Heroes in Business - Healing Relationships Misunderstanding and Drives

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

To understand others & improve relationships, it's key to know there are 3 drives-preserving, connecting, belonging. Each of us has 1 as primary. Understanding  different ways improves relationships in the episode of Guided Self Healing Fearless Living with Dr. Andy Hahn   www.eliances.com

Hi, this is Dr. Andrew Hahn, and this is the 29th episode of Guided Self-Healing slash Fearless Living. And this episode we'll call Imp our understanding of relationships and having better relationships so we'll call it um deepening our understanding and improving relationships and resolving misunderstandings based in drives. And so, long title. But the point here is, this is the third in our series of how we can understand how others make meaning, and the consequences for our relationships when we don't just assume that the way we make meaning is the way anybody else makes meaning because it is not and if we can really understand these differences we can talk about the different ways we make meaning and the different motivations and then untold misunderstandings get resolved and relationships

improve and that really is the whole point of everything um and it's not just relationships but we're going to focus on relationships because that's what we're at so in this episode what we're at. So in this episode, what we're going to talk about is our deepest drives and how people with different deepest drives can really get into difficulty because they fundamentally misunderstand other people's actions and what motivates them. So, again, we have to start with what are these drives? And they're really the three, from my point of view, core drives around survival. So we need to preserve, we need to connect, and we need to belong. And if we think about our ancestors, that makes a lot of sense. If you don't preserve, if you don't have food and shelter, you're going to die, right? If you can't connect both in an erotic sense with a partner and in a very alive sense with, you know, between an infant and their parents, you're not going to survive. And if you don't belong

and have a clan and have a tribe, you're not going to survive. So these three drives, the drives to preserve, the drives to connect, and the drives to belong, which in the Enneagram are called self-preserving, sexual, and social. And I think, you know, there's a lot of misunderstanding here, because there are instinctual drives, which are instinctual, really, really, you know, it's like, you know, those are sort of biological instincts to preserve, to procreate and social drive to be part of a community but really if we also think about them this idea of you know there's also an energetic to it because if you're going to preserve you have to incorporate something like you have to take in food. You have to bring yourself into shelter.

You have to do these things. So it's an incorporative energy. So you take something in where you protect yourself, and then you can go out into the world. Of course, if you want to, you know, erotically connect, which means a kind of intensity from my point of view, what that means is that you're going to like look for somebody or anything really you're going to connect with and you're going to connect intensely and the

rest of the world is going to go away. So there's an intensity about this kind of connection and certainly sexual subtype people tend to have more sex because they look to that you know because one way to connect very deeply is through sexuality, although clearly you can be very sexual without connecting, and you can be very connected without sexuality, but there tends to be an overlap nonetheless to a kind of eroticism, you know, and then there is care, you know, from my point of view, and the sense of belonging and the differences of the energies are one sort of incorporates it goes backwards and in one goes forward and out which is the sexual energy and one goes what i would call up and diffuse and that's the social energy because you know and the differences of those

energies and the consequences of them are really remarkable. And it just leads to profound misunderstandings because if we're just going to take relationships and love relationships even, which is at least makes it easy, these different ways of loving get trampled on by the two other types. So you will get trampled on. Let me tell you what I mean. Let's think about this simply. If I am a social type, right, where I would say the energy goes

diffuse, right? It's like it is incorporating everything, right? It's like I'm part of my plan. everything right it's like i'm part of my plan well let's think about this for a second what am i going to do i am going to want to be part of a plan the way i'm going to tell you i love you is i'm going to invite you into my community and into community uh mores into community activities this is my way of saying i I love you. I bring you into my community. You know, it's, if I propose to you, it's going to be the kind of proposal that, you know, I, you know, I'm having pictures taken by all of our friends and, you know, I do it in the ballpark in front of 50,000 people or whatever, because it's a communal experience. I'm part of a community. I want to belong. And I'm going to show you I love you

by incorporating you into that community, right? And it is a communal experience. It's our experience in the context of something that is belonging to a tribe. Of course, if I'm a sexual subtype, the way I want to connect with you is one-on-one. And I want to like laser in on a kind of intense connection and as far as i am concerned you know everything else becomes secondary being

part of a group would be you know would dissipate the energy you know even eating unless you're going to eat in a kind of erotic way i mean it's just eating eating sake it's like you know who cares i'm like in connection with you we don't need to eat and you know there's going to be an intensity about or it's like what most people are like when they fall in love except if you're a sexual subtype theoretically it never ends whereas if you're social or self-preserving that is pretty quickly and that alludes to a lot of confusion because most people when they fall in love because we're stacked and we most of us have all of these things when we fall in love, at least for a short period of time, a few weeks at least, we look all like sexual subjects. But then, of course, that goes away.

Now, let's think about it if I'm a self-preserving type. What am I going to do? It's like the way I'm going to tell you I love you is I'm going to make you a dinner or I'm going to make you a beautiful home or I'm going to do all of these things and I'm going to tell you about them because this is really saying I love you because I've made a home for us that is so homey or I've made you a wonderful dinner or you know I've done some kind of service for you, right? Because this isn't my way of saying I love you. And of course, you know, it's really awful when you're one of these types and somebody else of another type really has a problem with it, you know? And the other two subtypes will have a problem because they won't know that you're saying I love you, right? So if I'm, let's say we start with a sexual type, right? And I'm with a social

type. Let's start there. The problems are inconceivable. I'm going to like say, the way I love you is I want to have time alone with you, right? And groups, if I'm a really sexual subtype and i'm self-preserving second and i'm social third groups are actually problematic for me you know so if i'm a sexual subtype not only will i and i'm social as a third because they get stacked i will you know want to say like get me away from groups now let's suppose that i'm in relationship with someone social and they're going to say, like, get me away from groups. Now, let's suppose that I'm in relationship with someone who's social, and they're going to say, oh, let's go to our family party where all these people will be, and this is my way of incorporating you and saying I love you. And the sexual subtype is going to say, you don't love me, you just want to, like, get away from me. And the social subtype will say, no, I love you, I want to involve you with my family, and they will, like, fight and fight and

fight. And and then you know the sexual subtype will say all right now you know that i've gotten angry about the family thing now we can like you know kiss and make up so to speak and the social type is going to say you've just trashed my loving of you why would i want to be near you so like the problems here and it's because they don't understand they don't understand that you know you know this thing that they hate is really their partner saying i love you and it's profoundly sad because they can't make the translation you know and if they can make the translation, then of course everything gets better,

you know, if they say, oh, I know that you love me by saying that I want to have you come to this big party with a family, even though I could be crazy, you know, because I'm social last, then someone says, oh, you really get it, and then of course when you come back home and they say, now it's time, you know, sexual back home and they say now it's time you know the sexual subtypes isn't social now it's time to gaze into each other's eyes social subtype if there's any sexual there for a little while says well i can stand this you know it's not too long too intense you know so you know people of different subtypes uh it's like spiritual relationships because you really have to learn another love language, right? So sexual and social. And the same thing is going to be if we go around the circle. Let's say now we're going to go sexual and self-preserving, right? Well, the sexual

subtype will want to have this intense connection, the self-preserving type, you know, and if I'm going to cook for you, it's going to be so I can connect with you. It's not, I'm not saying I love you by cooking for you. It's like saying, because I want to connect with you, one way to do it is through cooking, but believe me, it's not because I want to make the meal intrinsically. It's because I think if I make a good enough meal, that will mean that we'll be gazing into each other's eyes. Well, if I'm self-preserving, no, that's going to mean I'm going to be cooking for you because I'm cooking for you and I've thrown all my love into my cooking. And, you know, you better like the cooking so to speak as opposed to saying well

this is just a way for us to get more connected at which point you know you know you don't really appreciate it acknowledge it because it's just food and who cares about food at which point of course this self-preserving type may throw the food at you and you'd say why are you doing that you know didn't want to just really have a loving evening and i said i did have a loving evening i made you dinner and like i made you the most special you know i really slaved in the kitchen saying i love you and now you're saying like let's skip dinner and go to the bedroom i don't think so because of course you know different types so to speak metaphorically live in different rooms and self-preserving types basically live in know, the kitchen and social types live in the living room and sexual types live in the bedroom.

And, you know, if you're really extreme, you know, you just don't get it. social type of wanting to do so i mean the self-preserving type will want to do self-preserving activities in bed like read together and you know share something about that but not because i want to share it with you it's because like i'm taking this information and i want to share the information it's not that i want to share it with you it's that i'm loving you by sharing the information with you the sexual subtype in bed will be saying, well, if you want to share it, you're sharing it with me. It just so happens that you're sharing the information. And of course, you know, so the sexual subtype person with the self-preserving type would be saying, oh, I just love that you're sharing the information with me. And the self-preserving

type might be saying, no, I want you to listen to the information I'm sharing with information and the self-preserving type might be saying uh no i want you to listen to the information i'm sharing with you and not make google eyes at me you know and then if you really could take that and maybe you could make a little google eyes at me or something i mean it's just like it's it's stunning and then there's all this misunderstanding and they end up turning their backs on each other right and you know so if that's sexual and self-preserving, if it's, you know, sexual and social, you know, sort of the exact opposite problem, which we began to allude to,

which is like, you know, from a sexual subtype, you know, I want you all to myself. If we're going to a party, you better make eye contact a lot across a crowded room, so to speak. Whereas the social subtype will say, no, we're going, you know, we're going to go to the party, and we're going to, you know, each do our own thing, and then we'll come back together, and we'll, like, talk about the interesting things that was, like, participating in the party, and so then, of course, and that's my

way of saying I love you, at which point, you know, they'll feel deeply hurt when the sexual subtype says, you dragged me to this effing party. And now you want to just talk about all of the things you've discovered at the party. I want you talking with me eye to eye. Sort of like, you know, hand in hand, we go off into the party like, you know, participants in a party. And it's just remarkable. And, you know, so you can extrapolate the whole thing. And really, I mean, social and self preserving, you know, it's like if the social says we're going to go to this party, and we're going to go there, the self-preserving type is going to say, well,

we have to get a lot of good food, and we have to do whatever, and they'll say, well, maybe there'll be pizza at the party, so who cares, you know, and we'll get it, and the self-preserving type will say, well, what am I going to do with this party because my contribution is that i can you know bring great food and that's that's what makes me feel like i've really contributed and i've shown my love not by like you know being part of a cocktail party that doesn't feel very comfortable for me so it is the misunderstandings of how I'm saying I love you that lead people to say, like, you know, I can't stand him because he always wants to go to parties or her. She's a social subtype because it doesn't matter. Social subtype woman says I want to go to the parties

all the time sexual subtype man says like i just want to like have intensity with you i thought you know i just want to have sex i just want to have some kind of intense connection with you you know or a self-preserving man is going to like say of course i love you i'd like you know look at how beautiful i've made the house that you've come into. And, you know, the social woman that he's trying to get involved with, she'll say, well, yeah, that's nice, but like, why are we staying in the house anyway? Because we should be going out. And it just is just remarkable. And if you really, you know, could step back and say, can we step into each other's shoes for a second? What would it be like from a social,

if I step into a social subtype shoes and say, for one second, I can just be with, of course I want to have a big wedding and cut the cake in front of everybody and then we're all going to co-mingle. Because that's my way of saying i love you or you know sexual sometimes who says like you know it's the romantic movies you know they're chasing each other's hearts but there's only one third of the world because of that in an ongoing way you know intensity of connection as opposed to

this diffuse and really if you have you know social and sexual together it's this whole different kind of energetic because one is sort of like saying you know we're part of a plan part of a tribe so it's we're going to be inclusive and the other ones say we're going to be exclusive you know you know we're going to build inclusive and the other one's saying we're going to be exclusive you know you know we're going to build a wall around ourselves and social subtype would say that's just being rude i mean like how could you go into you know a world and just you know build a wall around yourself the sexual subtype will say because what the heck's the point of having a relationship if you don't and you know it's and if you could really begin to say, wait a second, on the social

side, on the sexual side, their way of saying, I love you is that they don't want to claim me or they don't want me to claim them or whatever it's going to be, intensity of relationship. And can I get there for short periods of time? Because that would be saying to this person, I will love you the way you know what love is, as opposed to the way that I'm comfortable with love. So this ends our three-part series on understanding others from the point of view of their personalities

or their centers of perception or their drives and the energetics of these things. I hope your phone is useful and at least food for thoughts. You can begin to sit down with your partners or those in your

lives and say, really, what do you say when you're inviting or what do you say when you're saying like let's just slow dance and gaze into each other's eyes and what are you saying when you say i you know made the whole beautiful and i made you a beautiful dinner and you'll find that what it means to this person is not what it meant to you. But if you could really love them and say, I realize you're saying I love you just not in the language I've known. That would be the greatest gift of all. Which is really the gift of understanding.

Yeah, stepping into their lives. As opposed to saying you have to join them. So having said that, I wish you all well. Again, you know, if you want to reach me, ahon at lifecenteredtherapy.com Ahon. And we are lifecenteredtherapy.com

And please, we have finished our book, which you can pre-order on Amazon. It's coming out February 22nd. It's called The One Hour Miracle. The fact that we finished it, which was not a one hour miracle, but it was, you know, as we say,

it goes, you know, you have this, you know, idea. It's a one hour miracle, but getting, you know, to the end of the journey. So as we say, it's really to remember because it's like a long climb. Anyway, until we meet again, my dear friends. Good night.