I suppose you could say that taking the time to learn something about yourself is not, in fact, an act of avoidance. Many may see it as a way of facing whatever it is you are avoiding deep down – your true fears and temptations. Your cryptonite.
And of course it can help you face what you are dealing with – existential angst, problems identifying how you feel, dissatisfaction with career/spouse/social life, etc. This is especially true when you first begin the journey of getting to know yourself. It is thrilling to find out that everything you feel inside, everything you are is not alone in this world. There are people out there that can relate you and all your quirks and foibles.
Now don’t get mad and tell me that Mr. Rogers told you that you were special or unique. He told me, too. It wasn’t a dirty lie. You are special. You are unique. But you are not alone. Being able to relate to another person is not the same as being a carbon copy.
My getting-to-know-me journey has been one of the most trying and fulfilling of my life. I was pent-up, frustrated, oppressed, passive-aggressive, unable to identify my feelings, hated my job, and always wanted to run away (I mean physically pack a few bags, take whatever $ I could out of the bank and tell the world to suck my tailpipe). I had a wonderful friend recommend that I start looking at myself to deal with my unhappiness, rather than looking at others. Now, she was not at all saying that I was to blame for it all, rather she was helping me figure out how to deal with it in the best way for me. I can change myself. I can’t change others.
So I dug out my old Meyers-Briggs personality test results I had from when I took it at 19. I took the test again. Same results. In a decade plus 7, I hadn’t changed who I was inside. But I somehow had become someone I didn’t like very much.
After that eye-opener, I started taking every test I could find, reading up on my results and the results of all the other personality types so I could try to figure out which type my spouse/boss/friends/colleagues might be. I started talking in alphabet soup (“If I’m an ENFP and he’s an ISTJ…or could he be an INTJ…”). It took a while, but eventually everything started to click (thanks, again to that friend I mentioned earlier).
A few friends and I started to read some books that challenged the part of me that didn’t want to let go of the person I had become. Practical Genius and The Artist’s Way helped me start to lay the foundation of a plan to better my life and myself while I kept delving into my psyche. The deeper I went, the more I dealt with and the more peaceful I became.
I quit my job. I started standing up for myself. I became more honest with myself and others about my feelings (by the way, when you do this, you have no need to be passive-aggressive). And now the only running I want to do is to the border for a margarita.
So what does this have to do with avoidance? Now that I have spent so much time digging into the inner-workings of me, I am eager to know more even if I have many other things to do. It has been an important part of my life, and while I intend for this to be a lifelong journey, I should probably get back to working on my thesis…
In case you are curious, here are my results from the various tests I have taken:
Meyers-Briggs: ENFP
Enneagram: 7w6 so/sx/sp
DISC: High “I”
DISC/Indra: Cheerful/Receptive
Team Dimensions: Creator-Advancer
StrengthsFinder 2.0: Positivity, Woo, Ideation, Includer, Connectedness
The Animal in You: Penguin
The Art of Avoidance 