Day 11 in the Write31Days challenge where I'm exploring all the things that surprised me about adulthood.
If you haven’t talked to me in recent years, you may not know that I’m annoyingly obsessed with personality typing, strength-finding, and now Enneagram-ing. It’s just so FASCINATING.
I think most of us grew up with notions of what success looks like. We feel like there’s a right and wrong way to do things. An accepted social norm for almost everything. While I believe there are some things that are absolutely black and white (mostly in regards to certain moral principles), there is sooooooo much in our world that is gray, nuanced, fluid, diverse, and dynamic.
I truly believe that each person, based on their genetic makeup, family of origin, faith background, socioeconomic background, current socioeconomic state, stress level, support system, education, and many other factors, will act upon life and make certain choices and function in a way that is reflective of all the aforementioned things.
Even deeper than all of those external factors, is this delightfully exciting world of personality typology. It’s so intriguing. I’m so nerdy when I talk about it. My eyes light up and my forehead lines show as my eyebrows shoot skyward when I meet a friend who knows their Myers-Briggs type.
(true story. My kids can attest to this. I really don't mean to tune them out, but there are just so many thoughts happening!)
The new “it” personality type is the Enneagram. It looks like a pentagram, but rest assured, it’s actually not. There are several books about it, and I’ve recently picked up one by Richard Rohr, and my very brief glance through a small section has so far proven to be very fun and insightful (how do I even live with this level of nerdiness? All my friends who put up with me, you know who you are, I love you and I thank you for sticking by my side when I go off on a tangent about this stuff). I keep hearing about “The Road Back to You”, and I’m putting it on my “to read” list (which will probably mean I listen to it on audible), because everyone is talking about how great it is.
Tonight, I took yet another Enneagram test just to see what I got because I’ve had some variable results. Twice now I’ve scored as a 3, so I think I’m sticking with that. The narrative seems to fit. It explains a lot about why I deep dive into stuff and determine to master it as fast as I can, to the neglect of my adulting responsibilities (oops). It explains why I’m prone to be addicted to other peoples’ approval. It explains why I feel like I have a little motor driving me to “do, do, do!” all day long.
Becoming aware of how you’re wired can be SO helpful when you’re trying to figure out your hangups. I highly recommend you take a personality test today and find out a little more about yourself! It might just allow you to give yourself more grace as you grow AND it will help you have more grace for others as you start to realize why people act the way they do (because we are wired so differently!) Have fun!
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