Finding Your Blind Spots

Knowing yourself is the first step to acceptance. Everything you build is according to your own specifications. You only allow people to treat you as badly as you think you deserve. The good news is that they can relearn. You must learn to send new messages.

You start by understanding yourself and how you respond to the world. If you're not getting what you want, you have to change to get it. This means you have to figure yourself out. We all can see what needs to be fixed in others. This is called projection. What you need to know is that if you see a characteristic in other people, you also have that characteristic. This is true for both positive and negative characteristics.

We all have blind spots. There is a way to know what your blind spots are. If you see something in someone close to you and don't see it in yourself, you have either disowned or denied it. You will continue to see the people around you as mirrors of your rejected self until you heal the split in yourself. The way out of this house of mirrors is to be willing to admit you have the characteristic you see. Next, you must become willing to change those characteristics that are inconsistent with your concept of yourself. One exercise I found in the book Receiving Love may be very helpful in recovering the split part of you.



Begin by listing all the characteristics you see in people closest to you. You may want to focus in on your mate or mates if you have had more then one. Note whether you see the characteristics as positive or negative and list them separately. Ask three to five people close to you to give you a list of adjectives they see in you. Ask them to hold nothing back and note whether the traits are positive or negative with a plus or a minus sign.

Go through the list of all the characteristics and give them a rating of one through five, with one being for the characteristics most unlike you and five being for the characteristics most like you. Then go through the list and choose five of the positive characteristics you gave the lowest scores. These are the characteristics you think are least like you. Now rank them, putting least descriptive at the top and most descriptive at the bottom of the list. These are the characteristics you have disowned. Do the same thing with the negative characteristics. Rate each characteristic one through five, with one being for the characteristics most unlike you and five being for the characteristics most like you. Then go through the list and choose five of the negative characteristics you gave the lowest score. These are the characteristics you think are least like you. Now rank them, putting least descriptive at the top and most descriptive at the bottom of the list. These are the characteristics you have denied.

Now rewrite all ten of these characteristics as positive affirmations. These are characteristics that you want to now own. For example, if one of your negative traits is "suspicious," you may want to be more "observant." Your positive affirmation could be "I check my relationship for positive energy everyday." This may seem like a difficult process for you, or you may feel resistant to putting in the effort, but I assure you that the benefits are enormous. By getting to know your disowned and denied parts, you will improve your self-esteem and relationships with others by leaps and bounds.

About the Author

Doris Young can help your work team function better. If you are ready to have a more successful healthcare workplace, contact Doris Young at 800 673-8005 or www.DorisYoungAssociates.com.