The first time I engaged in any introspection whatsoever was at the age of 33, a few months after my marriage ended, mumblety-mumble (many) years ago.

I became somewhat depressed, and a doctor recommended therapy, for which I’m deeply grateful. The therapist noticed, as a dead camel with half an eye open might have, that I had zero connection to myself, and would not have noticed a feeling if it stood up in my porridge.

One of the things she prescribed was that I do the Myers Briggs personality assessment.

Among other things, I discovered that I was an ‘I’– an introvert. In fact, I practically fell off the end of the scale. Very, very introverted.

This explained to me why I got jangly when I didn’t have time alone. Why I couldn’t easily handle cross-conversation at a restaurant. Why I preferred dinners to parties, and having an office with a door that closed to an open-plan set-up.

What I found as I began to go through life with the awareness of myself as an introvert is that it’s misunderstood. People think it means you’re antisocial, shy or socially inept, none of which I am. And I don’t seem like an introvert, to the extent that recently over dinner, when I mentioned to a reasonably old friend that I’m an introvert, she said, and I quote, “No you’re not.”

Leaving aside the merits of having one’s self-assessment categorically contradicted, I can see why she’d think that. I am also deeply socialized – that is, very much able to observe and accommodate what is required in a social setting. It’s a survival mechanism.

I worked for decades in a very social milieu, more of a lifestyle than a job in many ways, and – most importantly – for most of my life I pretty much assumed that if I was different from other people, they were probably right and I wrong.

We coaches traffic in personality assessments of many stripes – Myers Briggs, Kolbe, How to Fascinate (yes, really…), Enneagram, Strengths Finder, Values, and so on. All really helpful.

The goal is to know ourselves and, in the knowing, come to accept and love the self we have so often judged and rejected.

It can be liberating and affirming. When you’re sick with a puzzling ailment – or when you wonder why you can’t stop drinking to excess every night – it is a true relief to know you have an actual, diagnosable, treatable illness, or that you’re an alcoholic, also treatable.

And I think that in stopping there, we deny ourselves the full range of our potential and possibility. Yes, I am an introvert, and I am SO much more.

This week I saw a chicken crossing the road. He stood between the parked cars, watching an approaching SUV. Just as it was nearly upon him, he darted forward; it was as if he was resolved to demonstrate that his little chicken legs could outrun an SUV. The driver slammed on his brakes and stopped in time. The chicken retreated to his side of the road, watching again.

When the SUV started forward, he ran in front of it again. I found myself with mixed emotions, because I suspect this is the danged rooster that wakes me up most dawns. But I couldn’t help feeling impressed by this crazy little guy, and I did step up and usher him away from the road.

Not to anthropomorphize, and I suspect his issue was poor judgment and the lack of any spatial sense more than risk-taking, but still – indulge me for a moment.

A chicken can’t outrun an SUV, but I like to think that because he didn’t know that, he went for it.

He didn’t self-identify as a tiny, scrawny fowl, but as a really focused, fast runner who wanted to get to the other side and wouldn’t let anything stop him.

If I focus too much on my introversion, I can easily start to throw in the towel in the face of the natural discomfort that many of us experience when we try new things. I can start to cocoon myself and use it as an excuse not to take risks. I can tell myself I can’t handle parties, and thus fail to connect with my community. I can tell myself I can’t speak in front of people, and thus curtail opportunities to extend myself professionally.

I may choose not to do those things, but I want it to be that – a choice, not a result of my self-imposed limitations.

Sometimes our limits grow from old beliefs and perspectives that have been handed down to us. Sometimes we’re limited by society’s expectations and restrictions upon us, whether because of gender, race, age or ethnicity. Bigotry and oppression do attempt to restrict us, and it’s not helpful to pretend they don’t.

So we can acknowledge that, find support, find community, find healing – and then find ways to rise anyway.

The brilliant Orson Welles said “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations”, and I see what he meant – choosing constraints for the ways we choose to live and function in the world is called for if we are not to fragment and diffuse our art and our work.

But this is not the same as seeing ourselves as free, transcendent creatures who are so much bigger and more powerful that we imagine or believe.

How do you limit yourself? What labels have you, your family, your culture placed on you that you’ve internalized and believed?

Introvert – extrovert – whatever – you are a vast, creative being of limitless possibility. You contain multitudes, and you have the ability to transcend limitation.