The Power of Self-Disclosure: Stories from Your Journey

The title of this chapter comes from my experience of times in my life when emotional nakedness had good results ... eventually. This is what I want for everyone who reads this book, to either remember or to create positive outcomes from careful self-disclosure now in your life. These experiences might be memories of bumps and bruises along your journey, but they no longer need to be painful.

Just as scars are visible reminders of an injury or wound we once had, hopefully the pain that accompanied them is gone. But scars are also metaphorical and psychological reminders for those memories, experiences, and challenges that have stretched us to fully experience life as it happens, good or bad, positive or negative, or challenging or inspiring. Our life gives experiences to us. What we make of them is the key, and we don't have to do it alone. Take what life gives you, learn from it, and move forward with the help of a committed confidante or two. Someone once said, "Life is like a camera. Focus on what's important. Capture the good times. And if things don't work out, just take another shot."

One of my major beliefs for much of my life has been that personal and spiritual development is a process. You can either just let it happen and be an observer, or you can be more purposeful in your personal exploration and be a participant in the unfolding or emergence of your being.

My earliest memory of learning the value of self-disclosure for the purposes of experiencing and claiming what is unique about others and myself was in my Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF) group at age fourteen. Our youth minister would have us engage in some games that would teach us how to learn new perspectives about our self and our friends in a safe and fun way.

For example, I remember all of us being in a circle and being asked, "If you were an animal, what animal would you be?"

We were then to choose that animal and explain why we chose it, what characteristics of the animal might also be similar or desirable in our personality. Then the others in the group would comment on what they saw in me that related to that chosen animal. Or did they see me as a different animal and why?

We would then go around the group and repeat this process. It was fun and revealing without being deeply emotional. Other games and experiences like this in a safe and trusting environment, which was not confrontational, led to increased self-awareness. Within an atmosphere of curiosity and exploration, experiences like these were a major influence in my lifelong quest to be self-aware and to assist others to know themselves more fully.

As I matured into young adulthood, I was an average athlete in high school, sitting on the bench in basketball and doing well in track and field as a pole vaulter and runner. But I discovered I was accepted more at being a leader in student politics to influence a positive atmosphere for all students. I was pretty well accepted by the various cliques, groups, and races, I guess, because I cared and was curious about different human experiences while suspending judgment.

I learned the following from my early childhood as my father would frequently have foreigners stay with us for several weeks while they came to Wichita, Kansas, to learn management skills or manufacturing from the Coleman Company, where my father was the personnel director and later vice president of labor relations. Those experiences of people from India, China, Mexico, France, and others instilled in me an appreciation for different perspectives and viewpoints without being judgmental. I was just curious and fascinated.

This was tested in a very memorable way when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and the black students in Wichita rioted. I was at a state track meet and hit over the head with a pipe. But my black teammates came to my aid and saved me from further damage, an act of kindness that impacted me greatly And in the weeks following, I used my leadership and communication skills to be part of community discussion groups for quelling the racial tension and hearing from blacks, whites, and Hispanics anything they wanted to share. It was one of the best experiences of my early life. Those discussions, with an adult facilitator but with high school students having a voice, were eye- opening to me. This was an early and influential experience of being naked and vulnerable and listening to others sharing their truth and experiences in a safe environment.

As I entered college in 1968, it was a time of great transformation in society and me. I entered as a freshman wearing dress slacks and sweaters, and by 1969 I was wearing John Lennon glasses with longer hair and hippie beads and going from drinking beer to smoking pot and experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs. Yet I didn't overindulge. To me it was an experiment in living and trying new things without becoming obsessed or overly distracted. (I still made straight A's and graduated with honors.) My partying was planned to not interfere with learning. Not everyone was able to do that.

College was that place between the safety of home and the real world of working and living responsibly, which I knew was just around the corner. College in the late 1960s allowed me to experience lots of new learning, both in and out of the classroom.

I chose psychology as my path, but not to become a psychologist. I wanted to explore more about what made people tick and to learn about the good and bad along with the healthy and unhealthy of the human experience. Psychology 101 introduced me to lots of theories of human behavior, and much of those theories of child development were based on Sigmund Freud, Otto Rank, Karen Horney, and others who extolled what is called a psychodynamic perspective.

Freud's theories based on the belief that instincts of sex and aggression were our two main unconscious forces driving our behavior did not excite me nor resonate with my intuitive belief about being a human. And the other prevalent psychological viewpoint from behaviorism of B. F. Skinner and his followers and theories highlighting the power of operant conditioning did nothing in my view except make humans sound like unconscious robots.

Then I was fortunate enough to take a class, Psychology of Satisfaction, an experience that, to this day, was a turning point in my education and career path. It was a class about research the professor had done on an South Pacific island regarding happiness and satisfaction and which factors were influential for that to occur. In this seminar I was introduced to the theories of...