to marry my first husband. I hesitated. I said, “I’m not sure.” To which my dad replied, “Come on, we are going to walk down this aisle now.” And of course we did, I was married for ten, well maybe 8 and a half – good years, had three children in a thirty-seven-month period, and he left when the youngest was three years old.

Boy oh boy! I certainly didn’t know myself after that earthquake. I just hung on, grabbed whatever wasn’t shaking, and stumbled onward. No time for lots of self-reflection.

Years later, I began to study personality types. My sister, who is eight years my senior, went with me to the training. She asked, “Well, how did your personality profile come out?” When I told her, one of those – I’m about to have a life-changing moment – occurred. She said, “Oh no. That is not you.” So for the next hour, she had me retake the forty-item profile, assisting me with each one. She knew me better than I knew myself and had been with me throughout my early years. We had shared a bedroom, and I looked up to her. She was the one who taught me how to brush my teeth and wash my hair. She knew me and was certain my self-concept had gone seriously wrong. She was right. We learned the next day that my particular birth-personality type can change if raised by or married to a strong personality of another sort. Boy, did that answer a lot. Again, I had lived in my marriage by default. I’d done what others expected of me, me, me-especially what my husband expected. Also what I thought and this is so important – what I thought others expected, a weakness of my personality type.

In the sixties, as I was entering adulthood and the hippies were about, someone might say, “I’m not going to college. I’m going to spend a few years finding myself.” Well, it’s taken me an extraordinarily long time, and I’m getting warmer. Personality studies have certainly helped me.

Shakespeare died 1616 April 23, yet he surely knew human nature that endures to this day.
Using his words-

“In my heart of hearts” (Hamlet) I will continue “Forever and a Day” (As You Like It) to be “As merry as the day is long.” (Much Ado About Nothing).

 Additional Resources: Personality Principles, Enneagram

I raised three children as a single mother before I remarried. I have experienced the potholes, pests, and perils of being the single head-of-household. As an educator in regular and special education for twenty years. I am the founder of Single Moms EmpowerEd, a nonprofit whose goal is to support single moms while they earn degrees that lead to employment. I’m also a Certified Professional Coach and my stories have been published in several Christian books and magazines. My book, Living Learning Loving is available at Bookshop, on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.