How are we dealing with our blind spots? Blind spots are real. And everyone has them, but many don’t know that they have them. And that is the irony, and why I want to alert us in this article. Because for some of us unless when we are made aware of how we are being perceived by others, we remain in a world of fantasy and delusion. For instance, you may have been alerted by somebody’s description of you before; how was it? Did the person tell you what you wanted to hear about yourself, or just tell you the hard truth you least expected to hear about yourself? Dealing with our blind spots has always been a big challenge.
Oh yeah, the surprise you feel after you’re being described by another person about how they perceive you could mean a blind spot that you’re not aware of. Personally, I have received such surprises several times. Honestly, it wasn’t funny, when you’re being told that you have feet of clay. I know, that I’m not perfect. No one is. But our ignorance of the blind spots we have, makes us believe certain things that are not actually the truth about us. And the aim of this article is to alert us and to help us take steps to deal with our blind spots.
Again, think of a situation when you think of yourself quite differently from what others perceive of you, as a friend, coworker, or as a parent, a wife, or husband. Take a situation, where you may consider yourself a straightforward person, but others see you as self-righteous. Or you think of yourself as an introvert and others see you as an extrovert. A Self Knowledge
Furthermore, you consider yourself as someone who handles criticism well, but others see your body language as being defensive, etc. Just think about these few examples for a moment. I can tell you that the list of potential blind spots we all carry are many. Therefore, if we really want a change, for us to grow and be authentic, we can’t overlook our blind spots. Because a good tree must produce good fruits at all times.
Can You Identify Your Blind Spots?
Everyone has blind spots, there is no doubt about it. And some may have more than others. It is safer than we know what our particular binds spots look like than to push them out of our awareness, maybe because we feel we are ok, or we don’t want to deal with our dark sides. Do we believe that we all have our dark side, somebody calls it a demon, and said that everyone struggles with one. -😊
Regardless of status, gender, age, culture, human beings have their miserable sides. If not, why do we see great men, people who are supposed to be role models to the community, country, family falling from grace? Look today, half of the prime news of every National television was about a once-popular NY governor Andrew Cuomo and his sexual harassment scandals. Why should such a prominent, intelligent man be associated with or accused of such kind of inappropriate behaviors? Well, because of his dark side, and not being aware of his blind spots or ignoring them when made aware of.
That shows you that everyone has tendencies toward negativity. Call it envy, selfishness, greediness, cruelty, dishonesty, lust, and foolishness. The unfortunate thing we can do is to pretend or deny the existence of these dark sides of our personalities. But what healthy people do, is to courageously confront, acknowledge, and then learn how to subdue, and transform their blind spots, to achieve more strength. That is the difference between people of weak character and strong character. The latter takes action to correct and improve in his or her areas of moral weakness while the former ignores them pretending nothing is wrong. Until things blow up.
Self-Questioning for Blind Spots
What kind of personality traits do you struggle most with?
–How do you face or handle your negative emotions
–Are you intentional about learning how to deal with your dark spot?
–Would you rather have your blind spots shown to you by a friend, a family member, coworker, business associate, wife, husband, children, parent, or fiddle while Rome burns? I will think that prevention will always pay better and that a stitch in time they say saves nine. Now, let us take a brief look at some of the things we are blind to. The starting point in dealing with our blind spots is by being aware of their existence and facing them with courage for change and transformation.
3 Blind Spots Which Are Often Ignored
- Blind spots of our strengths and weaknesses. Are you aware of your strengths and weakness? If not we will be clueless about our limits. We can be ignorant of our shortcomings, and inadequacies as I have alluded before. Take for instance, in marriage, speaking from experience, some of the problems, arguments, resentments that are being experienced is or are as a result of lack of awareness or acceptance of one’s deficits in certain areas. This is problematic in any relationships.
Obviously, some of the breakdowns in relationships mostly in having good communication are a symptom of a real problem not addressed by either spouse.
A person will remain unchanged and hinder his or her successor growth in certain areas when such a one fails to learn from the mistakes when the person fails to see the blind spots even when they are shown or communicated to. At any rate, dealing with our blind spots will be easy once we accept their existence and nature.
- Blind spot about dark side. As I said earlier, nobody can claim perfection. Unfortunately, most people behave as they are above mistakes, and above failure. What an erroneous thinking. As far as we are humans, even the healthiest, I mean the mentally, physically, spiritually healthy people still stumbles. Some still have struggled with the tendencies toward acting mean occasionally, some still struggle with envy, love for materialism, lust, and other not quite decent behaviors. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251384
The only way out of this is to acknowledge them and take action not to allow them to take upper hands. Sweeping a bad habit under the rug does not cause it to disappear. A good person will take a realistic approach. I don’t know about you, I will prefer by means of self-examination, to know my shortcomings, call them blind spots, dark sides, and learn how to control, subdue, and transform them through any self-improvement techniques and prayers than to ignore them to hinder my growth, and reputation.
- Blind to Our Egos, this is among the subtle, but visible traits. This is a blind spot of people who project their feelings and thoughts on to you, selfishly should I say. Oftentimes, we forget or dismiss the fact that how our peers see us in most cases give an accurate assessment of our actions. We found it hard to believe that other people don’t see us to be as good as we imagine ourselves to be. I told you that it is not easy to accept, but it is therapeutic. Dealing with our blind spots requires awareness and courage.
So, in conclusion, we have seen that we all have our hidden spots.
We all have our battles, things we are struggling with consciously or unconsciously. However, we can shorten the time, effort, and consequences, by being courageous to delve into those dark sides, and begin to address them, control, subdue, and transform your attitude, by transforming your mistaken thought patterns and their effects on your overall health. Dealing with our blind spots will be determined by the level of awareness and courage we display.
This is a good point to consider, our blind spots. I have a few. And the only way we can improve is getting to know them. It hurts when somebody tells us about these things. And I would always like it to be close friends, whom we trust. But once we filter what we receive and judge it’s accurate, the next step is working on improving.
Ann, thanks a lot for your excellent comment on this article. It is always a pleasure to read your comment.
I appreciate the Nitty-gritty approach. Keep up the good work, I see you as a person with a healthy mind, and that is a treasure!
Again, thanks for stopping over.