Someone loves you

That's how my horoscope started this morning. "Someone loves you," it said. "They see right down to your deepest, murky bits and still want to hold your hand. So don't hurt them just because you don't like those murky bits yourself."

You always hurt the one you love, the old song used to go. The one you shouldn't hurt at all. When you live with someone with whom you feel able to be completely and utterly yourself, shorn of the glamour and glitz you put on for the outside world, it's easy to hurt them by omission, rather than by commission.

You may not think you put on any glamour for other people. You don't dress up, you don't fix your hair, or shine your shoes, or wear any bling or fragrance. So no obvious prettification, but when those other people greet you and ask how you are, you put on a smile and say "fine, thanks. You?" Maybe behind your smile all you want to do is ignore them. To not have to say anything, and especially not smile, because today is not a good day and you really can't be arsed.

So that's your glamour. You make more of an effort, even if you're not conscious of it.

But back home? Well, home is home. You can be yourself. You can slob around in your old trackie bottoms and the same T-shirt you've had on all week. You can avoid shaving for as long as possible. You can leave the lipstick off. And yet home is also the place where that someone lives. The someone who loves you. The someone who is quite possibly the only one who deserves your glamour.

That's what I mean by "hurting someone by omission." You reserve your glamour for the outside world and at home you do your own thing. Did you forget how special that someone is? No. But maybe, subconsciously, you trade on the fact that they want you to be comfortable being yourself and you translate that into: I don't have to make an effort.

So what's this about the deepest murky bits? They're the bits about yourself that you like to keep hidden, or about which you may not even be aware. If there are aspects of yourself that you don't like, then you must know about them. But there may also be parts of your character that aren't especially likeable, but are hidden from you.

In the 1950s, two researchers at the University of California devised the Johari window. By observing how subjects expressed their personalities they discovered that there are aspects of our personality that we're open about, and other elements that we keep to ourselves. There are also things that others see in us that we're not aware of. Combining these it's possible to draw up a four-box grid, which includes a fourth group of character traits that are unknown to anyone:

1. The public area ("Public Self") holds things that are openly known and talked about - and which may be seen as strengths or weaknesses. This is the self that we choose to share with others
2. The hidden area ("Blind Spots") contains things that others observe but which we are unaware of. Again, they could be positive or negative behaviours, and affect the way others act towards us
3. The unknown area ("Unconscious Self") is those things nobody knows about us - including ourselves. This may be because we've never exposed those areas of our personality, or because they're buried deep in the subconscious
4. The private area ("Hidden Self") covers aspects of our self that we know about and keep hidden from others.
   

Although the boxes are shown the same size, in reality they are unequal in content and indeed much therapy involves using regular and honest exchange of feedback, promoting a willingness to disclose personal feelings so that the Public Self is expanded and the other three areas made as small as possible. People will then come to understand what "makes you tick," and what you find easy or difficult to do. Knowing that about you, they are in an even stronger position to offer appropriate support.

Knowing the worst about you, whether you have chosen to hide it from most other people, or even from yourself, and yet still loving you because it's the whole you they love, is an extraordinary thing. And if some of those parts of you are things you don't like to think about, or talk about, or which make you unhappy, then the only correct response is for you to do something about them. Not spend the anger you feel at yourself, on those who are closest to you and deserve it the least.