Confessions of ALL TYPES: Would You Rather?
Have you ever played that game Would You Rather? My kids loved it so I have had to think about questions like, “Would you rather dig in a pile of manure or a pile of vomit to retrieve a $100 bill?” or “Would you rather be able to fly or be able to breath underwater?” Such thought provoking questions! And if you really think about it, these questions highlight our individual preferences, dreams, and thresholds for pain AND pleasure! So it got me thinking, isn’t all of life just one big game of Would You Rather?
Hear me out. Would you rather take the trash out to the curb for pick up or ignore the trash and continue to click “next episode” on Netflix? Would you rather clean the kitchen tonight or do it in the morning? Would you rather help your child study for the big test or trust that they will have the self-control to do it themselves? And I may lose some readers at this one. Would you rather change your eating habits and lifestyle or have the chance for lifelong diseases, health issues and decreased quality of life? See, we all have choices. It’s when we don’t think about those options and just assume that this is the way life is, or worse, this is the way I am, that we feel stuck and powerless to change.
This is a very important mantra to tell yourself daily, hourly, even every second sometimes-WE DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHANGE AND CONTROL ANYONE BUT OURSELVES! We think we do. We think that if we persuade some more, pout about it, yell till we are blue in the face, or just plain demand that someone else change, that we can force our will over someone else. That’s just not the way things work. God Himself cannot even force anyone to do anything! What makes us think that we can? Furthermore, when we are only focused on changing someone else, we cannot look at what our own role is to play in the relationship. For about 18 out of the last 21 years of my marriage, I tried my hardest to change my husband. It only led to a huge chasm in our relationship and the inability to see how I can change and grow. When I would demand, “You need to do this or I can’t be [insert emotion]” it would only push my stubborn husband away and healthy thoughts of “How can I help myself instead of demanding him to fulfill me?” didn’t have a chance to enter my mind. I don’t think I ever thought that once in our marriage until the last couple of years. I played the victim. Victims say, “You did that to me and now I don’t have any other choices but to sit in the pain and the consequences of your actions.”
There is a perspective shift when we choose to play a little game of “Would I Rather?” It hardly seems fair when we are in a negative place due to someone else’s poor choice, however when does fairness really have anything to do with success? Would I rather go through the pain of figuring out how to get out of this hole that someone else dug and trapped me in or stay stuck here and wait for them to help me out? Would I rather examine my part in how I got here and work towards healing and change or continue to blame someone/something else? Would I rather think about how my negative choices are impacting my future or blame my own further choices on the one action that someone did to me? See the perspective shift? If we think about the part we can play in our own future not based on anything else we move from victim to victorious. We move from prisoner to conqueror; from helpless to powerful!
I recently walked with a friend through some extremely hard life circumstances (like gut-wrenching) that seemed out of her control. She had been living this way with someone else’s bad behavior for decades and felt that she was helpless to change the other person and the situation. She is a NINE and her whole life was striving to keep the peace at all cost. She tried to keep the peace with her parents growing up, and keep the peace with her husband, friends, family; anyone so that she didn’t erupt negative feelings in someone else by sharing a differing opinion. Do you think my friend felt peaceful? She felt the opposite of peaceful all of the time. She was depressed and would go from crisis to crisis in order to not have to change. When another friend suggested that maybe it’s time to leave the situation, she responded, “That sounds so complicated!” My first thought, although I held my tongue, was ‘More complicated than your life has been and is right now?’ Furthermore, it was always her husband’s fault that she was stuck here instead of thinking about boundaries that she can put around herself to move towards health. So with her situation in mind (and without going into too much detail), would you rather go through the steps of separating yourself from the crazy and hostile home environment you’ve been living in for over 45 years or stay in a very complicated and destructive relationship? See how much clearer your priorities seem when you play a little game of Would You Rather?
So why do we continue to choose the unhealthy patterns of life that destroy and never bring wholeness? The short answer is in the question. They are patterns, defaults, the path of least resistance, the quickest way to normal…sometimes they are unconscious and other times it is a very conscious choice to stay stuck. All nine enneagram types have a default action. You default to whatever defense mechanism you adopted as a young child that helped you survive.
In order to survive:
ONES-must be structured and follow rules repetitively
TWOS-must sacrifice own needs and desires
THREES-must focus on working hard and winning at all costs
FOURS-must be unique and authentic
FIVES-must have strong boundaries and strive for competency
SIXES-must control everything and have answers to each contingency
SEVENS-must continue to consume all while keeping options open
EIGHTS-must be strong and never show vulnerability
NINES-must deny own opinions to keep the peace at all costs
For a NINE, you needed to keep the peace to feel safe and secure. You constantly had to tell yourself that your opinion doesn’t matter and that it’s easier to just stay quiet even if it ends in your own destruction. Each type defaults to certain behaviors that worked to maintain order, control and balance as a child. While these were useful then, because children don’t have many defenses, they become less useful as you grow and mature. The problem with patterns is that eventually they don’t bring your desired result any longer and they need to be ever-evolving throughout life to each situation and relationship. Babies need their diaper changed throughout the day to stay healthy, clean and really to survive or else they would quickly get an infection. However, when you become an adult, you don’t need the diapers any longer (well at least most of us!) How silly would it look for an adult to put on a diaper even through they know how to go to the bathroom in the toilet 100% of the time? We all, from a healthy outside perspective, look just as silly relying on those old defenses! Perhaps a SIX child needed to ask lots of questions in order to feel safe and taken care of because her world was totally unpredictable. However, if she is in a healthy and loving relationship with people she trusts; and that’s the goal, right; then she can break the old patterns of thinking and move towards relying on the opinions and decisions of others and learning to trust herself.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself in order to break old patterns:
What isn’t working in my life?
Do I have values and priorities written down that I can fact check my decisions and behaviors?
Why did I live by that default in years past and do I still need it? This step may take some time, counseling, healing and forgiveness to work through!
Who can I talk to in order to get a fresh perspective on this?
Would I rather [insert what isn’t working] or [insert value that it is opposing]?
Is wholeness and health worth breaking these old thought and action patterns?
Working through these questions can help us gain some insight and perspective. As an Apple user, we frequently are asked to update operating systems and upgrade equipment to the newest model. This is fresh on my mind because I just updated my computer and it took forever and cost me time that I needed to my computer to work. I know so many people that choose not to update or upgrade because Apple will change something and then they have to relearn how to use the new system. And it takes time to stop and make those changes. They stay stuck in an old operating system that worked just fine the day before. So what happens? What used to work gets glitchy, slow or just plain stops working. They them don’t want to trade in what’s not working for the unknown of something new. The unknown may seem complicated and scary, but it is still worth exploring! There are fresh ideas, perspectives, health, change, growth, tools, efficiencies and unbelievable outcomes that could arise if we have the courage to step into that unknown. By holding onto God’s trusting hand and others that love and support you, we can courageously take that first step! So would you rather stay in the old patterns that are no longer working or abandon them for the unknown? That’s the crux of the question! I hope right now you can envision me taking your hand and saying, “Can you come with me to the unknown for an update and upgrade? Let’s go!”