Feels like I am treading on thin ice, any minute now it could break. Vulnerability is not a location with which I am familiar! So many helpful tools out there, I am pretty ignorant of most of them, have a small acquaintance with the ‘enneagram’ which like all those tools does not put one in a box, but helps one to see what box you are already in. Gayle and I have almost completed an online course, so I am now pretty qualified to write about all of her weaknesses… maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick? It has been ever so helpful. We are so alike and so unalike, though thinking to myself, she does have plenty of time to adapt and change… surely?
Anyway one of the early comments was ‘there is one type on the enneagram that is really happy with themselves and don’t really see the need to change’. I thought ‘I hope she reveals that as I would love to know who that would be’. Gayle keeps quiet and at the end of the session out it comes – me!! How true.
I have 7 siblings, my mother 1 of 13 so I reckon between us all we probably hold the entire DNA for the human race, including I am sure the DNA of the Neanderthal race – I am just trying to work out who got what as I know that I know my DNA will come back as pure… of course. Anyway, a little more serious, an elder brother has written an excellent reflection on his life and in early chapters he writes about the Scotts and the Eunsons (parental lines). As I read this I shout to Gayle, ‘You have to read this chapter in Ken’s book. It’s about his parents, it is incredible!’
Although I do realise they were also my parents, there was more to the comment than a little bit of humour. First, we all have different experiences of parents and home life. Mine was independence. A farm has fields, many fields, a boy has a football. Perfect. Eating? Well that can be done in 6 minutes and off again.
#8 on the enneagram is quite happy in their own company. They normally learn to spell relationships / friendship much later in life, as those elements can simply get in the way. Unbelievably I had another birthday this year, and so now I can begin to think occasionaly about reflecting back to an earlier life (I have not read stuff on ‘second half of life’ but probably should get round to that in one of the coming decades). So with deep reflection, that I will think about a few times as I go on my four trains today to get to my destination tonight, here are my six words for today:
Standing strong alone or leaning in?
Enneagram- a brutal but loving mirror.
Tried conforming nine learning to live