I’d like to tell you what happened to me.
In my signature group, we’ve been talking about the places we make the choice, often without any awareness, between being true to ourselves and doing what we thought was necessary to stay connected to our caretakers.
No matter how evolved you are, there was a time in your life when you, even as a baby, had to do this. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have a personality. The navigation of these choices is the foundation to our personality.
For some of us, this happened
- with more frequency than others
- at a greater cost than others
But for all of us, it boiled down to a fear that if we weren’t who we thought our caretakers wanted us to be, they wouldn’t love us.
And if they didn’t love you, they might not take care of you.
This was about survival.
How you did this was based on the particular sensitivity in your temperament that you were born with. This is how the Enneagram can help you. It helps to identify the ways you continue to trade authenticity for attachment. With some inner work, you begin to see what it is you most want in the world and how this thing drives everything you do.
Whether or not you do this isn’t a question.
The question is about how you do it and what it costs you.
What motivates you at your core, is the thing you were most afraid of losing when you, like every other human being on the planet, made the choice, over and over again, to survive your childhood.
This isn’t about growing up
- In a dysfunctional home
- In an abusive environment
- With economic disadvantages
- Or anything else.
It is about being a human being.
And yes, those things above might aggravate it or make it harder to see or create a situation where it takes more work to address the places it gets in the way for you now, but everyone made this choice as a wee one.
If you want to start to explore this for yourself, start by writing this sentence:
“I’d like to tell you what happened to me.”
It can be about something happening right now or something from your childhood. It’s an autobiography of sorts. Write for 10, 20 or 30 minutes and stop. Pick it up another day if you want. See what wants to be written.
Want to talk more about this?
Come to my office hours. Register here.
