Being what you were meant to be

A long time ago I began to ask people what made them become what they were.  In a way, I wanted to discover if any of them would be able to tell me what made me do what I do.  One of my classes at college just answered it for me and much to my surprise, I am what I was intended to be.

I always believed that God creates a soul for a purpose.  Each one of us have certain gifts, talents and are drawn to do certain things no one else is.  There are strong parts of me and then there are weak parts of me.  One of them that drives me nuts is that I can't really cook.  I do it enough to not starve to death but frozen dinners are fine with me.  It is something I have never really been good at doing.  My strengths perplexed the hell out of me until I took the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator.  I am type ENFJ with the jobs listed are ministry, media, therapist, educator and primary caregiver. No shocker there considering I am a chaplain, (ministry) work in media (blog and website) work with veterans and their families coping with PTSD, (therapist) and do it by educating them on what PTSD is, (educator) and all because I am married to a Vietnam Vet with PTSD as the primary caregiver.  I am doing what I was built to do and while there are issues doing it, usually financial, I am very comfortable doing it.  I belong here.

Some of the other people with ENFJ are;

 Famous people of your particular type


Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Clara Barton (Founder of the American Red Cross), Ronald Reagan
 
According to the test I am;

Warm, empathetic, responsive and responsible.  Highly attuned to the emotions, needs and motivations of others.  Find potential in everyone, want to help others fulfill their potential. May act as a catalysts for individual and group growth. Loyal, responsive to praise and criticism.  Sociable, facilitae others in a group and provide inspiring leadership.

This brings up a very interesting theory I have had for a very long time.  When people enter into the military, they do it because that is what they were built/created to do.  It requires a great deal of compassion to care enough to be willing to risk your own life but it also takes a great deal of courage.  They care enough about others to be ready to die for them.  So how is it that the rest of us can't seem to understand this? How is it the military cannot understand their own people?

It is human nature when you care so deeply for others that your life is secondary that you also feel everything more deeply and that includes pain.  There is a lot of heartbreak when men and women are sent into combat zones that needs to be addressed as soon as possible but because of all the other qualities that make them "them" this often gets overlooked.  It is also one of the biggest reasons there is such a rise in PTSD aside from the increase due to redeployments.  They don't get what they need to heal and recover. 

Reports have come out that many of them are not getting any therapy at all but are getting medication.  That does not help them heal. Medication only alters the symptoms so they can function. Most of the time they are redeployed before they can get therapy.  Yet in our civilian world, there are many crisis responders for us to talk to as humans.  This makes no sense at all to have the people exposed to traumatic events the most to be the last one to receive the emotional help to heal. 

For National Guards and Reservists, the issue is even more troubling because many of them are also members of law enforcement, firefighters and EMT workers.  They leave one traumatic experience for another back home.  Who is there for them?  They were created to be what they have become but no matter how much extra God put into them, they still need the support and care the rest of us get but they need it even more.  This type of person is the last to ask for help because they are the givers.  They also need it more because they are doing what few others in this country would ever dream of doing, yet they wanted to do nothing else more.

If we want to get ahead of the suicides and attempted suicides and start to really help them heal, we need to get to them before they have settled for the pain they feel to be just part of their job.

If you are drawn to do something or pulled against what you "want to do" then maybe you should take this test and find out what you were made to be.  You may be surprised.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Take it if you are or were in the military because the chances are you were created to be what you are and that is a very rare person.