Heroes in Business - Misunderstanding Associated with Personality Blindspots

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

Misunderstandings arise from positions versus needs. More deeply, they arise from differences in meaning making stemming from personality. Understanding and resolution on this episode of Guided Self Healing Fearless Living with Dr. Any Hahn.   www.eliances.com

Hi, this is Andy Han or Dr. Andrew Han, go by both. And this is the 27th episode of the podcast, Guided Self-Healing, Fearless Living. And today is September 30th of 2021. And this episode I'm going to call Misunderstandings and the Limitations and Blind Spots of Structure. Now, let's think about what that means and what we're going to talk about today. What we're going to talk about is the profound kinds of misunderstandings people get into because their worldviews are so different and not understanding those differences, they think they know what they're saying or doing. And of course, the other person, because they interpret it entirely differently, the same words, will hear

it in an entirely or experience it in an entirely different way and react from that experience leading to what could be called vernacularly purgatory on a good day, as opposed to something else, because really there's such pain in this stuff. You know, it hurts my heart. I mean, for myself and for the people I'm with and for everybody, I see these misunderstandings all the time. and for the people I'm with and for everybody. I see these misunderstandings all the time. Now, let me start because I'm sort of like one of those people who does this off the top of my head. And I want to tell you, as a starting place, it came to me is the book Getting to Yes by Fisher and Urey. And they say, of course, if I want to really oversimplify it, people come in with positions, but they don't come in with needs. They don't talk about their needs. And they say, of course, if I want to really oversimplify it, people come in with positions, but they don't come in with needs. They don't talk about their needs. And they give some examples.

Let me give you an example. Let's suppose someone says, I want the window open. And the other person says, I want the window closed. And they could get into a fight about positions. We're going to keep it open and we're going to keep it closed. And who's going to win that battle? And seemingly, it's a zero sum game. But of course, if you could find out what the need was behind it, let us suppose that one person wanted to have fresh air and the other person wanted to be warm.

And so what was the underlying need for why one wanted the window open and one wanted it closed could be taken care of theoretically. I mean, if it was that simple, which of course it never is, which is what we're going to talk about today. Because if it was that simple, you could say, all right, we're going to open the window, but we have a heater here. So we'll turn on the heater. So we'll be warm enough and we'll have fresh air. Everybody wins. And that is, as they say, as good as it goes, except now we have to talk about something else. Let's give some examples. Let's suppose someone says that's crazy because there's a rule that says that if you're going to be heating, you shouldn't have windows open.

that if you're going to be heating, you shouldn't have windows open. It's just not the way things were done. Because there's a way things are done, and there's a way things aren't done, right? Which may not ever get into the conversation. Or let's suppose someone says, you know, and the other person says, like, rules are made to be broken, and who came up with this silliness, right? For example. All of which may never be stated and judgment may rain down. Or let's suppose someone says that doesn't work. I mean, why not? Because you're crazy to have the window open. Now they're going to start judging each other, right?

And one of them will say, you're crazy. How could anyone think about opening a window and like spending money to heat the outdoors? And the other person would say, you're crazy. Like we're spending $5. Here's $5, like take care of it. But it's really about a value at that point. So the person says, you know, that money doesn't take care of the problem because it's wasting energy. take care of the problem because it's wasting energy and energy is very important and the the legion of possible things that can go wrong here because of personality because of your deepest perceptual modes because of your deepest sort of instinctual drives around survival can lead to such misunderstandings that go way beyond just understanding positions and needs. And so that's what I want to talk to

you about today. And I'm going to limit myself because you all probably know if you've listened to these podcasts that I'm very oriented towards the Enneagram, which I think has unbelievable power in explaining these things and why people get so hooked with each other, because they really don't understand each other's worldviews. And you'll see that worldviews are intrinsic in everything we do. So I'm going to look at the points, which is your personality. I'll give a couple of examples of that. And I'm going to look at centers, which is our sort of deepest ways of perceiving the world.

I'll give some examples of that. And then I'm going to talk about what are called subtypes, which are the energetics of our survival needs, really, and the way we interact with the world given what we need in order to survive. And almost it would be true to say that in order to not come from a different place, you'd have to be a clone of each other. And even then, different life experiences would probably knock that out. But be that as it may, I'm going to try to show you how there can be misunderstanding. And then we can talk about what one could do about this. So let's start with points. Points of view, of which in the Enneagram we've already said there are nine of them.

So let's start with one which came up today, which was a conversation about two people talking about where they and their family was going to go for dinner. Seemingly a simple conversation. So the woman in this situation, who is a protector, says to her husband, who is a mediator, if you know this world, if you haven't, you can go back. But a mediator is someone who likes to keep harmony and is a self-forgetting point, as is the protector. Well, anyway, the protector says, where would you like to go for dinner? And the mediator thinks about it for a while, And he says, I want to go for Chinese food. And the protector says, the eight says, well, great. How would you feel about Italian? At which point the mediator screams at the protector, the man screams at the woman and said, if you really wanted, if, why did you ask me if you didn't want, you know, to take me into account? At which point the protector says, this is crazy.

And they were having two entirely different conversations. And so here's what happens if you have the little clouds over the heads. The protector, who was asking the question in the first place, wants to competently make something happen for her family. And she wants to find out where the intersections of the Venn diagram in this family is because she has to make something happen and she's going to do it in the most competent way possible. And why would anyone do anything else? So she goes to her husband, having not talked to the kids yet, but she's going to talk to everybody and says, let's find out where we can all, maybe we can all agree that we want

to do something. So she says, from a pragmatic point of view, where would you like to go for dinner? He says, Chinese. And she says, well, how can we? She knows the kids and she knows herself. And she's trying to find where there might be commonality. And she thinks one of the kids really want to go for she's trying to find where there might be commonality and she thinks one of the kids really won't want to go for Chinese maybe but we'll live with it but

maybe there's something we could all really like she says how about Italian now she's thinking we're just having a pragmatic conversation about where we might all agree on now let's look at it from the point of view of the mediator, point nine. Mediators, more than any other point in the Enneagram, don't have a clue about what they really desire. Because their way of being in the world basically is essentially my identity is if you let me play your game, then I have an identity. I have no independent identity other than merging with you. That's the fundamental point of view of the nine. So to ask a person who is a nine, what do you want? It's a very big deal to a nine.

Because their experience is no one ever asked anyway. And I learned very quickly that if I was going to survive and thrive in any way, shape or form, I had to learn how to respond to everybody else and say, dear, if you're happy, I'm happy. So for that nine, unbeknownst to the eight who's married to him, perhaps because we don't talk about these kinds of things in the world, she said to him, I'm going to invite you to do something really difficult because I really want you not just to go along with what everybody else says, but I want to know really what you want. So the nine being very loving says, I'm going to take a risk here because if I put myself out there, there could be conflict. I hate conflict,

but I love my wife and I love my family. So I'm going to make myself really vulnerable. And I'm going to say something that usually I wouldn't say, which is doesn't matter to me. Whatever you guys decide is fine. I'm going to take a chance. I'm going to say what I want. It's hard enough for you to know what I want

because no one ever asked me, but you did. So I think you know me well enough to know how hard this is. So I'm going to really think about this and put a lot of effort into it and say, what do I really want? So I said, well, it's a close race, but I really want Chinese. Now, I've just given you a real gift, if I'm not, because I say I care enough about you that I'm going to take your question seriously and believe that you really, really want to know what I want. Because you know me, like I'll go along with anything. But if you're going to ask me and then you say, well, what about something else?

It's like, why did you put me through this hell of trying to know what I really wanted? And as an act of grace and love, I'm going to find the answer for you. And then you're going to say, how about this? So he then blows up at his wife and she thinks he's crazy and says, what's the matter with you? And of course, she's saying, what's the matter with you? Because she's in a conversation where she's trying to be pragmatic and he's just blown up at her for no reason. And of course, from his point of view, she has been very violent towards him because she asked him to do something really, really, really, that was very challenging to do to

find out what he really wanted. And he said, as an act of love, I'm going to do this as opposed to what challenging to do, to find out what he really wanted. And he said, as an act of love, I'm gonna do this as opposed to what I usually do, which is just go along. Cause I know you wanna have a partner who really, you know, take some initiative and says what he wants. And now you've just like steamrolled it, right? And if you don't think this doesn't happen,

this, if you can say, that would never happen to a married couple. I can tell you I'm a couples therapist, it happens all the time. And they end up yelling and screaming at each other. Because there really isn't an understanding of where the other one is coming from at all. Even though I think they know each other very well, because they don't know sort of the structural perspectives and where attention goes, right? Because we're not trained to know about these things. So nobody knows about these things.

It's really problematic. And so both of them are feeling profoundly hurt. And one of them is feeling like the other one is a nut. You know, I just asked where he wanted to go for dinner. i said how about this and he's screaming at me and the first one is saying like my wife doesn't care about me at all because i gave her this gift of really trying to find out what was important to me which i never do and then she just ran roughshod over it like you know steamroll the whole blade of grass so why would she do that to me and that conversation never happens because no one sort of steps back and says like

what was it like for you when I asked you where you wanted to go for dinner or what was it like for you when I told you where I wanted to go for dinner? Or what was it like for you when I told you where I wanted to go for dinner and then you said, how about this? We don't have those kinds of conversations. And it was truly, truly sad not to have those conversations.

I'll give you one more example. And let's suppose in this example, sticking to the points, let's suppose you have, oh, let's make it really fun. You have a man who is a giver. And what's, you know, a giver is someone who says, you know, my worthiness is taking care of your needs. And this man who's a giver is married to or interested in a woman who is an observer. And an observer basically says, where does my attention go to self-sufficiency? Because there's a sense of insufficiency.

where does my attention go to self-sufficiency because there's a sense of insufficiency. So what happens of course is the man, and this is why I think stereotypes of gender are really kind of crazy because I think on these levels of this kind of understanding, personality structure is actually in some ways more telling than gender. I'll show you why. The man here says like, you know, he's trying to suss out what his wife needs. And he has this idea that she really needs closeness because she's, you know, been, you know, alone all day. you know, alone all day. Who wouldn't want to be alone all day? So he comes in and says, like, oh, sweetheart,

let me, you know, give you whatever you want. And, of course, the wife is feeling like, the husband, he wants something from me. And, like, I think, you know, it's looking like he's really trying to say you have a need but really he wants me to sort of like need him and I'll be damned

if I'm going to need him so basically she pulls back a little bit in the face of this coming forward what do you need what can I do for you you know because she feels that there's something there's some underlying unspoken agenda so she pulls back and then the husband gets very angry and says like here it is i'm trying to like take care of you

and like you pull away from me and like you know you won't let me even i tell you i love you when you pull away and the wife at this point is saying oh my god i'm feeling smothered how do i get away from all of this like you know at which point i'm going to pull further away and then we do this dance of like until you know the husband explodes and says like i'm out of here at which point the says this is crazy i'm going out of my mind right why does this happen that this man who seemingly you know is just saying, I want to do, take care of my needs. And the wife says, like, basically, like, I don't feel good about this. So like, please, like, give me some space. What's the underlying conversation?

Underlying conversation is something like, you know, the husband is saying, my sense of worthiness comes from being able to be of service to others. So if you don't let me take care of your needs, then I'm going to feel unworthy. And the way I really get my sense of a good feeling in the world is that I'll take care of you when you'll be responsive and then I'll have a good feeling in my heart he says and then you know I would do anything for you but he goes and complains about his wife he says like she keeps pulling away she never says I love you and she listened to the wife story and she'll say you know this man seemed really kind of interesting in the beginning you know a lot of energy and a lot of spark and a lot

of whatever and you know we had space because we were dating and like i really liked having these short experiences but you know then i thought that's what it would be like always it's like you know we'd spend some time together and we'd spend a lot of time separately and life would be good. So I thought, well, this is going to work out okay. And, you know, so I said, what the heck, let's go for it now, because it's hard to find a dynamic man like that. And I thought, you know, he'll take care of me and do nice things for me and give me the

space that I need. And like, oh my God, I found heaven. nice things for me and give me the space that I need and like oh my god I found heaven and then of course they move in together and suddenly she is feeling like smothered like he doesn't really just want to take care of me he wants something from me and like this is feeling like there's a lot of demand going on here and she he actually thinks he knows what's best for me and he's going to try to take care of my needs. And the best thing he could do would be to like, give me some space so I could say what I need from him

and then back off. And of course I don't say I love him because that's just gonna make him move more forward. Are you crazy? So of course nightmares build until they could really, unless they can have this conversation, which is like each of them owning what their experience was and being able to talk about that. And that of course is very difficult. It's very difficult to say, you know,

I feel like if I'm the wife, I feel like I have only limited resources here. I have only limited energy. I feel like a sense of lack. And it feels like underneath what's going on here, I feel a demand quality. And like, I feel threatened by it. And like, it's very scary to like, feel this level of threat from the person I'm closest to. So I have to protect myself. And of course, the man would say, what are you talking about? Unless he could really look at himself and say, you know, I realized that how I feel good about myself is to take care of other people so that I can have a sense of worthiness. And that's what I do in life.

And it's really hard to acknowledge that I need people to need me. Now, if they could have that conversation, they could actually get someplace. But of course, having those kinds of conversations is unbelievably difficult. So we've started off today talking about the first of three kinds of structures, actually. And we'll go on to talk about two more in our next conversation on what are called centers, which are thinking and feeling.

Feeling centers being the heart, the thinking being the head, and what we call sensing and taking an action or sensing and feeling, feeling centers being the heart, the thinking being the head, and what we call sensing and taking an action or sensing and doing, which we call the belly and how they can get into trouble. And of course, once we know all of this stuff, then we have to be able to say, well, what happens when you put together all of these different things, all of these different perspectives, you know. But I will give you one more example which i of course know very well because sometimes conversation gets a little tricky so i'm even going to go one more space here which is suppose you have what's called an externalizing belly point which in this case is an eight and an

internalizing feeling point which in this case is a four. And the four, let's say they're having a conversation about what they're going to do. And from the eight's point of view, what I first want to know is what I can count on. You know, I'm an action-oriented person in the world. So I want to know if you're going to line up with me or you're against me. And then we can talk about it because otherwise it feels like I'm going to have to plead my case. And of course, the four being an internalizing feeling point is going to think in order for me to know if I want to take this action, I have to know exactly how I feel about it. And I have to do it as a kind of internal processing problem which I'm going to have to discover what I'm feeling about it in order to know if this is really the right thing for me, not that I wouldn't do it but I just have to process it because I can't leap in all things being equal and take that kind of action, because I have to go inside first. So to go inside, I have to like,

you know, find what's going on inside of me and speak about them or whatever. And so then, of course, the four will say something like, well, let's talk about, you know, what this means for us and what we feel about it and whatever. And the eight will say, I just want to know if you're going to do it or not. And then, you know, if you want to talk about it, you can talk about it. And how you have conversations about that really gets tricky because of course, you'd have to acknowledge that the two people are starting from totally different places. One being from externalizing action and the other one from being internalizing healing. And I will tell you, knowing about these kinds of things, that it is very, very tricky to navigate. And even if you know all of this stuff,

and if you don't know all of this stuff, it's like virtually impossible. So when you get two points that are so powerfully contradictory, in terms of where they start. Do they start with feeling or action? Do they start inside or outside? And in order to really get this, you have to have a structure that can honor it and to say, you know, we can see where we're going to have difficulty here. And how can we work this out so that you will know that I'm going to say yes to something if I'm the four talking to the eight, and the eight will be able to say, you will know that I'm going to say yes to something if I'm the four talking to the eight, and the eight will be able to say, you will know that I will really let you have an opportunity to process what you're feeling and how you're making sense of all of this. And that's called love. So until next time, thank you so much. If you want to reach me, which I would be very grateful for,

I would be very grateful for. My name again is Andy Hahn and my address is A-H-A-H-N, ahahn at lifecenteredtherapy.com. And if you want to know more about our work, of course, lifecenteredtherapy.com. And we have just finished editing our book and sending it back. So it will come out on February 22nd. It is called One Hour Miracle and really it's the one hour miracle that turns into a journey to remember because people come in the door because of miracles but they stay for the journey. So until we meet again, thank you all so much and goodbye.