Here is the post of the talk I delivered at church on Sunday:
Good morning. My name is Cindi Brown, and I’m a member of this congregation. In this church, we often say, “Our spiritual paths vary…” My own spiritual path involves working with a model of personality psychology called the Enneagram.
One of the pieces of wisdom the Enneagram imparts is that, as Gail has so eloquently phrased it, “Our best trait is also our worst trait.”
In the Enneagram world, my own personality style is often referred to as the “Observer” personality type. My habit of standing back, watching, and observing life from a distance, has led to what I have always considered to be some of my best qualities. First of all, as Yogi Berra famously said, “you can observe a lot just by watching.” And you can learn a lot just by observing.
My ego loves to hear about how smart, knowledgeable, and objective I am. Chances are, there are some themes your ego loves to hear about, too. Maybe your story is the story of being fun-loving, idealistic, and enthusiastic. Maybe it’s the story of being strong, protective, and heroic. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
Whatever it is, there is certainly nothing wrong with celebrating your strengths. Sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to do. But at other times, real growth comes from looking at your flaws.
For example, every instance of me standing back is not, shockingly enough, an instance of Buddha-like nonattachment. At times, my reluctance to get involved is not at all high-minded; sometimes, it’s just the stinginess of not wanting to spend my time and energy on someone else. In those times, my habit of pulling back is a symptom of having forgotten that we are all interconnected, and that that which is given, is not simply lost.
Working with this type of knowledge can be transformative. Let me give an example:
Years ago, I was part of an Enneagram discussion group. In this group, we would basically eat pizza and talk about personality psychology. After we had been meeting for a while and were comfortable with one another, the conversation turned to revealing some of the qualities we did not like in the various personality types. A friend of mine said that those with the “Observer” personality style were “just not generous.” She went on to share an illustrative story about a man with whom she had been romantically involved. Even though her story was not about me specifically, I could see myself reflected in that story, and I didn’t like what I saw.
I began to consider how to translate my desire to not be “not generous” into action. My first small act was to pick up the pizza for the next discussion group meeting. I didn’t pick up the tab for the pizza, mind you; I simply spent a little of my time and energy physically going to get the pizza. I realize I will probably not be canonized as a saint for this act, but for me, it was a step in the right direction.
And I do continue to take steps. I ask myself, what can I bring to this gathering? How can I not show up empty-handed? Finding, and acting upon, the answers to those questions, whether that answer is as tangible as a large pizza, or as intangible as my energy and attention, is a spiritual practice, and my experiences and relationships are better for it.
I have learned to recognize, at least sometimes, that the habit of pulling back masks the need to step forward. For some people, the rush of enthusiasm over a new prospect can be a reminder that old ventures are crying out for completion, that living one’s ideals requires sticking with them even when the going gets rough. For still others, the heady feeling of raw power may really be a calling for the gentleness with which power must be tempered in order to become enduring strength.
These words are from the Tao Te Ching:
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Let us each consider the ugly and the beautiful, the evil and the good, within ourselves, as we enter into a moment of silent meditation.
----------------------------------------SILENCE--------------------------------------
Showing posts with label 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 7. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Jesus is my Enneagram Teacher
Note: This was originally published on 12/1/07.
A simple comparison of The Enneagram Institute's "Chart 1 -- Personality Elements" (downloadable, for free, here) and Matthew 5:45-48 and 6:1-34 yields this rather pointed advice from Jesus:
To the perfectionistic, judging, in search of integrity, "I am right", identified with the superego - type: '[your Father in heaven] makes his sun rise on the evil and the on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous... be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
To the proud, well-intentioned, "I have no needs", getting his/her sense of value from other people's reactions - type: "Beware of practicing your piety before other in order to be seen by them... whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets, so that they may be praised by others."
To the vain type who wants to be effective and who bases his or her value on performance and image: "Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and the street corners, so that they may be seen by others... do not heap up empty words as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words."
To the melancholy type who doesn't "fit in": "Whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting... put oil on your head and wash your face so that your fasting may not be seen by others."
To the stingy, avaricious type who thinks he or she can understand by "witnessing" -- "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth... if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is unhealthy, your body will be full of darkness... You cannot serve God and wealth."
To the worrying type who fears being without support: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear... Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."
To the gluttonous, fixed on anticipated and planning - type who loses immediacy due to focusing on the future and thinks "if others gave me what I wanted, I'd be happier": "Do not [say] 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?'... your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own."
Jesus seems to have left out types 8 and 9, but Riso and Hudson did not.
A simple comparison of The Enneagram Institute's "Chart 1 -- Personality Elements" (downloadable, for free, here) and Matthew 5:45-48 and 6:1-34 yields this rather pointed advice from Jesus:
To the perfectionistic, judging, in search of integrity, "I am right", identified with the superego - type: '[your Father in heaven] makes his sun rise on the evil and the on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous... be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
To the proud, well-intentioned, "I have no needs", getting his/her sense of value from other people's reactions - type: "Beware of practicing your piety before other in order to be seen by them... whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets, so that they may be praised by others."
To the vain type who wants to be effective and who bases his or her value on performance and image: "Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and the street corners, so that they may be seen by others... do not heap up empty words as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words."
To the melancholy type who doesn't "fit in": "Whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting... put oil on your head and wash your face so that your fasting may not be seen by others."
To the stingy, avaricious type who thinks he or she can understand by "witnessing" -- "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth... if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is unhealthy, your body will be full of darkness... You cannot serve God and wealth."
To the worrying type who fears being without support: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear... Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."
To the gluttonous, fixed on anticipated and planning - type who loses immediacy due to focusing on the future and thinks "if others gave me what I wanted, I'd be happier": "Do not [say] 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?'... your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own."
Jesus seems to have left out types 8 and 9, but Riso and Hudson did not.
Mario Sikora, the brain, and the 6's Inner Guidance
Note: This was originally published on 12/16/07, by Mary Beth, of all people.
If you've been following along extremely closely, you know I've been in Tallahassee for the past week. While in Tallahassee I did three things and three things only: work, gain weight, and read books and articles related to the Enneagram. Before I left I had printed out Enneagram Monthly for Nov. of 2006 (one of three issues available for free, here.) My favorite article from it is Notes and Melody #6: Composing the Tune by Mario Sikora. (As you might imagine it is the sixth article in a series; the entire series as well as many of his other articles are available on his website, here, and here is the link to his home page.)
Sikora captured my attention right out of the gate with this clause from his first sentence: "...and being by temperament indifferent to the gentle sound of rustling angels' feathers and earnest tones that accompany much of the talk about the Enneagram...." Hee! I feel the same way. More on that point in a few days.
The article as a whole focuses on coaching Sevens; the part I am going to discuss is about working with Point 5 (whether with Sevens, Fives, or whomever.) I am about to quote a massive amount of Sikora's text; read it here, or read it in the original article (then come back to see what my points are.) It 's the part of the article beginning with the bolded title Point Five. And here begins Mario Sikora's material:
Point Five
I don’t know what you mean when you say Big Mind and Little Mind. First of all there is the brain.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
There is a famous medical case discussed in neuroscience literature in which a woman suffered brain damage that impaired her short-term memory. Much like the character in the film “Memento,” she was unable to form memories of events that occurred after the injury. Each time she visited her doctor, he would hold out his hand and introduce himself anew as if it was the first time they met. If he left the room, even momentarily, she would forget who he was and he would have to introduce himself all over again. One day, the doctor decided to try an experiment: He hid a thumb tack in his hand before entering the examination room. When she
shook his hand, she was pricked by the tack and recoiled in pain. The doctor apologized profusely and left the room after calming the patient. Upon returning a short while later, the patient again had no recollection of the doctor, but she refused to shake his hand. She refused to shake his hand at subsequent visits as well, but when asked why she would offer weak justifications, such as explaining that she feared she would spread a cold or catch germs from the doctor. She had no resistance to shaking other people’s hands, however.
The point of retelling this story is to show that the brain processes information in ways that we are not consciously aware of, either because we have habituated the behavior and no longer need to be consciously aware of it or because we do not have the capacity be consciously aware of it. The first situation happens through repetition. If you do something enough times it becomes automatic. The second situation occurs because of the way the brain evolved—giving us the capacity for mental function before giving us the capacity for consciousness of those functions. (See Part Two for more on this.) Therefore, we have the capacity to process information, store experiences, and manufacture responses in ways that are non-conscious. We “simply” do them, not really understanding why. There is a reason, but the reason is formed through cognitive functions that are not connected to the parts of the brain that we have conscious
access to.
This phenomenon—“knowing” something without being aware of how we know it— is Intuition, the core quality found at Point Five of the Enneagram. (Merriam- Webster Online defines “intuition” as “the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.”)
Alec’s younger brother, Alexei, will be six months old when this article goes to print. He has recently begun to learn things—most importantly how to soothe himself to sleep at night by sticking his fingers in his mouth or reaching for the pacifier. Today, Alexei naturally and unconsciously soothes himself with his fingers, but he is still figuring out how to wrangle the pacifier. Manipulating an external object is a more-complex task than sucking on his fingers and he is figuring it out with some effort struggling to coordinate emerging mental skills with emerging manual dexterity. Soon, however, he will be popping the pacifier in and out, literally in his
sleep, as if it were an appendage.
As we grow, we develop the ability to intuitively process more complex situations or tasks. The oldest of the three Sikora boys, Adrian, is three and a half and can catch a ball thrown from a short distance. Last summer, a thrown ball would bounce off Adrian’s chest as his arms flailed together a beat too slowly. In a few years he will be chasing down pop-ups as effortlessly as you or I shoo away a mosquito.
While they are the easiest to describe, it is not only physical activities that we learn to perform intuitively; the brain is constantly habituating thinking processes and carrying them out below the surface of our awareness. We intuitively step away from a dark alley, resist getting onto an elevator with someone who looks “wrong,” and turn one direction rather than the other when lost. We all have the experience of “knowing” something without being sure why we know it.
Once again, however, the socialization process inhibits our trust in our intuition. As children we think we know what is best for us based on what we feel, but our parents—if we are lucky—do their best to keep us from hurting ourselves. The unintended consequence is that we learn to doubt ourselves when we shouldn’t. And the bigger the risk is, the more we doubt ourselves. We stop relying on our inner knowing and we begin to consciously analyze our circumstances and figure out our responses. Casual situations—catching a ball, driving a car on a familiar road, making small talk by the water cooler—are comfortably handled intuitively. Larger, more-critical situations—who should I marry, where should I live, what car should I buy, etc.—are pulled into consciousness for analysis and resolution.
Again, this is as it should be. The problem, which is typically one of efficacy rather than dire consequence, occurs when situations that can be handled intuitively are forced into the conscious: Decisions are delayed or deferred and opportunities are missed. In the business world this phenomenon is called “paralysis through analysis”: deadlines are missed, market opportunities come and go, time is wasted.
This is the central dilemma found at Point Five of the Enneagram. Again, it occurs for each of us, Ennea-type Five feels the disconnection from intuition most acutely. Rather than trusting inner knowing based on experience, they step back and analyze, weigh options, and cogitate. This stepping back, or detaching, leads to the Five’s not actually doing things, robbing them of opportunities to internalize actions and processes and further reinforcing the need to step back and analyze some
more.
Mature intuition, because it is based on internalized experience, takes time to nurture, just like the rest of the core qualities. One way to assist that development is through the accelerator of “conscious practice.”
The focus of the Five tends to be on observing from a distance rather than engaging and doing. They can nurture intuition by consciously practicing activities so that they develop the ability to do them naturally and unconsciously (that is, intuitively). When we practice something we carve neural pathways in our brain that allow for habituated behavior. While I’ve written in past articles about the danger of habitual behavior and how to overcome it, I am not against unconscious behavior. I
am against ineffective unconscious behavior. There are many times when
unconscious behavior works for us: when swerving the car to avoid a collision, snatching a child out of harm’s way, catching a ball.
Conscious practice allows us to create patterns of effective unconscious behavior.
Here’s how.
Learning follows four typical phases:
1. Unconscious incompetence (“I don’t even know that I don’t know how to do this”),
2. Conscious incompetence (“I now see that I don’t know how to do this”),
3. Conscious competence (“I now see that I know how to do this”), and
4. Unconscious competence (“I no longer pay attention to how I do this”).
Making this cycle conscious is what the accelerator of conscious practice is all about. It means not just “practicing” something, but practicing deliberately in a structured manner.(1) Here are two examples:
Beginning martial artists spend countless hours practicing their techniques individually, executing thousands of single kicks, punches, and blocks until they develop adequate coordination. Then they will string the individual techniques into sequences called “kata” or forms and practice pre-arranged combinations with an opponent. Eventually, they will practice free-style sparring. The martial artist who is new to sparring will be trapped in his head, constantly thinking about what his opponent is doing, might do, and how he will respond. This will cause his movement to be hesitant and stiff, and he will easily be defeated by a more experienced fighter. Eventually, however, with enough practice the martial artist will begin to unconsciously act out his training and experience. His movements will be natural and relaxed, he will find himself automatically executing the techniques he has practiced countless times at just the right moments. He has learned to fight intuitively.
Fives are often plagued by an inability to be decisive. They want one more piece of data to analyze, one more variable to factor, or one more day to consider the evidence before being ready to act. This capacity for patient analysis is a gift and has great potential benefit; it is also the source of frustration for many people who expect decisions from Fives and it is the most common behavioral inhibitor of Fives’ careers.
Fives (and others who struggle to be more decisive) benefit from consciously practicing making decisions, starting small and working up to larger matters. I sometimes urge Fives to pick a simple decision they have to make each day, such as what to have for breakfast, what kind of coffee to have, or what to wear to work, and put a short time limit on themselves. Rather than deliberate for the 30 seconds they may usually take at the Starbucks counter (at the risk of being thrashed by the large and irritated Eight behind them), they limit themselves to 10 seconds. Since the stakes are relatively small, the Five doesn’t lose much by making a decision he
later regrets. As time goes on, he can move to larger and more complicated
decisions to practice.
Despite our view of ourselves and rational creatures, most decisions are based on emotion, and there is a specific feeling that accompanies decisiveness. It is important to learn to recognize the feeling that accompanies this exercise. This feeling can then be deliberately recalled in the future as a useful aid in making more important decisions. What typically happens, however, is that practicing decisiveness eventually makes it an unconscious skill that no longer needs to be practiced.
The goal here is not to make anyone rush to decisions; there are many times when that is a mistake. The goal is to develop the ability to be more decisive when the situation requires. Practicing being decisive at Starbucks today helps one be more decisive in critical matters tomorrow.
Thus ends Mario Sikora's writing, and now back to me:
I love the clarity and specificity with which he lays out his points, and I particularly like his use of brain science (with references to popular cinema and observations of his son's development, too!)
The article also has a long section on working with a 7; as a 6, I identify with both 7 and 5 issues, so I found the article helpful. However, I was quite surprised that the difference between explicit and implicit knowledge is used to discuss point 5, rather than point 6. I associate 6 with needing and wanting more certainty before making decisions, rather than 5. I also associate 6 with the compulsive need to drag things into conscious awareness instead of just doing them.
Sikora's discussion of developing decisiveness and learning to trust to one's intuition reminds me of my task as a 6, which is to learn to trust my Inner Guidance. As a 6 (i.e. as the primary type in the thinking triad), I am supposed to be "most out of touch with" thinking. Riso and Hudson in The Wisdom of the Enneagram say "Sixes are the primary type in the Thinking Triad, meaning that they have the most trouble connecting to their own inner guidance. As a result, they do not have confidence in their own minds and judgment. This does not mean that they do not think. On the contrary, they think -- and worry -- a lot." Riso and Hudson discuss contact with Essence as what helps 6s realize that they are on a firm foundation with their own inner guidance: "When Sixes experience this truth, they feel solid, steady, and supported, as if they were standing on a massive bed of granite. They realize that this ground is the only real security in life, and it is what gives Sixes immense courage. This is the real meaning of faith, their particular Essential quality. Faith is not belief, but a real, immediate knowing that comes from experience. Faith without experience is belief. Faith with experience brings reliable guidance. Much of the personality of Sixes can be seen in an effort to imitate or recreate faith in terms of beliefs and to find a substitute for the certainty that they are already secure as an expression of the Divine."
I find this problematic. As a 6, my central sin is faithlessness (as Cindi and I teach it, anyway -- many others teach that the 6's sin is fear.) The 6's dilemma is how to get there from here? (That is, if you haven't had the kind of experiences Riso and Hudson describe.)
As for Sikora's prescription, frankly, I don't find the advice to practice making small decisions ALL THAT satisfying as a way to access one's intuition, but I do see how it would help, and I see why, and it has the added virtue of not making me extremely uncomfortable.
I am interested in reading more by Mario Sikora, for the reasons enumerated above, and I am in luck, because Cindi received his book, Awareness to Action, for Christmas.
Sikora's discussion of practice and martial arts reminds me of this idea about dreams as the dojo for waking life.
If you've been following along extremely closely, you know I've been in Tallahassee for the past week. While in Tallahassee I did three things and three things only: work, gain weight, and read books and articles related to the Enneagram. Before I left I had printed out Enneagram Monthly for Nov. of 2006 (one of three issues available for free, here.) My favorite article from it is Notes and Melody #6: Composing the Tune by Mario Sikora. (As you might imagine it is the sixth article in a series; the entire series as well as many of his other articles are available on his website, here, and here is the link to his home page.)
Sikora captured my attention right out of the gate with this clause from his first sentence: "...and being by temperament indifferent to the gentle sound of rustling angels' feathers and earnest tones that accompany much of the talk about the Enneagram...." Hee! I feel the same way. More on that point in a few days.
The article as a whole focuses on coaching Sevens; the part I am going to discuss is about working with Point 5 (whether with Sevens, Fives, or whomever.) I am about to quote a massive amount of Sikora's text; read it here, or read it in the original article (then come back to see what my points are.) It 's the part of the article beginning with the bolded title Point Five. And here begins Mario Sikora's material:
Point Five
I don’t know what you mean when you say Big Mind and Little Mind. First of all there is the brain.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
There is a famous medical case discussed in neuroscience literature in which a woman suffered brain damage that impaired her short-term memory. Much like the character in the film “Memento,” she was unable to form memories of events that occurred after the injury. Each time she visited her doctor, he would hold out his hand and introduce himself anew as if it was the first time they met. If he left the room, even momentarily, she would forget who he was and he would have to introduce himself all over again. One day, the doctor decided to try an experiment: He hid a thumb tack in his hand before entering the examination room. When she
shook his hand, she was pricked by the tack and recoiled in pain. The doctor apologized profusely and left the room after calming the patient. Upon returning a short while later, the patient again had no recollection of the doctor, but she refused to shake his hand. She refused to shake his hand at subsequent visits as well, but when asked why she would offer weak justifications, such as explaining that she feared she would spread a cold or catch germs from the doctor. She had no resistance to shaking other people’s hands, however.
The point of retelling this story is to show that the brain processes information in ways that we are not consciously aware of, either because we have habituated the behavior and no longer need to be consciously aware of it or because we do not have the capacity be consciously aware of it. The first situation happens through repetition. If you do something enough times it becomes automatic. The second situation occurs because of the way the brain evolved—giving us the capacity for mental function before giving us the capacity for consciousness of those functions. (See Part Two for more on this.) Therefore, we have the capacity to process information, store experiences, and manufacture responses in ways that are non-conscious. We “simply” do them, not really understanding why. There is a reason, but the reason is formed through cognitive functions that are not connected to the parts of the brain that we have conscious
access to.
This phenomenon—“knowing” something without being aware of how we know it— is Intuition, the core quality found at Point Five of the Enneagram. (Merriam- Webster Online defines “intuition” as “the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.”)
Alec’s younger brother, Alexei, will be six months old when this article goes to print. He has recently begun to learn things—most importantly how to soothe himself to sleep at night by sticking his fingers in his mouth or reaching for the pacifier. Today, Alexei naturally and unconsciously soothes himself with his fingers, but he is still figuring out how to wrangle the pacifier. Manipulating an external object is a more-complex task than sucking on his fingers and he is figuring it out with some effort struggling to coordinate emerging mental skills with emerging manual dexterity. Soon, however, he will be popping the pacifier in and out, literally in his
sleep, as if it were an appendage.
As we grow, we develop the ability to intuitively process more complex situations or tasks. The oldest of the three Sikora boys, Adrian, is three and a half and can catch a ball thrown from a short distance. Last summer, a thrown ball would bounce off Adrian’s chest as his arms flailed together a beat too slowly. In a few years he will be chasing down pop-ups as effortlessly as you or I shoo away a mosquito.
While they are the easiest to describe, it is not only physical activities that we learn to perform intuitively; the brain is constantly habituating thinking processes and carrying them out below the surface of our awareness. We intuitively step away from a dark alley, resist getting onto an elevator with someone who looks “wrong,” and turn one direction rather than the other when lost. We all have the experience of “knowing” something without being sure why we know it.
Once again, however, the socialization process inhibits our trust in our intuition. As children we think we know what is best for us based on what we feel, but our parents—if we are lucky—do their best to keep us from hurting ourselves. The unintended consequence is that we learn to doubt ourselves when we shouldn’t. And the bigger the risk is, the more we doubt ourselves. We stop relying on our inner knowing and we begin to consciously analyze our circumstances and figure out our responses. Casual situations—catching a ball, driving a car on a familiar road, making small talk by the water cooler—are comfortably handled intuitively. Larger, more-critical situations—who should I marry, where should I live, what car should I buy, etc.—are pulled into consciousness for analysis and resolution.
Again, this is as it should be. The problem, which is typically one of efficacy rather than dire consequence, occurs when situations that can be handled intuitively are forced into the conscious: Decisions are delayed or deferred and opportunities are missed. In the business world this phenomenon is called “paralysis through analysis”: deadlines are missed, market opportunities come and go, time is wasted.
This is the central dilemma found at Point Five of the Enneagram. Again, it occurs for each of us, Ennea-type Five feels the disconnection from intuition most acutely. Rather than trusting inner knowing based on experience, they step back and analyze, weigh options, and cogitate. This stepping back, or detaching, leads to the Five’s not actually doing things, robbing them of opportunities to internalize actions and processes and further reinforcing the need to step back and analyze some
more.
Mature intuition, because it is based on internalized experience, takes time to nurture, just like the rest of the core qualities. One way to assist that development is through the accelerator of “conscious practice.”
The focus of the Five tends to be on observing from a distance rather than engaging and doing. They can nurture intuition by consciously practicing activities so that they develop the ability to do them naturally and unconsciously (that is, intuitively). When we practice something we carve neural pathways in our brain that allow for habituated behavior. While I’ve written in past articles about the danger of habitual behavior and how to overcome it, I am not against unconscious behavior. I
am against ineffective unconscious behavior. There are many times when
unconscious behavior works for us: when swerving the car to avoid a collision, snatching a child out of harm’s way, catching a ball.
Conscious practice allows us to create patterns of effective unconscious behavior.
Here’s how.
Learning follows four typical phases:
1. Unconscious incompetence (“I don’t even know that I don’t know how to do this”),
2. Conscious incompetence (“I now see that I don’t know how to do this”),
3. Conscious competence (“I now see that I know how to do this”), and
4. Unconscious competence (“I no longer pay attention to how I do this”).
Making this cycle conscious is what the accelerator of conscious practice is all about. It means not just “practicing” something, but practicing deliberately in a structured manner.(1) Here are two examples:
Beginning martial artists spend countless hours practicing their techniques individually, executing thousands of single kicks, punches, and blocks until they develop adequate coordination. Then they will string the individual techniques into sequences called “kata” or forms and practice pre-arranged combinations with an opponent. Eventually, they will practice free-style sparring. The martial artist who is new to sparring will be trapped in his head, constantly thinking about what his opponent is doing, might do, and how he will respond. This will cause his movement to be hesitant and stiff, and he will easily be defeated by a more experienced fighter. Eventually, however, with enough practice the martial artist will begin to unconsciously act out his training and experience. His movements will be natural and relaxed, he will find himself automatically executing the techniques he has practiced countless times at just the right moments. He has learned to fight intuitively.
Fives are often plagued by an inability to be decisive. They want one more piece of data to analyze, one more variable to factor, or one more day to consider the evidence before being ready to act. This capacity for patient analysis is a gift and has great potential benefit; it is also the source of frustration for many people who expect decisions from Fives and it is the most common behavioral inhibitor of Fives’ careers.
Fives (and others who struggle to be more decisive) benefit from consciously practicing making decisions, starting small and working up to larger matters. I sometimes urge Fives to pick a simple decision they have to make each day, such as what to have for breakfast, what kind of coffee to have, or what to wear to work, and put a short time limit on themselves. Rather than deliberate for the 30 seconds they may usually take at the Starbucks counter (at the risk of being thrashed by the large and irritated Eight behind them), they limit themselves to 10 seconds. Since the stakes are relatively small, the Five doesn’t lose much by making a decision he
later regrets. As time goes on, he can move to larger and more complicated
decisions to practice.
Despite our view of ourselves and rational creatures, most decisions are based on emotion, and there is a specific feeling that accompanies decisiveness. It is important to learn to recognize the feeling that accompanies this exercise. This feeling can then be deliberately recalled in the future as a useful aid in making more important decisions. What typically happens, however, is that practicing decisiveness eventually makes it an unconscious skill that no longer needs to be practiced.
The goal here is not to make anyone rush to decisions; there are many times when that is a mistake. The goal is to develop the ability to be more decisive when the situation requires. Practicing being decisive at Starbucks today helps one be more decisive in critical matters tomorrow.
Thus ends Mario Sikora's writing, and now back to me:
I love the clarity and specificity with which he lays out his points, and I particularly like his use of brain science (with references to popular cinema and observations of his son's development, too!)
The article also has a long section on working with a 7; as a 6, I identify with both 7 and 5 issues, so I found the article helpful. However, I was quite surprised that the difference between explicit and implicit knowledge is used to discuss point 5, rather than point 6. I associate 6 with needing and wanting more certainty before making decisions, rather than 5. I also associate 6 with the compulsive need to drag things into conscious awareness instead of just doing them.
Sikora's discussion of developing decisiveness and learning to trust to one's intuition reminds me of my task as a 6, which is to learn to trust my Inner Guidance. As a 6 (i.e. as the primary type in the thinking triad), I am supposed to be "most out of touch with" thinking. Riso and Hudson in The Wisdom of the Enneagram say "Sixes are the primary type in the Thinking Triad, meaning that they have the most trouble connecting to their own inner guidance. As a result, they do not have confidence in their own minds and judgment. This does not mean that they do not think. On the contrary, they think -- and worry -- a lot." Riso and Hudson discuss contact with Essence as what helps 6s realize that they are on a firm foundation with their own inner guidance: "When Sixes experience this truth, they feel solid, steady, and supported, as if they were standing on a massive bed of granite. They realize that this ground is the only real security in life, and it is what gives Sixes immense courage. This is the real meaning of faith, their particular Essential quality. Faith is not belief, but a real, immediate knowing that comes from experience. Faith without experience is belief. Faith with experience brings reliable guidance. Much of the personality of Sixes can be seen in an effort to imitate or recreate faith in terms of beliefs and to find a substitute for the certainty that they are already secure as an expression of the Divine."
I find this problematic. As a 6, my central sin is faithlessness (as Cindi and I teach it, anyway -- many others teach that the 6's sin is fear.) The 6's dilemma is how to get there from here? (That is, if you haven't had the kind of experiences Riso and Hudson describe.)
As for Sikora's prescription, frankly, I don't find the advice to practice making small decisions ALL THAT satisfying as a way to access one's intuition, but I do see how it would help, and I see why, and it has the added virtue of not making me extremely uncomfortable.
I am interested in reading more by Mario Sikora, for the reasons enumerated above, and I am in luck, because Cindi received his book, Awareness to Action, for Christmas.
Sikora's discussion of practice and martial arts reminds me of this idea about dreams as the dojo for waking life.
"I Want to Be Like That"
Note: This was originally published on 9/21/08.
Lately, Mary Beth and I have been feeling sad over the death of someone we both admired. David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and others, killed himself on September 12th.
I think his death hit us hard because we both recognized something of ourselves in his writing. Here's how Wallace himself described the phenomenon: "There's a kind of Ah-ha! Somebody at least for a moment feels about something or sees something the way that I do... I feel unalone -- intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel human and unalone and that I'm in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness."
I think anyone who read Wallace's work and knows the Enneagram would have to say he was a head-triader. To me, he seemed to travel on that line between 5 and 7. Take Infinite Jest, for instance -- one thousand and seventy-nine pages of a complicated, intricate, heavily-endnoted, funny, humor-covering-horror can't stop thinking/talking novel. Having gone on (and on) in different voices (with different dialects, vocabularies, time frames, and perspectives) for 127 pages, it hits a quiet spot on page 128.
This is where Wallace introduces the character Lyle, a guru who lives in the weight room at a tennis academy:
"Sometimes the newer kids who won't even let him near them come in and set the resistance on the shoulder-pull at a weight greater than their own weight. The guru on the towel dispenser just sits there and smiles and doesn't say anything. They hunker, then, and grimace, and try to pull the bar down, but, like, lo: the overweighted shoulder-pull becomes a chin-up. Up they go, their own bodies, toward the bar they're trying to pull down. Everyone should get at least one good look at the eyes of a man who finds himself rising toward what he wants to pull down to himself. And I like how the guru on the towel dispenser doesn't laugh at them, or even shake his head sagely on its big brown neck. He just smiles, hiding his tongue. He's like a baby. Everything he sees hits him and sinks without bubbles. He just sits there. I want to be like that. Able to just sit all quiet and pull life toward me, one forehead at a time. His name is supposedly Lyle."
Every time I read that line "I want to be like that", it just knocks the wind out of me , because I think the voice here is finally Wallace's own. It's like when Philip Larkin (a poet Wallace liked a lot) says "That vase" at the end of "Home is So Sad" and I feel like a string has been pulled and I am unravelling.
To me, this is the space of 5 -- between Zen and that endlessly chattering explosion/ implosion of the mind.
Here's Wallace on some stuff that seems pretty Enneagrammatic, from a commencement address he gave in 2005:
"In the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."
Lately, Mary Beth and I have been feeling sad over the death of someone we both admired. David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and others, killed himself on September 12th.
I think his death hit us hard because we both recognized something of ourselves in his writing. Here's how Wallace himself described the phenomenon: "There's a kind of Ah-ha! Somebody at least for a moment feels about something or sees something the way that I do... I feel unalone -- intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel human and unalone and that I'm in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness."
I think anyone who read Wallace's work and knows the Enneagram would have to say he was a head-triader. To me, he seemed to travel on that line between 5 and 7. Take Infinite Jest, for instance -- one thousand and seventy-nine pages of a complicated, intricate, heavily-endnoted, funny, humor-covering-horror can't stop thinking/talking novel. Having gone on (and on) in different voices (with different dialects, vocabularies, time frames, and perspectives) for 127 pages, it hits a quiet spot on page 128.
This is where Wallace introduces the character Lyle, a guru who lives in the weight room at a tennis academy:
"Sometimes the newer kids who won't even let him near them come in and set the resistance on the shoulder-pull at a weight greater than their own weight. The guru on the towel dispenser just sits there and smiles and doesn't say anything. They hunker, then, and grimace, and try to pull the bar down, but, like, lo: the overweighted shoulder-pull becomes a chin-up. Up they go, their own bodies, toward the bar they're trying to pull down. Everyone should get at least one good look at the eyes of a man who finds himself rising toward what he wants to pull down to himself. And I like how the guru on the towel dispenser doesn't laugh at them, or even shake his head sagely on its big brown neck. He just smiles, hiding his tongue. He's like a baby. Everything he sees hits him and sinks without bubbles. He just sits there. I want to be like that. Able to just sit all quiet and pull life toward me, one forehead at a time. His name is supposedly Lyle."
Every time I read that line "I want to be like that", it just knocks the wind out of me , because I think the voice here is finally Wallace's own. It's like when Philip Larkin (a poet Wallace liked a lot) says "That vase" at the end of "Home is So Sad" and I feel like a string has been pulled and I am unravelling.
To me, this is the space of 5 -- between Zen and that endlessly chattering explosion/ implosion of the mind.
Here's Wallace on some stuff that seems pretty Enneagrammatic, from a commencement address he gave in 2005:
"In the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
I think the T-Rex is 7w8
Check this out: http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001437.html and let me know what you think.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Alex n' Audrey Show: Enneagram Autobiography Class 4 Recap
Class session 4 was lightly attended, but deeply felt. Here's what happened:
1. Those who were present (namely Alex and Audrey) shared extensively from their journals. And you missed it!
2. Mary Beth revealed that she had responded to all six of last week's journal questions. (!@#$%&*!!! overacheiver!)
3. In lieu of meditation, I imagined drop-kicking the cd player.
4. Mary Beth talked about 6s and the interplay of compliance and withdrawal in her own life.
5. We talked about how to break out of the type 6 pattern. There is a section called "Practices that Help Sixes Develop" on pages 253 - 255 of The Wisdom of the Enneagram.
6. We also talked about type 7, the habit of collecting experiences (and handshakes), and keeping the energy up when you're feeling down.
7. We suggested a few topics for the journal, including this one (as always, from The W of the E):
"Study what you are calling boredom. What does it feel like in your body? What is the sensation of boredom? As you are able to sense it, what associations or memories does it bring up?"
Next time, we'll discuss: If birds of a feather flock together, why do opposites attract? And types 8 and 9. (See pages 287 - 340 of our favorite book.) Hope to see you there.
1. Those who were present (namely Alex and Audrey) shared extensively from their journals. And you missed it!
2. Mary Beth revealed that she had responded to all six of last week's journal questions. (!@#$%&*!!! overacheiver!)
3. In lieu of meditation, I imagined drop-kicking the cd player.
4. Mary Beth talked about 6s and the interplay of compliance and withdrawal in her own life.
5. We talked about how to break out of the type 6 pattern. There is a section called "Practices that Help Sixes Develop" on pages 253 - 255 of The Wisdom of the Enneagram.
6. We also talked about type 7, the habit of collecting experiences (and handshakes), and keeping the energy up when you're feeling down.
7. We suggested a few topics for the journal, including this one (as always, from The W of the E):
"Study what you are calling boredom. What does it feel like in your body? What is the sensation of boredom? As you are able to sense it, what associations or memories does it bring up?"
Next time, we'll discuss: If birds of a feather flock together, why do opposites attract? And types 8 and 9. (See pages 287 - 340 of our favorite book.) Hope to see you there.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Dr. Phil Show, Part 2
This post is a follow-up to yesterday's post on the Dr. Phil Show (entitled The Island of Constant Talkers.) You will want to read it first (here) if you want to understand what I am writing about.
Read it? Ok, here's the continuation. So Dr. Phil sent Jeni out to watch a bank of three television screens each featuring her talking (specifically, a film of her interviewing for the show.) They sat her at conversational distance away from each of the screens so that she could feel what it was like to be in a conversation with her. She immediately said she got it, but Dr. Phil said "I don't think you do" and then left her to continue watching while he talked with the woman who feared birds, the man who feared vegetables and the teenager who was obsessively in love with Joel Madden (of the band Good Charlotte, and also Nicole Ritchie's boyfriend.) Then he brought Jeni back out and asked her how listening to herself had felt. She said it was, in fact, exhausting to listen to her talking, just as her friends (and, I'm sure, others) had always said. Dr. Phil said what he had done was a combination of immersion therapy and social sensitization. He then called one of Jeni's friends and asked her to be ready to answer some follow-up questions when he called to see whether Jeni was improving.
I don't know what immersion therapy or social sensitization are; do you? Let's go to the web.
OK, so immersion therapy turns out to be this (gradually increasing levels of exposure to a feared object; a way of overcoming phobias.) What he did with Jeni seems to be more the opposite; levels of exposure to something she WAS comfortable with with the goal of making her uncomfortable with it (and to have insights about it.)
As for social sensitization, a web search didn't turn up anything that seemed relevant.
I hope Jeni will be able to benefit from her experience. Once I read that if you feel that when you start talking to a group of people the party really gets started, consider for a moment that they may have been perfectly happily talking about something else before you came up to them, and that even though they are laughing with you, they might actually see you as imposing on them and interrupting them. I thought this was a good point -- because I have felt that way, and I hadn't previously considered it from that point of view.
Meanwhile, the other stories were pretty interesting, too. One thing I liked about this particular episode is that these people seemed a bit more functional that the average Dr. Phil guest, and they all wanted to change (in fact, these were their New Years' resolutions.) There was a guy who seemed otherwise really sane but he hates vegetables. As it turns out, his parents are farmers or work at the farmer's market or something, and in his youth he had had to stand near a container of rotting vegetables and take the bad vegetables out there to be disposed of, and when he sees his wife eat a salad, in his mind he sees her eating garbage. Anyway, he managed to eat half a circle of zucchini. This inspired me to want to overcome my phobia of mayonnaise; luckily, however, change is less imperative in my case because mayonnaise is a less significant food group than vegetables. This (and the bird fear lady) reminds me of my sister-in-law who told me she couldn't touch a worm but she could look at a worm... maybe. (She said this in such a focused, thoughtful way that I count it as the funniest thing she's ever said. She eventually touched a worm, too.)
I used to be terribly repulsed by slugs. Well, one time I poured myself some bath water, got into the tub, saw what was on the side of the tub, and screamed! The apartment people had removed some mildewed-looking caulk, and hadn't put new caulk on, and a baby slug had crawled through the gap into the tub! Well, this wasn't the end of the story, because every morning I'd get up to take a shower and look into the tub to see whether a slug had come in. My boyfriend was a really nice person, and I'd wake him up to get the slug out of the tub and go put it out on the grass for me. Eventually it dawned on me that I was at least 1000 times bigger than a baby slug (not to mention faster, smarter, and better-looking) and I was perfectly able to scoop a slug up on a piece of toilet paper myself. Later on, I was even able to touch one, and now I am not scared of them anymore.
I'm going to mention Britney Spears as an experiment to see if I get a lot of search hits, because Dr. Phil and Britney Spears are in the news right now (he visited her when she was hospitalized overnight after refusing to give the boys back to Kevin.)
If you found this discussion of overtalking relevant, you may also be interested in Cindi's list of New Year's resolutions for 7s here.
Read it? Ok, here's the continuation. So Dr. Phil sent Jeni out to watch a bank of three television screens each featuring her talking (specifically, a film of her interviewing for the show.) They sat her at conversational distance away from each of the screens so that she could feel what it was like to be in a conversation with her. She immediately said she got it, but Dr. Phil said "I don't think you do" and then left her to continue watching while he talked with the woman who feared birds, the man who feared vegetables and the teenager who was obsessively in love with Joel Madden (of the band Good Charlotte, and also Nicole Ritchie's boyfriend.) Then he brought Jeni back out and asked her how listening to herself had felt. She said it was, in fact, exhausting to listen to her talking, just as her friends (and, I'm sure, others) had always said. Dr. Phil said what he had done was a combination of immersion therapy and social sensitization. He then called one of Jeni's friends and asked her to be ready to answer some follow-up questions when he called to see whether Jeni was improving.
I don't know what immersion therapy or social sensitization are; do you? Let's go to the web.
OK, so immersion therapy turns out to be this (gradually increasing levels of exposure to a feared object; a way of overcoming phobias.) What he did with Jeni seems to be more the opposite; levels of exposure to something she WAS comfortable with with the goal of making her uncomfortable with it (and to have insights about it.)
As for social sensitization, a web search didn't turn up anything that seemed relevant.
I hope Jeni will be able to benefit from her experience. Once I read that if you feel that when you start talking to a group of people the party really gets started, consider for a moment that they may have been perfectly happily talking about something else before you came up to them, and that even though they are laughing with you, they might actually see you as imposing on them and interrupting them. I thought this was a good point -- because I have felt that way, and I hadn't previously considered it from that point of view.
Meanwhile, the other stories were pretty interesting, too. One thing I liked about this particular episode is that these people seemed a bit more functional that the average Dr. Phil guest, and they all wanted to change (in fact, these were their New Years' resolutions.) There was a guy who seemed otherwise really sane but he hates vegetables. As it turns out, his parents are farmers or work at the farmer's market or something, and in his youth he had had to stand near a container of rotting vegetables and take the bad vegetables out there to be disposed of, and when he sees his wife eat a salad, in his mind he sees her eating garbage. Anyway, he managed to eat half a circle of zucchini. This inspired me to want to overcome my phobia of mayonnaise; luckily, however, change is less imperative in my case because mayonnaise is a less significant food group than vegetables. This (and the bird fear lady) reminds me of my sister-in-law who told me she couldn't touch a worm but she could look at a worm... maybe. (She said this in such a focused, thoughtful way that I count it as the funniest thing she's ever said. She eventually touched a worm, too.)
I used to be terribly repulsed by slugs. Well, one time I poured myself some bath water, got into the tub, saw what was on the side of the tub, and screamed! The apartment people had removed some mildewed-looking caulk, and hadn't put new caulk on, and a baby slug had crawled through the gap into the tub! Well, this wasn't the end of the story, because every morning I'd get up to take a shower and look into the tub to see whether a slug had come in. My boyfriend was a really nice person, and I'd wake him up to get the slug out of the tub and go put it out on the grass for me. Eventually it dawned on me that I was at least 1000 times bigger than a baby slug (not to mention faster, smarter, and better-looking) and I was perfectly able to scoop a slug up on a piece of toilet paper myself. Later on, I was even able to touch one, and now I am not scared of them anymore.
I'm going to mention Britney Spears as an experiment to see if I get a lot of search hits, because Dr. Phil and Britney Spears are in the news right now (he visited her when she was hospitalized overnight after refusing to give the boys back to Kevin.)
If you found this discussion of overtalking relevant, you may also be interested in Cindi's list of New Year's resolutions for 7s here.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The Island of Constant Talkers
Yesterday's Dr. Phil was about New Year's resolutions. Link here.
The first guest was Jeni, whose problem is that she talks constantly. Her mom said Jeni's been doing it since she learned to talk, and that if Jeni had been her first child, she'd only have had one. (!) Jeni says she's lost a job and several promotions over her talkativeness, that she rarely goes on any second dates, and that she is often late for appointments because she stops to talk with strangers in the street. Dr. Phil timed how long it took her to answer questions during the interview and compared it to the average length of time taken; I don't remember the specifics but there was quite a difference.
Dr. Phil had set up a buzzer for the interview and would hit the buzzer ("aaanh") when he felt Jeni had gone on long enough/answered the question/made her point. (He was a little quick on the buzzer in my opinion, actually.) Have you ever wished you could do that to someone? He asked her whether she had any idea why she was this way, and she said she had several theories. He asked her to give the short version of her strongest theory; she said she had ADD. Dr. Phil said he wasn't sure she had ADD, but he was pretty sure she had anxiety. He asked her whether she felt compelled to fill up any empty spaces in the conversation and she said she did. Phil said he thought she didn't perceive how the talking seemed from the outside, so his crew had filmed her talking and he sent her backstage to watch some of the footage, and then come back later after some other guests had appeared.
Jeni is a classic 7 (and she also seemed like maybe an ENFP -- she is clearly an EP, anyway.) I think a big hurdle with learning enneagram typing is trying to get the Gestalt of a type from words on a page; it took me a long time to realize (through induction) how talkative 7s usually are. And I believe that the 7s' talkativeness is understressed in the enneagram literature. To test this, I looked at the 7 description in Margaret Frings Keyes' Emotions and the Enneagram; it includes the sentence "They enjoy talk and entertaining gossip," but that's the only mention. The 1990 version of Understanding the Enneagram by Don Riso says of the average 7: "Begin to be hyperactive, throwing themselves into constant activity, doing and saying whatever comes to mind." and "Uninhibited, 'flighty,' flamboyant, outrageous, outspoken, loud and brash -- constantly talking, wisecracking, joking and 'performing' to stay in high spirits." (Italics mine.) Although it's there, I think it's underplayed in terms of how much it's talked about versus how much it's part of the 7s personality (from my observation.) I suppose I say this because it's a characteristic that is very apparent from the outside of a person. That being said, 7s usually have this trait to some degree, but many aren't nearly as bad as Jeni. Also, I would imagine that compulsive talking would increase as one goes down the levels of health. A couple of movies which showcase the talkative nature of the 7 personality are My Dinner With Andre and Big Fish.
I don't think Jeni is all that unusual in having been passed over for promotions because of this characteristic: overtalking gets really old for other people. In my experience, Jeni's most unusual characteristic is that she is seeking help for it. Cindi and I just had a discussion about this, and she pointed out that with many vices and character flaws you often hear the individual at least nod at wanting to change. Not so with overtalking, to the point that in some cases very direct statements such as "Let's talk about something else" or "I am tired of listening now" do not work, and neither do little employee "counseling" sessions on the job. I believe that Dr. Phil is onto something when he says Jeni is not in touch with how her behavior appears from the outside. As a 6w7 (and ENFP) myself, I can relate to how it feels differently from the inside -- it seems to you like everybody's having fun. Especially in my younger days, I felt very invested in being "interesting," and felt that having a lot to say was a marker for how interesting a person was.
I hope Jeni can get some help from the Dr. Phil show; she seems like a nice, and certainly a friendly, person. Overtalking is, at least on the surface, a well-meaning vice. I haven't watched the end of the show, and I haven't yet found out what happens when Jeni watches the tapes. I'd like to see some good advice given because I truly do think this problem is holding some good people back. I believe the enneagram answer would be learning to calm down rather than to develop self-control per se; I think Dr. Phil might be headed in that direction as well with his statement about Jeni's anxiety and I look forard to seeing what he has to say (and will report tomorrow.)
The title of this post, The Island of Constant Talkers, refers to the reality show Cindi and I are pitching in which we put all these people on an island together. (Go ahead and steal this idea.) Cindi also shared an interesting anecdote from the life of Rod Serling (she read his biography.) Apparently, he was one of these non-stop talkers. His family (when he was a kid) got together and decided not to talk to Rod during the whole car ride. I guess they were trying out various strategies, and thought maybe talking back only encouraged him. The strategy failed, however, and he talked non-stop all the way up and all the way back, and very likely didn't notice that they weren't talking.
The first guest was Jeni, whose problem is that she talks constantly. Her mom said Jeni's been doing it since she learned to talk, and that if Jeni had been her first child, she'd only have had one. (!) Jeni says she's lost a job and several promotions over her talkativeness, that she rarely goes on any second dates, and that she is often late for appointments because she stops to talk with strangers in the street. Dr. Phil timed how long it took her to answer questions during the interview and compared it to the average length of time taken; I don't remember the specifics but there was quite a difference.
Dr. Phil had set up a buzzer for the interview and would hit the buzzer ("aaanh") when he felt Jeni had gone on long enough/answered the question/made her point. (He was a little quick on the buzzer in my opinion, actually.) Have you ever wished you could do that to someone? He asked her whether she had any idea why she was this way, and she said she had several theories. He asked her to give the short version of her strongest theory; she said she had ADD. Dr. Phil said he wasn't sure she had ADD, but he was pretty sure she had anxiety. He asked her whether she felt compelled to fill up any empty spaces in the conversation and she said she did. Phil said he thought she didn't perceive how the talking seemed from the outside, so his crew had filmed her talking and he sent her backstage to watch some of the footage, and then come back later after some other guests had appeared.
Jeni is a classic 7 (and she also seemed like maybe an ENFP -- she is clearly an EP, anyway.) I think a big hurdle with learning enneagram typing is trying to get the Gestalt of a type from words on a page; it took me a long time to realize (through induction) how talkative 7s usually are. And I believe that the 7s' talkativeness is understressed in the enneagram literature. To test this, I looked at the 7 description in Margaret Frings Keyes' Emotions and the Enneagram; it includes the sentence "They enjoy talk and entertaining gossip," but that's the only mention. The 1990 version of Understanding the Enneagram by Don Riso says of the average 7: "Begin to be hyperactive, throwing themselves into constant activity, doing and saying whatever comes to mind." and "Uninhibited, 'flighty,' flamboyant, outrageous, outspoken, loud and brash -- constantly talking, wisecracking, joking and 'performing' to stay in high spirits." (Italics mine.) Although it's there, I think it's underplayed in terms of how much it's talked about versus how much it's part of the 7s personality (from my observation.) I suppose I say this because it's a characteristic that is very apparent from the outside of a person. That being said, 7s usually have this trait to some degree, but many aren't nearly as bad as Jeni. Also, I would imagine that compulsive talking would increase as one goes down the levels of health. A couple of movies which showcase the talkative nature of the 7 personality are My Dinner With Andre and Big Fish.
I don't think Jeni is all that unusual in having been passed over for promotions because of this characteristic: overtalking gets really old for other people. In my experience, Jeni's most unusual characteristic is that she is seeking help for it. Cindi and I just had a discussion about this, and she pointed out that with many vices and character flaws you often hear the individual at least nod at wanting to change. Not so with overtalking, to the point that in some cases very direct statements such as "Let's talk about something else" or "I am tired of listening now" do not work, and neither do little employee "counseling" sessions on the job. I believe that Dr. Phil is onto something when he says Jeni is not in touch with how her behavior appears from the outside. As a 6w7 (and ENFP) myself, I can relate to how it feels differently from the inside -- it seems to you like everybody's having fun. Especially in my younger days, I felt very invested in being "interesting," and felt that having a lot to say was a marker for how interesting a person was.
I hope Jeni can get some help from the Dr. Phil show; she seems like a nice, and certainly a friendly, person. Overtalking is, at least on the surface, a well-meaning vice. I haven't watched the end of the show, and I haven't yet found out what happens when Jeni watches the tapes. I'd like to see some good advice given because I truly do think this problem is holding some good people back. I believe the enneagram answer would be learning to calm down rather than to develop self-control per se; I think Dr. Phil might be headed in that direction as well with his statement about Jeni's anxiety and I look forard to seeing what he has to say (and will report tomorrow.)
The title of this post, The Island of Constant Talkers, refers to the reality show Cindi and I are pitching in which we put all these people on an island together. (Go ahead and steal this idea.) Cindi also shared an interesting anecdote from the life of Rod Serling (she read his biography.) Apparently, he was one of these non-stop talkers. His family (when he was a kid) got together and decided not to talk to Rod during the whole car ride. I guess they were trying out various strategies, and thought maybe talking back only encouraged him. The strategy failed, however, and he talked non-stop all the way up and all the way back, and very likely didn't notice that they weren't talking.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Dance Dance Resolutions for 7s, 8s, and 9s
At church this morning, we heard this excerpt from Frederick Buechner's Telling Secrets:
"Memory makes it possible for us both to bless the past, even those parts of it that we have always felt cursed by, and also to be blessed by it."
Then, after a sermon about, among other things, the eternal now, we were invited to write, on little slips of paper, things we intended to carry with us into the new year. Finally, we burned the paper, the ashes fell down, the smoke rose up, and our intentions were transformed.
What will become of your resolutions, types 7, 8, and 9? What mighty changes will result from these humble little (Riso and Hudson-inspired) suggestions?
Type 7:
1. Spend more time observing your impulses, and less time giving in to them.
2. Improve your listening skills.
3. Play "quiet mouse" to win.
4. Spend one day per week without the tv or stereo on.
5. Find ways to delay gratification.
6. Tell yourself that quality is more important than quantity.
7. While weighing your options, consider the consequences.
8. For your consideration in 2008:
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. " ~James Openheim
"Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want." ~Margaret Young
"There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second." ~Logan Pearsall Smith
"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
"If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. " ~Taisen Deshimaru
"The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things." ~Epictetus
9. Put your words to the "Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?" test, not the "Is it funny?" test.
10. Try crying, instead of laughing, when you're sad.
11. When you think you're running toward something, ask yourself what you're running away from.
12. Count your blessings.
Type 8:
1. From the Tao te Ching: "leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue."
2. If it doesn't really matter to you, let someone else get their way.
3. Question your "me against the world" attitude.
4. Hug your allies. And your "enemies."
5. If you find yourself reflecting on your own self-reliance, reflect on interdependence instead. When you eat an apple, consider the one who planted the tree, and so on.
6. Ask yourself what price you have paid for power and try to strike a better bargain.
7. Instead of acting solely out of self-interest, act on behalf of your relationship, your family, or your cause. Get one of those if you don't have one already.
8. Something to consider, straight from Understanding the Enneagram: "If you do not believe in God, is your nonbelief based on genuine intellectual convictions or merely on the fact that you do not want to give up your ego and the things you enjoy? A great deal may depend on your answer to this question."
9. To mix quotes willy-nilly, Beat your swords into ploughshares, or else you will die by them.
10. Use your resources to create opportunities for others.
11. Scratch someone else's back.
12. Think of a way to create a legacy of goodness that will live on after you.
Type 9:
1. Remember that love is something you do, and take action.
2. Start a new independent activity this year.
3. Cut back on daydreaming and zoning out.
4. Recognize that negative emotions find a way to express themselves, even if you try to repress them. Give voice to your anger and anxiety. Let them out and let them go.
5. Examine the ways your actions (or your passivity) have affected your relationships. Own your part of your conflicts.
6. Exercise more frequently. This video game might help.
7. If you have unexplained headaches, backaches, or nausea, consider the idea that repressed emotions might be the cause. Learn to express your feelings.
8. Swear off drugs and alcohol.
9. Make a list of things you would like to do before you die, and do some of them this year.
10. Stand up for yourself whenever you are being mistreated.
11. Make it a goal to learn something new about every person you love this year.
Bless the past; lean into the future. Mary Beth will be blogging on resolutions for 6s shortly.
"Memory makes it possible for us both to bless the past, even those parts of it that we have always felt cursed by, and also to be blessed by it."
Then, after a sermon about, among other things, the eternal now, we were invited to write, on little slips of paper, things we intended to carry with us into the new year. Finally, we burned the paper, the ashes fell down, the smoke rose up, and our intentions were transformed.
What will become of your resolutions, types 7, 8, and 9? What mighty changes will result from these humble little (Riso and Hudson-inspired) suggestions?
Type 7:
1. Spend more time observing your impulses, and less time giving in to them.
2. Improve your listening skills.
3. Play "quiet mouse" to win.
4. Spend one day per week without the tv or stereo on.
5. Find ways to delay gratification.
6. Tell yourself that quality is more important than quantity.
7. While weighing your options, consider the consequences.
8. For your consideration in 2008:
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. " ~James Openheim
"Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want." ~Margaret Young
"There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second." ~Logan Pearsall Smith
"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
"If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. " ~Taisen Deshimaru
"The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things." ~Epictetus
9. Put your words to the "Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?" test, not the "Is it funny?" test.
10. Try crying, instead of laughing, when you're sad.
11. When you think you're running toward something, ask yourself what you're running away from.
12. Count your blessings.
Type 8:
1. From the Tao te Ching: "leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue."
2. If it doesn't really matter to you, let someone else get their way.
3. Question your "me against the world" attitude.
4. Hug your allies. And your "enemies."
5. If you find yourself reflecting on your own self-reliance, reflect on interdependence instead. When you eat an apple, consider the one who planted the tree, and so on.
6. Ask yourself what price you have paid for power and try to strike a better bargain.
7. Instead of acting solely out of self-interest, act on behalf of your relationship, your family, or your cause. Get one of those if you don't have one already.
8. Something to consider, straight from Understanding the Enneagram: "If you do not believe in God, is your nonbelief based on genuine intellectual convictions or merely on the fact that you do not want to give up your ego and the things you enjoy? A great deal may depend on your answer to this question."
9. To mix quotes willy-nilly, Beat your swords into ploughshares, or else you will die by them.
10. Use your resources to create opportunities for others.
11. Scratch someone else's back.
12. Think of a way to create a legacy of goodness that will live on after you.
Type 9:
1. Remember that love is something you do, and take action.
2. Start a new independent activity this year.
3. Cut back on daydreaming and zoning out.
4. Recognize that negative emotions find a way to express themselves, even if you try to repress them. Give voice to your anger and anxiety. Let them out and let them go.
5. Examine the ways your actions (or your passivity) have affected your relationships. Own your part of your conflicts.
6. Exercise more frequently. This video game might help.
7. If you have unexplained headaches, backaches, or nausea, consider the idea that repressed emotions might be the cause. Learn to express your feelings.
8. Swear off drugs and alcohol.
9. Make a list of things you would like to do before you die, and do some of them this year.
10. Stand up for yourself whenever you are being mistreated.
11. Make it a goal to learn something new about every person you love this year.
Bless the past; lean into the future. Mary Beth will be blogging on resolutions for 6s shortly.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The Principles of Lust
The White Stone Journal has this interesting article on the seven deadly sins. It says, in part:
"An online poll displayed the following results:
Of the seven deadly sins, this ONE is my biggest failing:
Lust 35%
Anger 18%
Pride 12%
Sloth 10%
Envy 10%
Gluttony 9%
Greed 6% "
When I read this, I began to wonder why lust was such a popular choice. I figured that, since lust is associated with sex, people think it's, well, sexy.
In Enneagrammatic terms, the sin of lust is associated with personality type 8. While this sin may play out literally as an addiction to sex, just as a 7's sin of gluttony may play out literally (I have certainly been at restaurants with many a 7 who ordered practically everything on the menu), it is more fruitful to understand both sins more metaphorically.
In Riso and Hudson's Understanding the Enneagram, lust is described thusly:
"Lustful intensity arises in response to the loss of the Virtue of Innocence. When we are relaxed, open, and present, we feel a natural vitality and experience our 'realness' and freedom directly. When we are gripped by the passion of lust, however, we attempt to gain this sense of aliveness and freedom through the intensity of our interactions with the environment and with others. We do not want to have a discussion: we want to have a discussion, or even an argument. Becoming agitated gives us a false feeling of being strong and real. But to the extent that Eights are blocked from relaxation and presence, they will need to be worked up all the time.
Thus, lustful Eights are not interested in lukewarm responses to life and particularly do not want weak responses to themselves... The more insecure Eights become, the greater their need for intensity, excess, struggle, and control. The need to assert themselves can turn into the desire to dominate their environment and the people in it. Ironically, when we have succumbed to the Passion of Lust, we are quite out of control. The objects of our lust, positive or negative, dominate and control us."
So what we have with a fixated type 8 is a character who, like the neighboring type 7 who chases more and more shallow experiences without delving into any of them deeply enough to feel "full", needs stronger and stronger stimuli in order to feel anything at all.
Not very sexy, in my opinion.
"An online poll displayed the following results:
Of the seven deadly sins, this ONE is my biggest failing:
Lust 35%
Anger 18%
Pride 12%
Sloth 10%
Envy 10%
Gluttony 9%
Greed 6% "
When I read this, I began to wonder why lust was such a popular choice. I figured that, since lust is associated with sex, people think it's, well, sexy.
In Enneagrammatic terms, the sin of lust is associated with personality type 8. While this sin may play out literally as an addiction to sex, just as a 7's sin of gluttony may play out literally (I have certainly been at restaurants with many a 7 who ordered practically everything on the menu), it is more fruitful to understand both sins more metaphorically.
In Riso and Hudson's Understanding the Enneagram, lust is described thusly:
"Lustful intensity arises in response to the loss of the Virtue of Innocence. When we are relaxed, open, and present, we feel a natural vitality and experience our 'realness' and freedom directly. When we are gripped by the passion of lust, however, we attempt to gain this sense of aliveness and freedom through the intensity of our interactions with the environment and with others. We do not want to have a discussion: we want to have a discussion, or even an argument. Becoming agitated gives us a false feeling of being strong and real. But to the extent that Eights are blocked from relaxation and presence, they will need to be worked up all the time.
Thus, lustful Eights are not interested in lukewarm responses to life and particularly do not want weak responses to themselves... The more insecure Eights become, the greater their need for intensity, excess, struggle, and control. The need to assert themselves can turn into the desire to dominate their environment and the people in it. Ironically, when we have succumbed to the Passion of Lust, we are quite out of control. The objects of our lust, positive or negative, dominate and control us."
So what we have with a fixated type 8 is a character who, like the neighboring type 7 who chases more and more shallow experiences without delving into any of them deeply enough to feel "full", needs stronger and stronger stimuli in order to feel anything at all.
Not very sexy, in my opinion.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
What do you look for in a political candidate?
Post #3 from my other blog, The Half-Assed Game.
Mainly about presidential politics, but somewhat about the Enneagram.
Mainly about presidential politics, but somewhat about the Enneagram.
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