Your personality. Is it who you are or what you do?

​I have been called a people person. Engaging. Funny. Charismatic. Today, I'd humbly accept that as truth. I'd also say that for most of my life it wasn't truth.

Most of my life people person wasn't who I was, it was what I did.

Our personalities can be a superpower of sorts. They allow us to keep relationships above the surface. They are superpowers we develop along the way to allow us to hide in plain sight.

Hide from connection. Hide from vulnerability.

When a connection starts to get close to who you really are, the struggling and broken and hurting you, your personality superpower allows you to tell a great joke.

Tell an engaging story.

It allows you to smile a smile that says I've never had a struggle in my life.

And the superpower almost always pushes back the invasion. The intrusion of someone closing in on the secrets your superpowers were developed to protect.

I've been fortunate the last several years. Fortunate to have people come into my life who've made vulnerability feel more like safety than an invasion. Fortunate to recognize that some superpowers are superheroes trying to take you out disguised as superheroes trying to save your world.

I tell you all of this not as a people person, but as a person worried about the number of people hiding in plain sight. I know firsthand how looking great is not always doing great.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And I want to challenge us to check in on the people around us.

I want to challenge us to ask, is that who someone is, or is that their superpower?

If you have someone close to you, and they haven't talked about a struggle recently. If you haven't heard them talk about the challenges they are facing in life. If you haven't heard them disclose that life has tripped them up a bit lately, I'd be curious.

Because life is hard for everyone. Struggle is all inclusive.

And so I'd be curious, am I hanging out with my friend or my family member, or am I hanging out with a superpower.

If you feel like it might be a superpower, I'd ask them. Lovingly. Are you OK?

I'd say, "I know life gets hard sometimes. Mine sure does. And it's always good to have someone to talk to when it does. I just want you to know I'm here for you if your life ever gets hard like mine does."

Vulnerability is an invitation not expectation.

It is safety and not invasion.

And I will tell you from personal experience, a personality superpower's greatest weakness is vulnerability.

It is safety.

It is the place where a superpower is given permission to stop being what someone does and become who they are. I am thankful for the superheroes who have come into my life and gifted me that transformation.

It's a transformation that is a work in progress, but I'm no longer hiding. And my greatest desire in life is that you will no longer have to hide either.

My greatest desire is that your personality will be who you are, not what you do.