Heroes in Business - Andy Hahn, Fearless Living, My Understanding Personality, What makes us tick

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

We describe 3 different types of people, heart, head, belly. 3 personality types associated with each center. 3 different drives preserving, sexual, social. Understanding  people from the inside out in this episode of Dr Andy Hahn Guided Self Healing Fearless Living  

Hi, I'm Dr. Andy Han, and welcome to episode 47 of Guided Self-Healing, Fearless Living. And we're still going through our book, The One Hour Miracle, and we're now up to chapter 11. And we're going to go in a slightly different direction now. We're going to start looking at our personalities and understanding our personalities from the inside out, which will help us understand ourselves and help us understand others and really what makes us tick. And often we are very confused about why we are doing what we're doing. And other people become a total mystery sometimes. And if we can understand ourselves and others from the inside out, we won't be so driven to do things that make no sense to us. And we certainly will have a deeper

understanding of what's motivating the people around us. So this is really about understanding. And what can we say? So let's start with the idea, which we've talked about before in prior episodes, if we want to understand personality. The best way to do that is to say that there are three types of people, and within each of the three types, there are three variations leading to nine types of people. And the idea here is that each of us is at foundation one of those nine types of people, and we're only one of them it's sort of like if you're a dog you're not a cat and etc um so and then of course within the cats or the dogs or whatever there are different kinds of variations and it's the same for us it's like we are different kinds of variations. And it's the same for us. It's like we are different types

of people. And within those different types, there are different variations. And that way, we're kind of like animals. In many ways, we're like animals, for sure. So let's look at these three types of people, and then the three variations. and then within that, which makes nine types, we will discover that there is in fact three variations of each of those variations, which means there are 27 types. And of course right now we're feeling something in the background and that will just be a possibility for us to keep our attention under circumstances that sometimes are not the best, but you know, I'm in the studio, what can I tell you? So if you heard something in the background, it's now stopped. So what are these three types of people?

We have heart people, we have head people, and we have belly people. And heart people, let me put it to you this way. Each of them is run by a mental concern and an emotional concern. So the mental concern for heart people is image, and the emotional concern is despair. heart people is image and the emotional concern is despair. That's the heart people. The head people, the mental concern is doubt and the emotional concern is fear. And for belly people, the mental concern is called self-forgetting and the emotional concern is anger. So let's see what that means. If I'm a heart person, what I fundamentally care about is gaining your approval. How do I do that? I have to create an image so that I will become something that I think that you will find acceptable. And if that doesn't happen, I'm going to feel despair. So I'm trying to do everything I can not to feel despair by creating this image.

That's hard people. Now let's go to head people. They have the exact opposite concern, which is that the world is a dangerous place we doubt the world and the thing that's dangerous that we doubt brings up fear for ourselves so like you know um so i have to find a way to make myself secure in a world that is filled with doubt and fear that comes with that kind of doubt. If I'm a belly person, my fundamental concern, my mental concern is called self-forgetting, and the emotional concern is called anger. Well, what does that mean? Self-forgetting here essentially means that I don't remember

my inner world so much in terms of my desire or my fear. So I essentially, instead of finding my inner experience, particularly my desire, I find myself responding to that which is outside of me as a way to gain an identity. So I'm responsible in all senses of that word. And anger comes with self-forgetting. And the feeling, of course, is that we're forgotten by others. What does that mean, forgotten by others? It means that we don't think anyone really ever wants to know who we are or what we feel or certainly what we want. It's like that question doesn't really come up. So we learn how to respond to others

as a way of gaining our identity. But of course, when we feel that somebody doesn't really want to know what we desire or what we want, we get angry. Really what we find is, of course, we get angry because we've forgotten our own sense of who we are and what we truly desire.

So we have these three people. Art people who assert something. You know, they create a thesis. This is who I am. Head people who move away from something, right? An antithesis. And then belly people who try to smooth it all over and have a synthesis.

And we go around in circles over and over and over again. So, and in each case, there is somebody who externalizes the problem, somebody who internalizes the problem, and somebody who dissociates the emotion and identifies with the mental concern. So let's look at that trinity and we'll start with heart people. And heart people, there are three kinds of heart people. They're called the giver who externalizes image and despair. There's the performer who identifies with image and dissociates despair. And there's the romantic who internalizes image and internalizes despair. And if you remember that, you'll know everything you need to know because you can kind of extrapolate or figure out everything else

from that little description. So let's start with the giver. And the giver, we say, externalizes image and externalizes despair. What does that mean? The giver basically says, I want to be pleasing to you. And if I'm pleasing to you, that means you're going to need me. And if you need me, I become indispensable to you. And in that case, of course, I'll never have to feel despair because my sense of worthiness will be, of course, totally attached to the sense that you can't live without me. And of course, if you can't live without me, then I'm going to hit into unworthiness and then I'm going to hit into despair. So if I'm a giver, what I'm going to do is I'm going to be able to suss out what you need in a way better than you probably can suss it out from my point of view if I'm a giver.

suss it out from my point of view if I'm a giver, and then I'm going to give you exactly what you need and be pleasing in order that I will then become someone you need, and in that case, I will be always happy, so I'll be acceptable in your eyes, and that's a giver, and you can kind of extrapolate everything from that you won't ever know about givers, because if you start with that basic premise, you'll know their gifts, you'll know their challenges. The gift is, of course, someone who knows how to really take care of other people's needs. And the challenge is, of course, that I compulsively need to take care of other people's needs in order to have a sense of my own sense of worthiness. So the gift and the challenge you'll find are really always the same thing and you can begin to sense what would it be like and i invite you to do this if i really wanted you

to accept me and the way i would do it would be to say what do you want me to be so i'm taking care of you and I will become that. And then you'll have needs and I won't have any needs except that I have this need that I want to speak about, which of course is that I need you to need me. The externalization of image and despair. Then we have the performer. And we see the performer is the identification with image and the dissociation of despair. What does the identification with image means? It means I am my image.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? And I am my image. I am the fairest of them all. I am my image, I am the fairest of them all and or I am what I do or I am my success, right? So I'm a human doing who is looking to be successful and then to receive rewards that have to be very visible for my success. And so if I can identify with that image and do it in a successful way and do, do, do, do, do, I never feel despair. And I will always try to spin things because failure is not acceptable. So that's performer.

Now we go to the romantic, which is the internalization of image and the internalization of despair. So what does that mean? It means that I look for an image. It's an authentic image inside me. But it's not truly authentic because it's an idealized image that I want to put out into the world so that I'm special. And if I'm special enough and you approve of me, then while I will feel some despair because I will know on some level that I never can attain that image, at least it will bind the despair to some degree or other. So if I'm a romantic, I find this internal special image. I project it out onto the world and I look for your response. The romantic. And if you think about that, of course, then I have to create a unique image

because being ordinary would be the same as being defective, which would be like ordinary would be the same as being defective, which would be like totally despairing. So anything is better than ordinary. So that's the heart points and the three variations, the internalization, the identification and dissociation and the internalization. So now we go to the head type and they go in the exact opposite direction. So if the heart people are going forward, trying to get you to approve of them, the head people are going backwards, because, of course, the world is a place that's dangerous and filled with doubt, and brings up fear in me. So how do I handle this? Well, let's go first to the observer and the observer is called the

internalization right of doubt and fear how do I do that I build a wall of a kind and I put myself behind that wall and I observe everything from behind that wall so So in that way, I'm afraid to be in a world that will demand too much of me. I don't have that much to give anyway, and will never give me what I truly, truly need. So I'll demand too much, give too little. And the way I protect myself from losing what little I have is to put myself behind a wall where I can observe and gather information and keep myself safe because from back there of course nothing can touch me and that's the fundamental premise and again the gift is someone who can observe and you know when everything else is being run by emotion, I'll just sit there and observe and analyze.

And that, of course, the very gift, of course, is the challenge because it leads to a sense of isolation and being in one's own world. being in one's own world. Then we have the identification with doubt and the dissociation of fear. What does that mean? These people are called loyal skeptics. Loyal skeptics identify with their doubt. The world is a dangerous place. And I doubt the world and I doubt myself. It's a

kind of double doubting. And as long as I can externalize the problem, then my fear will be a reactive fear as opposed to my internal sense that I am too little. I'm a nobody. And that, you know, someone can always kick sand in my face. So I say, no, you're really the problem. It's not that I feel like a nobody. It's that you're going to try to make me feel like a nobody and I'm going to have to defend myself, however I'm going to defend myself from that. And I have three choices.

I actually have four choices. I can do fight, flight, fear, fawn. And if I do, you know, the more I do fawning, the more it is that I am phobic in the world, right? So when something is dangerous there, I have to find a way to defuse the danger because I'm too little. So I have to flee or fall. And of course, if I'm counterphobic, then if there's something dangerous in the world, I'm going to do fighting

because it's much better to go with the thing that I'm afraid of and try to destroy it than to let it harm me first. Sort of put it differently, the best defense is a good offense so we attack the thing that we're afraid of and so of course the behavior can be very different depending on whether you're one who does more fleeing and fawning versus you're doing more fighting but the underlying motivation is the same so So the great gift here is like, you know,

if I live in a world of doubt, I'm always looking for underlying motives, and I can see things that other people can't see. But the question is, am I really seeing something that's out there in my single projection? And that becomes the challenge for me, if I'm a person who's a loyal skeptic. That becomes the challenge for me if I'm a person who's a loyal skeptic. And then we go to our last variation, which is the externalization of doubt and fear. And they're called the adventurer or the epicure, depending on which system you like. But people who are epicures or adventurers say there is nothing to fear. And all I want to have is one more pleasant experience and I want to find the most pleasant experiences I can because why would anybody want anything other than pleasant

experiences and so that's what I do and I find the best pleasant experiences and I keep looking for them and I can do that in the outer world and trying to find the best experiences, or I can do it in the inner world and I can find the best in my imagination because my imagination is so extraordinary. And I can brainstorm all over the place about what would be the best possible ways of doing things, right? So how is this someone who lives with fear and doubt? And the answer is, I have to have good experiences. And I'm afraid what you're going to try to do is impose on me something that's going to be painful or boring or whatever it's going to be. And so I have to get away from anything that looks like it's going to be painful or boring and spin it.

And I'm very, very good at that. So the great gifts are, I'm someone who has an extraordinary imagination and I can see the connections between things and I can see all kinds of possibilities and I want to live all those possibilities and the challenge is the same thing which is that I don't want to get trapped in anything so I may see all these possibilities but actually grounding myself and ever getting something fully accomplished is very difficult because that takes commitment and it's not so much fun. So, okay, so there's our three headpoints. Now we go to the belly. And as we said, we have the problem here,

the concerns here, the mental concern is self-forgetting and the emotional concern is anger. So first we have the externalization of self-forgetting and anger and we call those people protectors. And a protector basically says, like, I don't necessarily know what I desire, but you put me in any situation and I will know exactly what to do. And I will be big energy and I'll be able to assert myself any place. So give me anything to respond to and I will do it unbelievably competently. unbelievably competently. I will know hierarchically what's most important and be able to strip all that stuff aside that isn't, and I'll be able to take an action. What I don't know, of course, would be if I have nothing to respond to, what do I want to create? What do I desire if there's nothing to respond to?

what do I desire if there's nothing to respond to? And so that's, of course, the challenge, because I've forgotten what I really desire, but I certainly know how to respond to anything in a very profound and competent way. So that is the externalization of anger and self-forgetting, because as long as I have something to respond to, I don't have to worry about the fact that I don't know what I really desire. Then we go to the mediator, and the mediator, of course, is going to be the identification with self-forgetting and the dissociation of anger. And what does that mean? It means that I am somebody who basically says, if you are happy, I'm happy, right? I'm a mediator. I know everybody else's point of view, but I don't know my own. And as long as you let me play your game, I'm happy, but I don't know my own game. So if you say, I say to you, where do you want to go for lunch?

You'd say, well, it doesn't really matter to me, but you go where you want to go and I'm going to be happy, right? And so the wonder of that is I get to really align with everybody else's point of view. And it looks like I'm agreeing with them, but really, this is how I get my sense of identity, because I don't know what I want, but I can identify with you and what you want. And I can help you make that happen. And so that has great gifts, right, to be able to be that responsive to people. But it also has great challenges, right? To be able to be that responsive to people, but it also has great challenges because someone might say,

well, I want to know what you want. And I don't want to have to be the one who always takes the initiative or make something happen. I want you to take the initiative and I want you to tell me what you want. And that, of course, can be very challenging because then we can have tension and conflict

and that would create a real strain for my identity and then the last personality is called a perfectionist and the perfectionist is the internalization of self-forgetting and anger and so if you say you know a perfectionist is someone who says, I don't know what I want, but I know what I should do. I know what the rules are, and I have to live up to these rules. And, you know, it's rules of, you know, whatever the, and it's sort of handed down by God, and there are rules that we're all supposed to live by. And, of course, if you substitute rules for desire, if I say, what do you want? You might not know what you want, but you know what you're supposed to do. And you know that everybody else is supposed to do that too, unless, of course, you have a rule that says that I shouldn't impose myself on everybody else, at which point you'll be imposing me or not imposing, so to speak. And it's anger turned against the self, because even if you get angry at other people and critical of them, of course, you'll always, there's this ethical imperative to live up to a perfectionistic ideal an ethical perfectionistic ideal and i will always fall short so if i get a 98 i'll notice that i could have improved if i'd only worked harder i could have done better right so

the question then becomes how much are we compulsively doing these things versus how much are we free? And we're going to get into that in the next time. the higher aspects, the virtues of these points and the holiest idea of the points, you know, as opposed to being stuck in the lower aspects of it. And we're going to tell you how to do that. But there's one more thing I want to say, which is all of these nine variations of, you know, personalities are colored by three of our deepest instinctual drives. And our instinctual drives, you know, it's what did we need to survive when we were in earlier points in our lives, you know, as a species. And we needed, of course, to do three things. We needed to preserve, right, which meant we needed to provide for our material needs, shelter,

food, clothing, etc. We needed to connect both in order to appropriate and, of course, if we're a child and a parent, we need to be able to connect in a very intense way. And we need to belong because if we're not part of a clan or community, we have a problem. And our system talks about the fact that we stack these needs and depending on which one becomes primary,

which is secondary, and which is, as they say, tertiary, you'll look very different because anybody who starts with preserving will want to take something in or want to provide for the people around them so it's like there's an incorporating element first so self-preserving types tend to be more introverted, for example. They tend to be. It's not always the case, but they tend to be. And their energy pulls more in. And the social types that need to belong, their energy tends to go diffuse out. It's like a member of a clan. I'm a member of the community.

So we're all in something together, whether it's a project or a volleyball game at a picnic or whatever it is. It's the belonging. It's being part of a community where you get your deepest sense of satisfaction. And then the ones who need to connect intensely, they're called sexual.

And there's this kind of erotic, intense longing to find something to connect with and the whole rest of the world goes away. And again, those three types are variations of these personalities. And in some ways, these deepest instinctual drives are even more compelling than our personalities

because they're what we need to survive. And so the people of different types will have great difficulty understanding each other because, of course, if you want an intense connection, people who want to say, let's all have a cocktail party you know are going to seem superficial and uh but if you want to belong and everybody somebody else wants to link in with one other person they're going to seem rude and the self-preserving types are going to say something like you know we have to provide for everything and why isn't

everybody realizing that we have to, you know, make sure that we've accomplished what we need to accomplish around survival and security before we do anything else. And so the misunderstandings that come with all of this are really quite extraordinary. So this is our beginning look at you know a whole different lens and what we're going to find of course is that all of these personality aspects and our deepest drives and our deepest ways of perceiving the world on one level our way to protect ourselves like we talked about in a last podcast from having to experience something that's too painful to experience and the more we're willing to experience this thing that we really are afraid to experience the freer we'll be and the less compulsively we'll have to live out

our personalities and our deepest perceptual modes and our deepest instinctual drives, because we'll say, I have these things, but they're not, of course, who I am. So until next time, when we talk about that freedom, again, my name is Andy Hahn. And if you want to reach me, you can reach me at ahahn, A-H-A-H-N, at lifecenteredtherapy.com. And if you want to know about our work, please go to lifecenteredtherapy.com, and there you can find everything about life-centered therapy and our practitioners and our trainings, both online and live.

And of course, we've just finished our book, which has just come out into the world less than a month ago, called The One-Hour Miracle, and you can find out how to buy the book there and um i hope you read it because we've been talking about it but really it really something that uh i think everybody can benefit from i know i benefited from it and i was one of the people who wrote it. So with that, I wish you well until our next podcast. Bye.