Building Your Power of Expression

Self-Permeable, adj.

Pronunciation: self-pərmēəb(ə)l

Meaning: Whereas the word permeable refers to a material or a membrane that allows liquids or gases to pass through it, our word self-permeable is not found in most dictionaries. Think of it as a coined or specialized compound adjective. I use it in the sense of being open to allowing ideas, experiences, emotions, or influences to penetrate and affect one’s own thinking, attitudes, or sense of self; receptive to being changed from within through reflection or outside influence. Or put more conversationally, a self-permeable person allows new ideas and experiences to get through his or her psychological defenses and potentially produce genuine change. Thus, a self-permeable person has boundaries that permit ideas, criticism, experience, or emotion to “get through.” It’s not about having no boundaries; it’s having boundaries that aren’t impenetrable.

Usage:

• “A good leader must be self-permeable enough to hear criticism without immediately becoming defensive.”
• “Education accomplishes very little when students are intellectually curious but not self-permeable enough to reconsider what they already believe.”
• “Being self-permeable does not mean accepting every idea that comes along; it means being willing to let an idea in long enough to examine it seriously.”