When I was just a young thing I remember grabbing my mother’s Good Housekeeping magazine and reading the short stories AND MOST IMPORTANTLY the various monthly surveys and personality tests.  I’m assuming I was trying to find assurance that I was normal.    Skip forward a few decades and now I’m totally entertained by Facebook tests.  While I entertain no illusions that these tests accurately reflect my actual personality, I think it is fun.  I enjoy comparing my results to those of my friends…because possibly it does provide some social value to the question…which friend and I are the most alike….or the most different.  In the case of my most recent personality test, I find that I’m a red and he and the girls are all orange.

http://curiousfacts.us/a-renowned-psychologist-says-there-are-4-personality-types-based-on-4-colors-which-are-you/

Last night after Jenny ordered Kate to take the test, the teacher in Kate spent a good bit of family “message” time letting us know that there is no way a test which values the question do you honk your horn in traffic has anything to do with how she views love.  Love that kid!

But, I did have a huge aha moment when my testing was scored.  I agree that depending on our mood, we can make any of the values fit what we perceive as our traits..but this one…

6. How then does each color perceive love?
The Red personality perceives love as being conditional, meaning that they’ll give you their love if you take care of their needs first. Consequently, they have a lot of expectations around what love should be and what they expect from their relationships.

This is me.  The people pleaser…the searching for love and buying it by doing things for people….instead of letting the butterfly come rest gently on my shoulders.   I used to have a poster hanging on my wall with something about not going after love but let love find you.

I work very hard at being worthy of love.  I know this one is a result of my childhood.  I knew what I needed to do to make my parents love me…things like dusting the living room until the end tables were shiny…picking dandelions in the yard – all without being asked – I was shown a modicum of love for these actions so I learned that you had to earn love.

My ah-ha moment.  I need to work through this and figure out what unconditional love really feels like.

Until next time…..