Posts Tagged ‘4/1’

Finally Revealing My Truth: Why Did It Take Me So Long to See It?

It’s shocking to me that it took me so long to see that I was T4. I have heard from others who know me that it was fairly obvious. So why couldn’t I see it? I fell into some common traps.

1) Thinking I wasn’t perfect enough for T4.
Many T4s fall into this trap: our perfecting nature makes it so that we have a hard time seeing ourselves in T4’s symmetry and perfect posture, and/or feel like we don’t hit all the checkboxes. I don’t have perfect posture. Like anyone else, I can see where I have asymmetry in my face. My nose has long been a sore point for me in terms of my appearance, and when I read “lump of clay” for T3, I felt like I couldn’t be anything else in the system, especially not the “perfect” type.

2) Confusing “still + upward” with “push forward.”
T4s and T3s can both have what is considered to be a “strong” personality. I am definitely a bold person, and the S1 makes me a little more high energy than, say, a 4/2. Things that I had thought were an indicator of T3 actually were an indicator of being T4 and being my own authority and not being afraid to express my opinion.

There were a lot of things that should have clued me in:

1) My childhood behavior.
No one would have ever called me an “active” child. I was very still–you could place me in a chair and I would stay there, observing the world. I didn’t talk much. I enjoyed spending time alone, working on my own things. I didn’t have much use for other children. I never related to the ways that T3s are shamed as children because, well, I wasn’t that kid.

2) Never dressing T3.
Many people who have placed themselves in the wrong type will dress with all the other elements of their actual type, just in the colors of the type they think they are. My “T3” wardrobe was basically 4/1, just in the T3 colors. The T3 elements never felt right on me and never suited my taste–even when I would buy T3 jewelry from the DYT store, it would literally be too large for my ears or wrists, and I never took any of the clothes I bought from there out of the package.

So why didn’t I see these obvious things? I think it all goes back to #1: I just didn’t think I was “enough” for T4. I didn’t think my facial features would qualify. I had to see them from a different perspective (my license, with proper T4 hair because it worked better than T3 hair… another sign) in order to see myself as T4. And once I allowed myself to see myself as T4, I have been able to go back to what I love and what I feel expresses me. The Autumn colors never suited my personality, really. I am a bold person, and the clear, strong hues have always been what I have wanted to be in all of these systems.

Again, I don’t feel like I would drape into these colors in any of the color-based systems, but when everything is put together, it is what feels the most true to me. And in the end, I think that is what we all want: to feel like ourselves.

Finally Revealing My Truth

I teased this on the Facebook page months ago, and I have been silent ever since. There are several reasons for this. Some are logistical, since I moved across the country and started grad school. But I think also there is just a lot to reveal, and how much this shift has changed my perspective on what I do here and how I am present in life.

One thing that has not changed: my perspective on my Kibbe Image ID. I still believe that my yin/yang balance is Flamboyant Gamine, and it is the best description of my physicality and my “star quality.”

But there is another piece of how I identify that has been nearly as stable over the years that I have now decided was wrong. For many years, I have seen myself as a 3/4 in Dressing Your Truth. But I have never even really come close to dressing that way. It was always too heavy, too much. And when I joined the Facebook group, I could never shake the feeling that I just didn’t look like the people in the group. But I simply didn’t know where else I could fit.

I got my license at the end of June, and as I was looking at my photo, it was as if I were seeing my face for the first time. Suddenly I could see symmetry and parallel lines. And I realized that I was a Type Four with a Secondary One.

This is a common mistyping–it’s stillness with a push behind it. And it is not uncommon for Type 4s to not see themselves as “perfect enough” to be T4. I thought I wasn’t graceful enough; I thought that my nose was all wrong. But once I saw it, there it was.

This does, of course, render Dark Autumn, and Autumn in general, no longer relevant, if I really want to stick with DYT. I have enjoyed bringing black back into my wardrobe, and going for bold, saturated colors. Would I drape into these colors? Probably not. Do I feel like they express me better than something I may drape into? Yes.

I do feel like it is a relief to not have to think about how I would fit what I loved into T3. I can see that the way I have been dressing is 4/1 lines, just in T3 colors. And I can see that living my truth has been good for me, especially since I discovered it right before I started a brand new chapter in my life.

I could go on and on about this, but really, just look at this site! It is so T4 🙂

I am not looking for opinions, but if you have questions about my process, I will answer them here and on Facebook.