#EnneagramOne

[vanessa-lamontagne-visual-diary]

Song Lyrics Series - 007 Sleeping At Last - One

[fivelensenneagram]

[jcrayonbox]

The Inner Critic

I am an enneagram type one – which means I have a lovely inner critic constantly reminding me what I could do better.  Some of you may know that voice as Type A, or maybe you’re the first-born child. Either way, the inner critic is a voice familiar to a lot of us.  

My inner critic was kind enough to remind me I have started numerous projects over the years and rarely finished any of them.  I launched a photography business (more than once).  I have boxes of documents I was going to scan and store electronically.  I started to spring and fall clean but didn’t finish either.  Is there a word for cleaning in July?  I started to re-teach myself how to sew, and then put the sewing machine back in the closet.  I have started to re-learn both Spanish and Japanese numerous times. I asked my friend to teach me American Sign Language and gave up after two lessons.  You get the idea.  

This inner voice is not kind when it reminds me I am a failure for not finishing these things.  “My life could be so much better if I would follow through on something” – it says.  “I could be getting out of debt faster if I would just work harder or longer.”  

Then it hit me.  I committed to getting out of debt about 3 years ago. While I still have debts to pay, I have made huge progress and it is a task I am still working hard on, without giving up.  In fact, paying off debt has been the single, largest factor in most of my decisions in the last few years.  I changed many habits in pursuit of getting out of debt as quickly as humanly possible.   I have missed a family wedding, skipped vacations, switched to generic groceries and aggressively couponed.  I even collect refundable cans to help get me earn a few extra bucks.  All of these decisions have something to do with paying down debt as quickly as possible.

Before I started making debt payments, I set the goal of raising a $2000 emergency fund, which I not only completed, but it is earning interest and currently sits at $2250.  Subsequently, in 2 years I have gone from $5300 debt across 2 cards to $740 on 1 card, while reducing my student loans by $600.

So, no, I did not finish organizing my closet.  No, I have not traded in my old laptop.  Those documents are still in boxes, and I have not finished spring cleaning.  My Christmas lights are still on my porch, in true redneck fashion.  

HOWEVER- I have made huge strides in getting out of debt.  For this I must remember to be grateful.  I must remember to celebrate the small milestones along with the big ones. I must remember that my ego voice, especially the inner critic, does not always get the final say.  As Elizabeth Gilbert would say, the critic is no longer a driver and does not even get control of the radio.  My inner critic can just be a passenger and enjoy the ride.

I have learned to forgive the inner critic, for well, being critical, and in doing so, forgiven myself for making mistakes or doing things slowly.  I have even allowed myself to have rest days and the occasional tub of ice cream.  I have certainly earned it.  

So, my friends, take a listen inside.  Hear your inner critic, but lovingly tell him to hop in the back seat.  God has a plan for your life, and it is far bigger than anything your inner critic could ever imagine.  

[99problemsofanennagramone]

Me: What’s the best web browser?

Co-worker: There isn’t one. 

Me: I can’t handle that. 

[jcrayonbox]

Free Time

I was asked yesterday what I’m doing with my time since I’m not working. Take away the fact that I can never answer those questions under pressure (perceived or real), and I still could not come up with much of an answer.

I read. Take walks. Clean a lot. Listen to podcasts.

That’s all I could think of.

I watch tv, which felt like an answer I shouldn’t give. Like it was wrong somehow.

So I think I finally mumbled something about having time off and just enjoying it.

You can imagine my sigh of relief as the topic changed, but it stuck with me. Or maybe the feeling did. I felt embarrassed. Like I somehow needed to qualify my unemployment with a productive thing I was doing. Let the record show the person had no agenda prior to the question and made no remark after. The feelings are all mine.

It led me to wonder why I might be feeling this way. And I pondered it over and over. I’m an enneagram one, so I desperately wished I could go back to that moment and say the right thing- even as I don’t yet know what it is.

So tonight I was listening to a podcast and the guest talked about overwhelm. I’m paraphrasing, but she said something to the effect of when you’ve been hyper vigilant for so long, you have to put some space between yourself and hyper-vigilant stressors to heal.

I spent most of my childhood and young adult life constantly waiting for the thing that was going to put me in fight or flight mode. So it makes sense that now, I am avoiding anything even remotely resembling stress. I am quite literally using my free time to heal. To give my nervous system time to learn new patterns.

So here’s to unqualified free time. Here is permission to slow down and heal. Here is to discovering you.

[dehya-selei]

A Day of Self Reflection

The path to learning it’s good to take care of yourself

I’ve been learning about ways to take care of myself. I am more aware of my body a lot more these days. I pay attention to how much tension builds up in my forehead. If I hadn’t “relaxed” my brain in a while I sniff a candle, or I turn on some classical music to give it a break. I educate myself on brain health such as the negative effects of rumination and how to achieve positive neuroplasticity changes. I realize out of all the worldly things, wisdom is the most practical and helpful tool at my disposal to being more healthy, at least in this season of my life.

I know us enneagram ones tend to run on stress and instead of relaxing and taking care of ourselves we seem to just pile up burden on top of burden. When the burdens tear our limbs we feel like the only choice we have is to learn to walk on broken limbs. But if it goes on for prolonged periods of time, our minds crush under the weight and we fall into depression and anxiety. We become broken run down cars, running on bad fuel and tarnished oil, and we easily lose our patience and lash out at things when things don’t go right. Even the things that seem small to others become big for us because it adds on top of the load, we never learned how to put down, because at some point in our lives, it wasn’t a choice that felt safe to make.

For me, I realize I must take care of myself because if I don’t, I lose the ability to be productive and I can not become a burden to others. I know I should desire more than that, it takes effort to think that way. I should want to take care of myself because “I am worthy of being cared for and to not suffer” and honestly this is hard to mentally muster all of these, but perhaps I should feel, “I deserve more out of life” to be happy and joyful for no reason, and there should be no judgement for wanting that. 

I’m not going to be punished as badly as I think for not having all my ducks in a row. And somehow, i’ve been the punisher of myself more than anything. That projection that others are condemning, me is really me more than anything. The survival mechanism of “punishing myself’ with inner criticism before anyone else gets a chance to, has been detrimental to many of my relationships and my own well-being because being the experiences of being “wrong” repeatedly would be so frustrating and lead to angry outburst because I didn’t know why I seemed to deserved so much condemnation all the time. And I realized, I had to be the person that was understanding, and most importantly, the skill of letting go. It’s a skill, and sometimes you just have to let go, even if you feel like you’re right. Sometimes it’s more right to be wrong. Sometimes it’s better to apologize because not apologizing is also wrong. You’re not a horrible human being if you are wrong sometimes, and you don’t have to prove yourself to people that don’t listen.

Can I really show up to the world as I am and not be criticized or rebuked? I feel like the emotional answer is “yes”, but I also feel it’s a “no” at the same time because the world isn’t perfect. Discrimination, prejudice, selfishness, hatred exists, so does condemnation. And then I tell myself, “it’s okay to not be perfect all the time,” which helps alleviate the burden a little. And growing older helps, at the end of the day, because the world isn’t perfect, there is no one true black and white answer to how to behave or how to be, so we might as well show up as we are. I deserve the right to be imperfect and still be worthy, just as much as the next person. Ultimately, I hope that positive changes will allow me to be a better person to myself and those around me. And still there’s a voice inside of me that just really wants that pure and perfect grace, unconditional love and appreciation for the unedited version of me, and I also know, that too exists in the world and in heaven.

[innercriticvoiceofagata]

Self-Discovery

So I guess it didn’t take me to much time to figure out which subtype I am. After a short conversation with my husband, it became clear that the Self Preservation subtype is the Answer! That being said I move on with my enneagram journey and that's where I stand with it today...

As Type one I love and value structure by finding rules and routines and developing them on an everyday basis. I often overdoing it so that cost me in bigger run a lot of anxiety. I also often feel irritation and resentment towards people but I never ask myself why!

Enneagram suggests you developed patterns of behavior in your childhood so I should ask myself a few fundamental questions:

1. How and why these patterns developed - and how they help me cope with reality?

2. What painful emotions those patterns are protecting me from?

3. Why am I doing this? How those patterns operate in me now?

4. What are the blind spots of those types of behaviors? What they keep me from seeing?

5. How those patterns trap me and what are their consequences?

It’s funny how obvious and hard to acknowledge answers on those questions can be! We live our lives day by day just existing and not even realizing how much of it it’s just coping mechanism to protect yourself from everything.

As longer I look into myself I feel more relief and joy that I’m in this process - trying again. Because that's what is all about - trying step by step just a little bit harder to give yourself a fair chance to love.

In the last few days, I realize that as a follower of routine I jumped in the last few years into a pattern of just poor choices that made me unhappy. I feel like now I have clarity and an open mind of what I want to do with my future. I always had a goal in my life so far a fullfill them all and I started to roll back in nonsense. I found new desire and dream - and for the first time it’s not Ego “Me” oriented. I want to focus on my Family. On my marriage and on having real memories. Because nothing it’s better in life than a good funny story to tell.

[99problemsofanennagramone]

Dear god. My waking nightmare.