a level of kindness, consideration, and openness that itd be hard to imagine anyone having, and GIVING, on this kind of a matter. They dont pretend to be who they arent and appreciate genuine people. To me, it looks really good have only read a review in a British paper here but as a sufferer! But I didnt want to accept it, and I didnt want to miss the party. The goal here is not to reconstruct your personality but, rather, to control it in critical situations. There were other reasons to ask about it as well, real, justifiable reasons, but I dont want to go into the nature of the problems and why I had justiiable reasons to ask about his situation. After a few weeks I actually feel myself becoming more conservative, thinking how the root of all evil is bad parenting, and understanding why some people dont want to pay taxes to support people whose parents didnt give them the tools to help themselves. All in lieu of putting some kind of limit on what I take on. Normally, when people submit comments I find irritating, I approve them without responding, but during this time period, I replied in haste and quite harshly to one of them. All Rights Reserved. This makes them very unique in every sense of the word. She often underestimates big problems and rarely takes the initiative to suggest new ideas or projects. Great timing for me with this topic. But these characteristics always coexist with weaknessesaspects of personality that might seem innocuous or even advantageous in some circumstances but that when left unchecked can wreak havoc on careers and organizations. It wasnt my best effort but I hope that its clearer now. Well, this article will discuss the soft personality traits you might or might not have heard of. As my stress levels rose, I coped with it by drinking more than is good for me. Its no wonder that Ive been with this therapist for 8 years. Its often said that they should be tougher for the world. You can see me. The weight of this shame has been at times unbearable, at times my posture is affected by this load I carry with me. Enjoy your time in Colorado. Your deepenst presence is in every small contracting and expanding, Sometimes I feel unable to walk with straight shoulders, no matter how hard I try. Their optimistic approach helps them deal with a lot of lifes greatest challenges. While we normally value softness over hardness as a character trait, its useful to remember that the experience of being soft isnt always such a wonderful experience for the person who feels it. Having a deeply skeptical, cynical outlook makes it hard to build trust. Im curious to know if you think that the disintegration anxiety you felt was the *result* of feeling the shame or was it a concurrent feeling. Only recently has she begun to emerge from this fusion and to see me as a separate person. Why cant I help myself get out of this? Just a person who wanted love like a little kid, and youre just a person who couldnt give it to me. Softness means you can easily be hurt. All the same, by the time we reached Colorado Sunday night after that +&!#$@ flat tire on I-70 I was exhausted. I actually am feeling some sort of wonder, at my therapists softness yesterday. This past week, one of my clients returned from an exotic vacation and told me hed felt almost nothing during the trip.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open, So what? Therapy can never replace the love and care of a parent during childhood. Last week I shared with a friend your blog. Instead of standing up to him and facing the rage sorry, no piano I let him have his grandiose way. He took no pleasure in any of his adventurous activities, and when there, Nearly four years ago, not long after I first launched this site, I wrote about a client who coped with unbearable feelings via her eating disorder: when she could no longer endure a painful emotional, Many years ago when I was just starting out as a therapist, I briefly worked for a large group practice. I like your metaphors of hardening and the one you used in a previous post of thinning out (I think) when overstretched. If they do not like a person, they just stay away. After I softened up, I accepted that I couldnt keep going at the same driven pace. This was a lovely post, thank you. His replay, impressive especially how he replies to everyone. Second, as group discussions began, he moved his watch from his left arm to his right as a reminder to maintain control. I do think of my qualities on a continuum. How we need all of our human experience whether we label it good or bad. IM finally getting it insteadIll never get that. This makes them the absolute darlings of the world. It is no surprise that we do not have much of them. It comforts them when they are in more difficult times. Opening and closing, expanding and contracting. The author discusses the individual traits and suggests how to manage them, which involves identifying the ones that trip you up, modifying some of your behaviors, and continuing to adjust in response to critical feedback. I do too, because I know Ive entered a place no one can reach me Theyre often found in assertive, charismatic leaders, who gather followers or gain influence with bosses through their ability to, The third cluster contains ingratiating traits, which can have a positive connotation in reference to followers but rarely do when describing leaders. He seems to be saying theres a value in hardness (that fist) but not if its chronic. Soft-hearted persons support and encourage the people around them with good and pure intentions. Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. I dont believe in fate, but this feels to me like what I was meant to do.. Discoveries, realizations and wisdom, allow yourself to have that process because after you become wise, then you can create. I think that in between the hard impervious shell at one extreme and the feeling of being unbearably open and defenseless, we might think of something like mental skin, firm and protective but not impervious.

Im feeling quite a bit better today, but Ive had B flat major arpeggios stuck in my head all morning. But without discoveries and without realizations, you will not be able to gain your wisdom and a true creator creates out of wisdom. It takes a great deal of strength to be good in this world. I wish I could have more of that quality but am so very limited in my physical and psychical abilityI am an introvert. Research over decades suggests that its very difficult to change core aspects of your personality after age 30. Cheated out of personal time perhaps? Although I did my best not to let it intrude on my therapy practice, one of my clients sent me an email after her session, asking if I were all right! People with soft hearts always appreciate others around them and want them to strive to become better. She enjoys telling stories and delivering messages through words, photographs and designs. This is a something they like to be done to them as well. I also felt grateful for understanding that my brat is actually on that same continuum as the determined me. Instead, I drove myself onward and refused to accept that I couldnt do everything.

That resonated with me. In recent sessions, she has worn what Ive called her dead face quite hard, without any smiles or warmth and talked about how enraged she has felt with me for being separate. If more people were like them, it is without question that the world would be a better place. I thought she felt so frightened by the experience of me as a separate person and in pain that she had to harden up against it. My mother was a hard person with a soft (shame-filled) center. At the same time, I wanted to keep up with this blog as well as the one on PsychCentral, and especially to continue practicing piano. Persons with this trait prefer when others are happy around them. People around me find this quite terrifying when I turn cold. I indulged an unhealthy, omnipotent side of myself and paid the price for that indulgence, then tried to manage the resulting stress with alcohol. Me too. You may have to feel your way toward that through successive approximationstracking others perceptions, making adjustments, doing more gauging, and so on. Over the years, she has shown a remarkable intuitive ability to gauge my states of mind; during the session, I began to wonder what she might be sensing about me, and whether her hardness might be a defense against something else. Hi Joseph, Why You Are Pushing People Away and How to Stop, What A Bubbly Personality Is Like For An Introvert, Signs You're Dating A Fear Avoidant Person and What To Do, How Introverted People can Network like Pros, Where Do Introverts Find Partners? Their kindness doesnt guarantee the world to be kind to them but this doesnt deter them. I am striving to regain my softness, or a least to stay silent. A lot of the things I read here resonated with me. You made me laugh, Peggy, although I suppose its not very funny. Going through a divorce and attending my grandsons birthday party where the other woman was also a guest was much more than I could manage. Now that Ive recovered a bit, I thought Id take this opportunity to talk about the importance of choice after psychotherapy, and what can happen when you dont respect your limitations. With no pun intended, you seem very hard on yourself. I tried as much as I could to keep it to myself, but even so, my temper grew shorter and I became testier. If anything, Id say that shame arose afterward, as a result 0f seeing myself so unable to cope. I guess Id say that accurately perceiving the difference between who we are and who wed like to be is almost always humbling. I assume by ego he meant something like ego ideal rather than the way Freud meant the term ego, as the experience of I or who I am. If you ever do something for a soft-hearted person, they would forever be grateful. When they have no hand to hold, they hold theirs and do not blame the world for it. In a world where everyone isnt like this, they face specific challenges. It isnt very common as so many people adopt a pessimistic view to avoid heartbreak. Most people dont really want to changethey want to, A version of this article appeared in the, From the Magazine (SeptemberOctober 2017), 11 Personality Traits That Can Limit Your Career. Great article. Wonderful quote. Looking after others is very important to them. However, they are anything but that. Third, he began using information-seeking behaviors with peers in team meetingssuch as asking, Can you tell me a bit more about your idea and how it might improve the situation? Colleagues recognized the sincere effort he was making and began to regard him as more considerate and controlled.. I do understand. So I went, had to leave after ten minutes and have since been very hard and sharp. In other words, my self. Neither strategy is particularly effective. For example, a high score on. I even cut back on piano practice. I really do get so much from your postings. Its very difficult sometimes to accept our limits, especially when it means forgoing something that we want. I was prepared for defensivenesws, shame, awkwardness, and other things, even though he hasd always been kind, thoughtful, concerned, compassionate (as I can see even when hes confronting me w/something its for my own good, and thus compassionate) and things like that. Yesterday I spent a number of hours inside a cave, doing nothing. I think the discussion about your client threw things off a bit. And if if you rely on hardness to hold you together, softness sometimes means you might fall apart. For the remaining minutes in the session, she no longer wore the dead face; she seemed quite soft and vulnerable, but also a bit afraid and worried about my state of mind. Since then their related assessment, the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), licensed by the eponymous company with which I am affiliated, has been widely adopted within the field of industrial-organizational psychology as a way to identify individuals development needs. In a dog-eat-dog world, soft-hearted people are seen as oddities. Alittleconfused.did you mean to say in your last sentence that the experience of being emotionally hard OR soft was sometimes difficult for the person experiencing it? Second time round telling my story wasnt much easier than the first time. Anger, rage, harsh judgment, righteous indignation and blame all of these hard emotional states may serve as a defense for me, a defense against shame as well as disintegration anxiety; for my client, a defense against terror.