Have you ever felt lost? I mean, truly lost. Like you’re not sure who you are anymore?
That was me.
I’d recently moved back to South Wales from Bristol with my husband and toddler in tow. We were 6 months into being Special Guardians/Parents to my husband’s niece and I’d been made redundant from my job for 7 months. Going from being a working professional to a full-time mummy was a major change in dynamics, a change that I thought I was absolutely nailing to begin with, until the cracks started to show. I’d always worked since I was able to, from part time jobs alongside University to working my way up the ranks in hospitality to my previous job as a Project Coordinator.
But the job of being a mummy was the hardest of all.
It brought out a magnitude of feelings and thoughts that I didn’t know I had. And I know it goes without saying that children will test every single boundary you have, and they find buttons that you’re sure weren’t there before, but was it supposed to be this hard on who I was? I felt like I lived to provide for this little one and lost all want and need to provide for myself. I’d lost all sense of how to be an adult. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d washed my hair, but I could sing the entire Storybots theme song off by heart. What I needed was to regain my adultness and I knew the best balance of being adult whilst still providing for our daughter was to get myself a part-time job.
After a few months I’d landed an interview with Leaderful Action. I didn’t get the job. But I made a damn good impression because the second the Admin position became available I was top of the list. It felt amazing.
I could actually be an adult again for 16 hours a week.
Which brings me to my first day, and the whole reason for this blog. If you’ve followed Leaderful Action for some time, you’ll know that we do a lot of work on Insights Discovery. For those who do know what this is, you can go ahead and skip to the next paragraph – I won’t judge! For those who don’t, Insights Discovery is a psychometric tool based on the psychology of Carl Jung. It is built to help people understand themselves, understand others, and make the most of the relationships that affect them in the workplace, using an easy to remember 4 colour model: Cool Blue, Earth Green, Sunshine Yellow, and Fiery Red. Now, onto the real reason we’re here…
They’d mentioned that I should have received an email from the Insights System. I did, but I definitely deleted it thinking it was spam, so I took a deep dive into bin folder to reinstate its position in my inbox. And I sat. Quietly. Reading through these questions not even knowing if I was answering them correctly. Some were so conflicting, and I was doing my best to go with my gut feeling and not think about them too much, hoping that whatever came out the other end made sense.
And it did!
Remarkably, it had felt like someone has been following me around for my whole life and documented every single quality, blind spot, and quirk that I have. It made me laugh and it opened my eyes to qualities that I hadn’t even noticed were there. My world of grey had turned into a world of Cool Blue, Sunshine Yellow, Earth Green and a dash of Fiery Red – my colour preferences.
It gave me a new lease of life. Finally on paper was who I was. The extraverted party goer and the introverted Netflix binger. And it’s perfectly normal for me to feel two very opposing ways – because my top 2 colours were very opposite on the colour wheel. My Introverted Blue and Extraverted Yellow make me a creative type.
But, what Carl Yung may have missed in his discovery of the colours is how they transfer to your home life. It’s allowed me to see that I’m not some Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde type, that sometimes I do want to be the life of the party, and others I’d rather shy away because my extraversion is spent. I realised that I’ve had such a misunderstanding of myself for many years and being a parent has brought to the forefront that it’s always been an issue waiting to be exposed. I’m not saying I was an imposter all those years, or maybe I was, but what I am saying is that I didn’t have to feel trapped in worry that the way I felt and thought sometimes was a burden. I could stop bullying myself into wondering why I’m so enthusiastic for one event and less so for another. I can stop telling myself that “I’m a bit weird” because I’m not. I’m just a combination of opposing energies that instead make me an asset in ways that others aren’t. I think and feel the exact way I should at the exact time that I should, and I don’t have to question that anymore. I feel like I’ve been released from a box that I put myself in.
I’m a year on from my rediscovery and I’m thankful for the incredible impact it has had on my life, working and home. I know that all my colours talk to each other, they support each other to help me be the best me. And I am exactly that. As of right now I am the best me I can be. That doesn’t mean to say I don’t have things I’d like to work on, because I very much do. But my colours can and will help me accomplish those goals that I set without a second guess.
Why?
Because I know who I am again.
I know me.
And she’s only getting started.
