The Categorizing Habit

Posted on 04/08/2013 | 5 comments

brainSometimes people resist learning about the Enneagram (or MBTI) because they don’t like the idea of categorizing people—and they themselves are especially reluctant to be categorized.

But it turns out that our brains categorize things and people all the time at the unconscious level. And this can be very useful.

In Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, Leonard Mlodinow says that categorization is one of the most important mental acts we perform.

One of the principal ways we categorize is by maximizing the importance of certain differences…while minimizing the relevance of others. If we conclude that a certain set of objects belongs to one group and a second set of objects to another, we may then perceive those within the same group as more similar than they really are—and those in different groups as less similar than they really are. Merely placing objects in groups can affect our judgment of those objects.

Substitute “persons” for “objects” and you can see how categorization can lead to problems.

Our brains categorize other people whether we’re aware of it or not. And how our brains categorize them determines how we react to them and often how we treat them. But since this categorization is unconscious, we aren’t aware of it.

I remember that when I moved to New Mexico from California, I soon made the acquaintance of several other 8s. Immediately, I felt comfortable with all of them as a result of our similarities. Although we all have significant differences, those differences did not seem as important as our similarities so I downplayed them.

Categorizing people by Enneagram type is usually a conscious and deliberate process. But the traits and characteristics we associate with different types—and our attitudes toward them—may not be entirely conscious. Those unconscious attitudes may lead to negative stereotyping we aren’t even aware of.

So we don’t really have a choice when it comes to our brains’ categorizing habit and we aren’t privy to that information. But we can pay attention to the way we use the Enneagram to categorize people. We can notice when we perceive all 2s or all 9s as being alike. We can remember that although all 2s and all 9s have a lot in common with each other, each 2 and each 9 is different from the others. And even though we may not be 2s or 9s, we still have things in common with them. They are not as different from us as our categorization might imply.

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Type 4: Wheeee!

Posted on 04/05/2013 | 9 comments

4The folks in the Type 4 video from understandingpersonality.com do seem to be  very dramatic. Being second best might not be ideal, but does it really stack up as a tragedy? This clip makes me wonder what type the interviewer is.

 

Mediocre or ordinary is like a swear word. Like that’s the last thing you would want to be.

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Look, a Bird!

Posted on 04/01/2013 | 2 comments

Procrastination

Everyone procrastinates at one time or another, but not everyone is a habitual procrastinator. Procrastination is a characteristic often associated with 6s. It is also quite often linked with perfectionism, as if perfectionism is a direct and quantifiable cause of procrastination. This is one of those things I’ve always wondered about because 6s have never seemed like perfectionists to me.

6s can be full of anxiety, however; so maybe anxiety leads to procrastination. But according to the research, the anxiety people feel when a deadline is staring them in the face and they aren’t sure they can meet it is the result of having procrastinated.

According to analysis of about a hundred studies involving tens of thousands of participants, anxiety produces a negligible amount of procrastination at best—and even that tiny amount disappears completely after you take into account other personality characteristics, especially impulsiveness.
–Piers Steel, Ph.D., author of The Procrastination Equation

Impulsive?

It turns out that perfectionists actually tend to procrastinate less than other people do, which makes sense when you think about it. According to Piers Steel, it’s impulsiveness that is “the nickel-iron core” of procrastination:

[I]mpulsiveness creates procrastination because it makes small but immediate temptations, like playing Minesweeper or updating your social network status, especially attractive. The reward might be small but the delay is virtually nonexistent. On the flip side, large but distant rewards, like graduating or saving for retirement, aren’t valued much at all. Despite their importance, these long-term goals don’t motivate us until the march of time itself eventually transforms them into short-term consequences. Only in those final hours do we frantically try to catch up on what we really should have addressed long before. The more impulsive you are, the closer to deadlines you need to be before you’ll feel fully motivated.

Or Distractible?

That makes sense, but I wonder if distractibility—which means to turn away from the original focus of attention or interest—might not be a more apt term for this than impulsiveness—which means to act suddenly on impulse without reflection.

Just as everyone procrastinates from time to time, anyone can become distracted. But maybe some Enneagram types are naturally easier to distract than others.

1s, 2s, and 6s, the Compliant types, are prone to getting caught up in, and distracted by, whatever is going on in the immediate moment, at which point they lose sight of the bigger picture. It seems like they have a more difficult time keeping focused.

9s are notorious for their low distractibility threshold. One 9 in an Enneagram video confessed that even if she had to be somewhere at a particular time and was already late, she might still find herself at home picking dead leaves off of her plants. Random elements in the environment reach out and grab 9s’ attention. “Look, a bird!”

4s and 5s are not naturally focused on or attuned to the demands of the external world. When they put things off, is it because they are procrastinating or because they simply don’t care? Maybe it’s the same thing. Steel says:

Two big contributing factors to procrastination are straightforward: low self-confidence and the aversiveness of tasks. If we doubt our ability to complete a chore and find it as exciting as watching concrete set, we are more likely to put it off. It is no wonder that taxes, which are both difficult and boring, are famous for making procrastinators out of almost all of us.

So 4s might be inclined to procrastinate about boring tasks and 5s about tasks they feel less confident about doing successfully.

7s are sometimes described as impulsive and other times as distracted, as if the terms mean the same thing, which they don’t. I think impulsive better defines them than distracted, but they are likely to procrastinate when it comes to doing things they see as painful or unpleasant.

8s are usually very focused and don’t appear to be procrastinators, but they are no strangers to it. For one thing, they tend to avoid doing things that aren’t a part of their current agenda. For another, they don’t see a problem in putting things off till the last minute, or not doing them at all, figuring they can deal with the consequences.

3s may be the least likely of all the types to procrastinate. Their drive to succeed means they need to do whatever they attempt well. Procrastinating would be too dangerous a game to play.

Go ahead, procrastinate

How much do you procrastinate? Here’s a link to a procrastination survey you can complete. It might be an interesting distraction.

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Posted in Compliant Stance, Habit, Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, Type 5, Type 6, Type 7, Type 8, Type 9

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Type 3: Well, I’m Great, You Know

Posted on 03/29/2013 | Leave a comment

3Here’s the video clip for type 3 from understandingpersonality.com. One thing I really like about this series is the humor the interviewer brings to it.

3s are performers, and being charming is a big part of their performance.

I like how these folks are up front about what they do.

I can put up a mask so I can seduce you, you know. I know what you expect of me, so I perform that. So then you like me.

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Ennea-Journaling our Non-Dominant Centers

Posted on 03/25/2013 | Leave a comment

Our dominant center is the center where our home point is located. Our non-dominant centers are the centers where our stress and security points are located. As an example, the home point for a 7 is in the Thinking center, the stress point (1) is in the Doing center, and the security point (4) is in the Feeling center.

3 Centers

For a list of the center relationships for all types, click here.

One of the ways to get more comfortable with your two non-dominant Centers of Intelligence is to spend some time with them. When you get to know them better, they won’t seem as alien. You’ll be able to rely on and trust them more often and more easily.

Get Acquainted

If you don’t know much about your stress or security point, check out a description of it in a book or online. Notice your reactions to what you read. Do you recognize yourself in any parts of the description? What do you like or not like about? What could you use more of from that type? Write out how you feel and what you’ve noticed about this type.

Visualize

Sit quietly for a few minutes with your eyes closed. Visualize your stress or security point. What does it look like? (What color is it? How large or small? Does it have a texture?) Does it remind you of anyone or anything? Does it have an attitude? How do you feel about it? How would you describe it to someone else? What is its name?

Once you have a visual and visceral sense of this point, write a brief description of it.

Write a Letter

Write a letter to this point, addressing it by its number or your name for it. Pour out your questions, concerns, thoughts, feelings, and desires. In terms of your relationship with it, let it know exactly what you want—and don’t want—from it. Don’t think too much about this while you’re writing. Just let your pen flow across the page.

Have a Dialogue

In addition to, or instead of, writing a letter to this point, have a dialogue with it. A journaling dialogue is like having a conversation between two people, but on paper. It’s usually easiest to begin a dialogue by asking a question, so think of something you’d like to ask this point, then allow the point to respond. Identify who is speaking each time you change voices. Allow yourself to write whatever comes to you.

Mindmap

Mind map

Mind map (Photo credit: Squallwc)

Another way to get acquainted with your stress or security point is to create a mindmap of it. Mindmapping is form of free association in which you use key words and phrases rather than flow writing. You’ll need a piece of unlined paper and a pen (a set of colored pens is useful but optional). Write the number or name of the point in the middle of the page and draw a circle around it. Click here for more directions on mindmapping if you’re not familiar with the process. When you finish your mindmap, review it and then do a quick flow-writing exercise to summarize it.

These journaling exercises can be used individually or in any combination and can be repeated as often as you like.

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Posted in Centers of Intelligence, Ennea-Journaling, Security Point, Stress Point

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Giving to Get (Type 2)

Posted on 03/22/2013 | Leave a comment

2Here are a couple of video clips on 2s. The first one is from understandingpersonality.com. The second is an excerpt from the Type 2 panel at the first International Enneagram Conference held in Palo Alto, California nearly 20 years ago.

I could see that people were needy people. Everywhere. All the time. So it gave me an excuse to do something for them all the time. If someone is not well, I’ll say, “Oh, did you try that? Because maybe it’s good for you.” Really what’s important is to fix.

When I first read the chapter on 2s in the Enneagram, I was relating to a lot of it until it got to this part about giving to get. And I said, “Oh, that’s ridiculous. I never give to get. I’m just the most helpful, giving, nurturing person in the world. I know dozens of people who couldn’t survive without me.”

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4s—From the Perspective of a 4

Posted on 03/18/2013 | 3 comments
Waves breaking at Porto Covo, west coast of Po...

Waves breaking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a guest post from Connie Howard, who graciously agreed to share her perspective of being a 4.

Please check out her blog, Sorting it Out, which is full of wonderful writing, straight from the heart.

Thanks for the invitation, Joycelyn.

Being a 4, for me, is lovely, intense, and lonely all rolled into one. We go by a number of names: the Romantic, the Aesthete, the Individualist, the Artist, and the Melancholic. This last one isn’t exactly a name anyone would embrace eagerly, but it has some truth, and that truth, I’m coming to believe, may have something to do with our fast-paced, work-hard, play-hard, bottom-line oriented culture, which 4s don’t always fit into very well.

The name that perhaps resonates most strongly with me is the Aesthete. I experience thundering waves or towering ancient trees or the creamy skin of a newborn as achingly beautiful. And I’m a Romantic, yes, though I am also very, very practical and organized. I like my food saucy and spicy and served with wine in candle-lit rooms, but this does not mean I won’t enjoy plain food by fluorescent lighting too. Nor does being a romantic mean I don’t work hard.

I’m drawn to happy and sad and all things laced with magic. I prefer sad movies to frivolous or sentimental ones, though I love good comedy (which, to be truly good, must in my mind be rooted in the sad material of life.) I love to socialize, but it’s got to have an element of meaningful and substantial, and move beyond small-talk and trivia. I have, since childhood, been known to be a little earnest.

Envy

But first things first, the character flaw we are perhaps most well-known for, and the one I’ve been most frequently judged for—envy. First, envy is not at all the same as feeling insecure. This has so often been assumed I can’t stress it enough. It isn’t one tiny bit the same. I have often been envious of you, but never unsure of your loyalty to me.

Equally important, or maybe more important, envy never, ever means I don’t want you to have whatever it is I envy—it means only that I want it for myself also. Who wouldn’t envy and want your charismatic, magnanimous, agreeable personality? Who wouldn’t sometimes envy your beauty, your good health, your strength, your seemingly limitless ability to make others laugh, your energy and freedom to party and escape the darker side? Who wouldn’t sometimes feel daunted by your brilliant light? It’s a compliment, really.

And there’s also this: I don’t really dance with envy all that terribly much more than you do, not from what I can see. It seems to me that I just admit it more readily, so please don’t judge me too harshly. Besides, it’s not any worse, as character flaws and hurdles go, than the one you sometimes stumble on, just different.

I love what a wonderfully intuitive and empathetic fellow human being recently told me: Sometimes, when your pain or failure is juxtaposed with the robust health or success of another, what could possibly be more normal and human and emotionally honest than envy?  This I will remember, the next time someone suggests I ought to be above envy. I sometimes do want it all, and you might too sometimes, if you’re honest.

Difference

Okay, that’s a relief, to have explained that. The rest matters less. You may think me sensitive and a little flaky, but that’s okay with me. I perceive things you may not consider perceptible, yes. Noise, coming from physical clutter. The space around you as magnetic,  or impervious. Tears where there are none, tension or rage beneath a smile. Genuine empathy in your eyes before you say a word.

About you needing me to fit in when I may not—I don’t respond well to these attempted adjustments, no matter how much you’d like me to, so please don’t fall in love with me if you think you’re going to turn me into a sports fan. And please don’t fall in love with me if you’re going to tell me to dress differently either. What I wear reflects exactly what I need and how I feel. It’s just not me, to be in costume in order to please you.

So we’re not necessarily the best office-tower cubicle material as 4s, no, but we’re warm and compassionate and intuitive and empathetic. We’re good care-givers, therapists, healers. And we’re good friends and partners, if you can accept that we can’t and don’t want to be in this world exactly as you are.

Intensity

As to those intense feelings we sometimes have that might lead you to believe we’re being dramatic—I’m actually usually pretty stoic about my pain. But ironically, whether I’m being stoic or wearing my pain on my sleeve, my pain can be a problem for you.

If I wear it on my sleeve, it is often viewed as attention-seeking, and as a choice to hold on to the Awful Thing of many months ago, to which I say this: You may not be as conscious of it as I am, but you’re still sad too, about your own Awful Thing. I see it in how hard you try to shop and party and work and cheer and pray it into oblivion. I’m just more aware of the currents beneath the surface.

Ironically though, if I’m stoic about my pain, you may conclude I no longer have any, and then expect too much of me, which will irritate me immensely when the facts are shouting otherwise.

I am truly sorry about the dark clouds of failure and shame that occasionally blow in; this is perhaps the darkest part of my shadow. I can see how these would be very difficult for those with front-row seats to witness, and you are a saint for not judging me during those times. For this I love you immensely and will forever be loyal.

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Posted in Feeling Center, Type 4

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Performance Anxiety (Type 1)

Posted on 03/15/2013 | Leave a comment

one

This is a clip from the video on 1s, part of a lively, informative, and fun series from understandingpersonality.com.

I love this quote from Nona’s husband after she claims she doesn’t judge others. (I also love her honest reaction/recognition.)

If you do something only 90% correct, then you needn’t have bothered performing the action in the first place because the 10% you haven’t performed far outweighs the 90% that you have performed.

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Posted in Humor, Type 1

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In Your Head?

Posted on 03/11/2013 | Leave a comment

Thinking types are often accused of being in their heads. But advising them to get out of their heads is about as useful as advising Doing types to get out of their bodies. So a technique that include observation can be a good place for Thinking types to begin mindfulness practice.

Vipassana is a form of meditation that focuses on self-observation. The video below is a meditation on the thinking process.

Sherlock Holmes and Mindfulness Training

Sherlock Holmes appears to have become the poster child for mindfulness of late. Maria Konnikova has written a book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.

Conan Doyle’s Holmes had taught himself to observe on a regular, almost superhuman basis. For him, taking note of the myriad inputs from his surroundings was a matter of course. He was never not observing, never not in touch with his environment. He had mindfulness down to an art. Most of us aren’t as careful.

–“Don’t Just See, Observe: What Sherlock Holmes Can Teach Us About Mindful Decisions,” Maria Konnikova, Scientific American

As a model of mindfulness, Holmes might be especially appealing to Thinking types.

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Don’t Go Back to Sleep

Posted on 03/08/2013 | 2 comments

Mindfulness meditation music for the Feeling center (for everyone).

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

–Jalal al-Din Rumi

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Posted in Feeling Center, Mindfulness, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4

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