According to the Enneagram personality type gurus, with whom I’ve been hanging out for just over 20 years, there are 9 personality types. I am among the 4’s, commonly know as artists or romantics.
One of the most helpful things I learned in Enneagram-land is the notion that we humans have two primary motivations for our behavior… or choices, if you prefer.
The first motivation is fear. Anxiety. We, being fairly clever sorts, tend to move away from things that scare us.
The second motivation is love. Passion. Enthusiasm. And, as you’re no doubt hoping, we tend to move toward those experiences. And people. (Also, dogs, but that’s a story for a different day.)
’tis the season, as the old saying goes.
Our current context feels overflowing, at least to me, with scary things. The Covid virus is obvious. Suggestions that drinking chemical disinfectants might solve all our problems. (Not! No way! No time! No how!) Masks, gloves, huge changes in schedules and habits we at least assumed were working before. I’ll give you a break on the rant about political groups filling my email with blatant attempts to get me to act out of fear… read this, send money.
This weekend, though, I spent hours in a group of women tapping into love, joy, enthusiasm and it was soooooooo much more helpful!!!
Intentional Creativity® types, focused on how to share the best of what we’re learning with the world. We worked on ideas for virtual workshops and even on (gulp!) business plans.
Business plans with color and images and reflections of the things that matter most in our lives. And while we worked, my girls kept appearing in my head. At one point, I even opened up my text messages to be amazed, all over again, by the photos of their recent artwork and the grins on their mini-artist faces.
And then the question found me, as all the really good questions have a habit of doing.
Which journey do I /You /We want our littles to see manifesting in our lives?
Okay… that’s not phrased very poetically. And I’m not saying it will be easy. We’ve all learned way too much about the other journey… the one away from fear.
We’re shaming and blaming ourselves for uncertainty in a time we’ve never known before, for comfort eating, for laughing and crying (which-btw-relieve stress, physiologically) and wanting to hide in our beds, preferably with flannel sheets, art quilts, and teddy bears.
I was tempted, too. Instead, just for a while, I made neat in the studio. I cleaned the screen on my magical transporting machine, aka laptop! I even got out my watercolors from Italy (!) and played along the path to the future.
I moved in the direction of love, passion, and enthusiasm, which, as you’ve probably remembered by now, means something pretty close to filled with God in Greek, because I get to choose.
Tomorrow will bring more choices. Sheltering in place some more. Finding a pattern for making masks. Sharing pantomime hugs with my neighbor when I’m out watering the itty bitty veg and herbs, along with flowers for the bees and butterflies, sprouting in the garden.
And planning new ways to share the wonders of creativity in the world we have.
Stay tuned for virtual workshops and for stories about paintings. Their moments in time and their symbols and codes…
The littles are watching!