The Story Behind Your Personality (part one)

And so the journey began. He offered me two good resources that allowed me to begin understanding myself, yet I had a long way to go to acquire the tools and wisdom necessary to break free from my old patterns. I’m getting much closer to answers now and will share the best of my discoveries over the next several letters.

My hope is that if you’re beginning to notice negative patterns repeating in your life, this will ignite your desire to stop, do some internal excavation work, and then seek and implement the tools that work for your unique self. It is possible to reclaim the remainder of your life and live from a place of awareness and inner peace, not from the autopilot behaviors of your early imprinting.

As we become aware of how these patterns may be limiting us, we can intentionally cultivate higher capacities, respond from wisdom rather than reactivity, and move toward greater freedom, wholeness, and flourishing.

The first area of recognition for how we became who we are begins with temperament. Our temperament is innate. It refers to the early features and propensities such as reactivity and sensitivity seen in the first years of life. Some of the dominant traits are primarily influenced by genetics or shaped by in utero neural development. In a foundational way, temperament is described as a template for the sensory input most attended to and subsequently how one subjectively responds.

If you’re interested in a wonderful small group study on how your unique wiring colors your communication, I highly recommend “I Said This You Heard That” by Kathleen Edelman. You will find a Temperaments Assessment to discover which temperament style is your dominant way of receiving and responding in relationships. It will shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of each of the four temperaments, along with the innate needs of each one, and much more.