Blind Spots

I had a conversation with one of my friends in Spain (some seven or so years ago). We were talking about blind spots. Actually, we were talking about boys and dating, which is something 20-year-old girls tend to do a lot, and the topic of blind spots emerged in the conversation.

What ended up happening was that my friend, with my permission, took it upon herself to tell me about some of my blind spots. "One thing you do," she told me, "is you double-cross. You sit with your arms folded and your legs crossed, and you close yourself off." And it went all downhill from there. This was supposed to be a productive conversation, because when we're stuck inside ourselves we cannot see ourselves the way other people do and may be completely unaware that we're not coming across the way we intend to. But instead, by the end of the conversation I just felt degrated, and while I still remained friends with her, it tainted my perception of our friendship. (And I still double-cross - clearly it wasn't a very effective conversation). I think that this may be because we didn't have a very established friendship at that point, we hadn't built up the kind of trust you need to be able to have those conversations and I didn't know that she saw the good things as well as the bad.

I've been thinking about blind spots recently. Last week my sister took it upon herself to correct a misperception I had about myself. I had mentioned something about how I don't really get very angry (this had come up in conversation elsewhere earlier in the day, and it was on my mind), and before I could explain what I meant by that she interrupted: "Uh, yeah you do." And then she proceeded to tell me exactly what I do when I get angry, right down to the hand gestures. I was a little bit taken aback - not offended, because my sister and I do have a trusting relationship. Actually, I was fascinated more than anything, fascinated to hear this insight about how someone I knew perceived me very differently than I perceived myself. A little later that evening when I relayed this conversation with my sister to another friend, this friend confirmed what Kelsey had said. "You do get angry," she said. "I saw you once - you weren't angry at someone, but you were angry and it was kind of scary."

I like to think that I understand myself pretty darn well. I've done quite enough self-analysis in my day, whether it be in thought while out running, or while writing in my journal, or during late-night chats with friends. I think I am a very self-aware person, which is mostly a good thing, but not always. And I believe I'm very self-aware, it's a bit of a shock to have someone tell me something about myself that I really, genuinely don't believe to be true. Because if someone is seeing it, there's probably some truth to what they are seeing. I've analyzed the emotion of anger many times over the years, seen it as a largely foreign concept to me. I feel annoyance and frustration, but I don't see myself experiencing what I see as anger - blind, irrational, unable-to-think-clearly anger. There is a difference.

The other night I had an emotional moment when no one was around to see me, and in the middle of this moment I suddenly thought, Huh. I am experiencing anger. What do you know? Because that's exactly what it was - blind and irrational, and inhibiting me from thinking clearly not just about the situation, but about anything. I was driving at the time, and I probably should not have been, that's how strong this feeling was. I was not angry at a person (unless that person was myself), but I was certainly angry. It was this incredible moment of self-awareness (that was actually enough to pull me out of the emotion into a more helathy, reflective mood), in which I saw a side of myself I'd never consciously recognized before, and also realized why I hadn't recognized it before, why I had honsetly believed that this side of myself didn't exist even though I had experienced it, many times (I won't go into detail about that). I don't know that it was quite an epiphany, but it was a revelation to me, and it wouldn't have happened if my sister had never said anything.

Which brings me back to blind spots (and this post is a little more journaly than I've been in awhile, sorry). I feel very stuck inside myself sometimes - we are all stuck inside ourselves. When I make decisions, big and small ones, or when I judge a situation, I only have my own perceptions to go on. But my perceptions may not align with other peoples'. I might feel shy, but come across as stuck-up or disinterested. I might feel enthusiastic, but come across as artificial or distracted. I might feel overwhelmed but come across as lazy or irresponsible. And it can work the other way too - I often feel (like many people do) that some people have higher opinions than I deserve, that I'm not nearly as intelligent or responsible or kind as some people believe me to be. But the funny thing about all this is that, while I can get upset at people for not seeing the "truth," to some extent their reality is as much truth as mine. Maybe I don't feel like I'm angry, but if my emotion is being perceived as anger then it has the same effect as if it actually were anger.

It's just that so much of the time we cannot see what other people see. Sometimes I would just really like someone to tell me the truth - how do I come off? What are other people seeing in me that I'm not seeing in myself? Because how can I attend to my blind spots if they really are blind to me? All my guesswork is just that, guesswork. How can I make good, rational decisions when there's a big chunk of the picture that I'm missing entirely? I also had this moment a couple months ago where I was talking with someone about someone else, and I suddenly thought, Wait a minute - what do people say about me when I'm not around? It was a sobering thought (and also made me want to stop talking behind someone's back, even though right up until then I'd seen it as fairly harmless talk).

Anyway, I've just been thinking a lot about this lately, in many areas of my life (school, job, church, family relationships, social relationships). People aren't usually very willing to tell you your blind spots. But there are times when I just really want to know what it is I'm not seeing.