The Power of PERSONALITY

When it came to personality types, most folks who knew both my mother & myself considered us two peas in a pod.  HA!  We were both social, loved doing for others, treasured family & friends, and threw great parties. In other, far more substantial ways,we were light years apart.  

Our differences were compounded by Mom's refusal to acknowledge them. To almost her final years, she clung to her belief we were one & the same in personality.

Praise be, by the last few years of her life, we'd found ways to recognize the differences enough that we could work with them, instead of having them work against us.  

One of the most important things we did ~ perhaps THE most important thing ~ was simply acknowledging the differences in our personalities. 

Okay, honesty makes me acknowledge that some part of Mom never fully accepted that her personality & mine were light years apart.  It took a looooooong time, but the day finally dawned where I could make that be okay.  

One of the things I learned over the years, with Mom & other older friends, was that I could fight a lose-lose battle to get them to bend to my will ~or~ I could let go of exerting my personality over theirs.  Ironically, I became more pliant, more giving, certainly more emotionally flexible - traits more like Mom's personality.  

If I'd rigidly maintained the "integrity" of my personality, the last few years might not have gone as well as they did.  And I am not saying that clashes didn't happen - they certainly did.  But not to the extent they had when I was younger & more heavily invested in being RIGHT.  

It should be noted that if Mom was writing this post, it's quite possible she might be saying much the same thing - that she learned to step back from holding on too tightly to what HER personality held dear & true & RIGHT.  

There's no understating the power - for good or ill - of personality when interacting with older friends.  In my experience over the decades, one of the great gifts that comes from working with the elderly is the grace of stepping past the details, doctrines & dogmas of personality - the things that divide & disrupt - to find ways to bridge the two, to come to a greater meeting of minds, even if it means putting the "voice" of my own personality on mute.  

Some people might call that selling out, caving - even when the older is dealing with mental emotional cognitive challenges often associated with aging.  

Doesn't look that way to me.  Maybe the greatest power of personality is to recognize - ideally together, but maybe winging it on our own - & respect differences, if they exist, helping the older feel secure in his or her  personality.  

It can be HARD getting past the feeling that they are winning somehow, but just that thought is a clue how easily things can spiral from personality differences to personal power plays. 

Personally, I found - with Mom & other clients, older friends - more value in muting my personality while respecting theirs, in playing up the power of their personality rather than insisting my own win the day.  

When I act from an appreciation of an elder's personality - however exasperating or even irrascible it might seem - oh, the new softer awareness of what truly matters flows into my life as I find a more gentle, tender hand that I can then place on theirs.