what we don't know

I have just started mentoring someone, and so I picked up John Mallison's book on mentoring which I had lying round the house. I opened it at a page which spoke about the qualities of a mentor. One thing that really struck me was that it spoke about the openness of a person, how we all have things about ourselves that are hidden from either ourselves or other people. It used a quadrant, where 1. known by all 2. known by us but hidden from others 3. known by others but hidden from ourselves 4. unknown by all. It was good if mentors had larger 1 quads and smaller 3 quads.

3 really got to me, and then a couple of days later a friend brought up this idea again, that we are often unaware of how we come across.

I've been wondering ever since what I am hiding from myself. Do I want to know or not? I guess it would be good ultimately to know, but kinda scary in the short term. Maybe I need to ask God to show me.

One experience like this I had when I was younger (though not strictly 3 - more how I was being misunderstood) - was that I came across to people as snobbish on first meeting when in reality I was very shy and was afraid that they wouldn't like me - and then they wouldn't because they thought I was judging them. It was very helpful to find this out!

A room of one's own

I an writing this as our night owl baby is still sitting up with us in the evening resisting sleep. I have totally forgotten whether our first used to do this -I have tried to recall but have come up blank. I think sleep deprivation has a continuation of the species purpose - you forget a lot of the difficult baby times and go and have another one. I am just thinking come on baby, get out of my hair. He's not being especially difficult, not screaming. It's just that I am desperate for personal space. I have discovered that 2 kids seriously gets in the way of my introverted need for personal space and time. When one is out of your hair, the other one is in it. It's amazing how necessary that time alone and not touching another being is for me (so cuddling baby while I watch TV doesn't count). And the constant noise! chatter from 2 year old and crying from the baby. My idea of paradise at the moment would be to have no one to talk to or interact with for a whole day. It doesnt matter what I was doing for that day - I could be doing housework. Just with NO-ONE around. Virginia Woolf wrote a famous essay (title as mine above) which suggested women wouldn't acheive the way that men do without having a room of their own - i.e. the ability to get away from the demands of home. What about an apartment, I say???