The Problem With Personality

I have a personality.  Well, everyone does; but each of us has their own cocktail of personality traits.  Some of the traits in my personality cocktail include, but are certainly not limited to: intense, blunt, self-aware, compassionate.  These are things about me that will never change, and that's okay.  I believe that each of us should come to terms with our cocktail.  Do I believe that people should always be growing and changing as a person?  ABSOLUTELY.  But I also believe that we shouldn't try to tamper too much with our personality cocktail.

There are some personality traits I have that I like about myself.  But there are others that can make it difficult or awkward when interacting with other people or myself.  I'm 25 and I still, most times, feel inept in proper interaction with people.  I feel like I speak too quickly, or my tone is harsh, or seem to have a bitchy undertone, I talk in circles, I say things I wish I could take back (I'm quite the external processor), I always feel misunderstood, in an effort to not hurt the other person's feelings I get all frantic in my head trying to censor what I say that I typically don't say what I want or truly feel.  It's really quite exhausting to be in my head.  Like, laying in bed at night trying to shut down my brain so I won't re-reanalyze everything that went down and was said and thought and felt from every part of the day (waken and sleeping, because I think a lot about my dreams, which are typically intense and not too happy) kind of exhausting.  Can you see how fun it would be to spend a day in my brain?!

Recently I was enjoying breakfast and conversation with a woman whom I admire deeply and look up to a great deal and she hit the nail right on the head.  Meta-cognition.  That word had been throbbing in my head the couple days before our date but it got trampled over by my other thoughts.  But she said that I think too much about my thinking.  Which is what meta-cognition is: thinking about one's thinking.  To some extent I knew that I engaged in meta-cognition probably more than what was healthy/normal, but I didn't take the time to think about it because I was too busy thinking.  Vicious cycle.  She said that I needed to find a way to let it all out.  Being an external processor who doesn't externally processes all the cognition and meta-cognition isn't healthy, or enjoyable.  And it's true.  I often don't enjoy my thoughts, not because they are bad, but because it can't just stop there.  I, almost compulsively, think about/analyze those thoughts.  I really don't know if I can stop, but it sure would be nice to know what it's like to completely clear one's mind.  Anyway, she invited me to journal, not the way I used to (to talk to God), but to journal as a means to process my thoughts.  All of them.  Stream of consciousness.  I tried it, and I didn't not like it, but I can only write with one hand and I'm not able to write down all the different thoughts I'm thinking at once, so it was a little frustrating because I had to force my brain to slow down and pick a stream.  It was hard.  But it has inspired me to find a proper outlet for my thoughts/creativity.  I don't know what it's going to be, I honestly don't feel that I'm good at a lot of things, so I don't know what my options are.  It's something that's a work in progress.  I'm someone who's a work in progress.

I really don't know where I'm going with this blog post.

I think I'm going here: we all have different, unchangeable things about ourselves, things we'll be stuck with for the rest of our existence in this life, but instead of letting them cripple you, embrace them and use them as a tool to make others' and your life better.  I'm still working on that.  I'm still thinking about that.