Thursday, June 26, 2008

A woman in harmony with her spirit...

"A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense, and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself, and only herself." ~ Maya Angelou

This week at work our whole team - all 15 of us - have been face-to-face for the first time, ever. We have had people visiting from Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada), Irving (Texas, USA), Egham (England) and Singapore. It's been a pretty neat experience all around.

Yesterday morning we did an ice-breaker, a get-to-know-you kind of exercise in which we had to answer questions anonymously with one or two words and then guess who had filled out which form when the answers were read out loud. I described myself using the words that came to me first, not over-thinking it, and was the first one finished. When it came time to guess, I was consistently guessed for almost every submission, except for the ones using descriptors like "sporty" or "adventurous", and my own.

Finally, on the fourth time my sheet was read, and after 12 of the 15 profiles had been accurately guesses, they put me together with my submission.

I've been trying to figure out since whether I don't project myself the same way I see myself, or if in the 8 1/2 months I've been there, people haven't been paying much attention, or if it's some combination of the two.

This has caused me to really think about how I see myself, and how I think I project "me". I've come back to the quote at the top of this post. That may not be quite how I'm doing things right now, but it's certainly where I'm heading: to being me, and only me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it would be a fascinating thing to do this with a bunch of friends.

What were some of the words that you used to describe yourself?

I remember being in about grade 3 and every time someone's birthday came around, we did this gift where we all took paper "lollipops" and wrote down the things we liked about that person ... I had them for about 20 years or so. (I know, not the same, but it reminded me :)

CosmicAvatar said...

Sounds like you're heading in a good direction. Very interesting exercise!

jenn said...

I think this would be interesting to somehow do on the WD or on blogs or something...

To see what friends say.