Category: Whitened

The How and When of Reconnecting in a Pandemic–By Design

Posted on July 20, 2020May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

We have been in the middle of a pandemic for several months now, and whether large or small, it has caused some change for all of us. One of the biggest changes has been in our ability and opportunity to connect with others. As things begin to slowly re-open around the country and world, we need to talk about how we can reconnect with others in a meaningful way. Now when it comes to the “when” in reconnecting in a pandemic, I will leave those answers to the experts who know best; but the “how” I am definitely comfortable taking a shot at!

Reconnecting during these challenging times is important because we have all, at some level, been forced to change the way or the amount of connecting with others from the way we used to do it several months ago. Our old normal is seemingly something of the past. We are left in a space to try to figure out the best ways to connect with those who are important to us, and those who are essential to our day to day care.

My best advice is to take into consideration the thought process of someone you are thinking about reconnecting to and move forward respecting those things that are important to their design. Though a lot has changed in this so called “new normal”, one thing that has stayed the same is someone’s design, and respecting the central focus of others’ designs when you reconnect is as relevant now as it has ever been.

Here are some tips:

If you are reconnecting with someone who is high in the Saturated Design, remember that their thought process is all or nothing, black and white. Because of this they might have a tendency to experience the pandemic in that same way. They will evaluate in a clear way the “all” part of all or nothing thinking first. All the threats that the pandemic brings. All the sanitation options. All the possible outcomes. For example, they will evaluate “is it dangerous/a threat or are we in the clear?” and then react accordingly. They might come across extreme, but it is really just their best way of making sure they keep “all” of those around them safe. They will take that very seriously. It is their way of serving and protecting.

When that is “all” done, they will move into the “nothing” stage and reconnect as if nothing is going to happen because they have covered “all” of their bases. To others it can look careless or uncaring but it is not, it is just a newfound confidence in their ability to reconnect to others while also keeping them safe.

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If you are reconnecting with someone who is high in the Whitened Design, keep in mind that they want to enroll you in a social way, but are also anticipating your needs at the same time. Because the thought process of the Whitened design is social and they are interested in pleasing, they will pay attention and follow your lead when it comes to reconnecting, so communicating what will make you feel safe and happy will be very helpful. They might fire a lot of questions your way in an attempt to see where you are at so they might connect in that way. Some will see the questions as an attempt to cling but it is not; it is an attempt to get the “lay of the land” to determine how to move forward in a way that meets your needs not theirs.

For example, if a Whitened person asked how you were experiencing the pandemic and you responded with, “we are doing nothing, we are staying in our basement and only having food delivered,” they would then take that info, respect your way, and have food delivered to you as a way to reconnect but at the same time please in a healthy way.

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If you are trying to reconnect with someone who is high in the Grayed Design, constantly process how hard change is on their thought process. They need the time and space to process all that is changing, and to analyze the best or optimal path to reconnecting and all that might come with that. Asking them what their thoughts are on different aspects of the pandemic is a great way to serve or reconnect with them, and then offer an ear to listen to their thoughts or analyze it with them. Leaving the interaction with encouraging words like, “give it some thought then let me know what you think,” or, “we don’t have to do anything right now but let’s definitely keep talking about it,” is a great way to serve them.

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If you are trying to reconnect with someone who is high in the Blackened Design, don’t forget that they are reasonable, but like realistic thinking. There will be some things about reconnecting that seem practical to them, and some that do not. They need it to be pragmatic to incorporate it into the reconnection process, so if they are not buying into something that makes you feel safe, just tell them in real and honest words why it is important to you. They love to protect, so if you tell them why it seems reasonable to you, they will be your biggest advocate. Too many times we just accept their first response and don’t give them the honest debate. We walk away feeling misunderstood, when in reality we just didn’t give them the information in a Blackened way so they could respond. They most likely would have.

So moving back into life, wherever you are and whatever you circumstances, when you are thinking about all that is needed to reconnect make sure you also spend a little time thinking about others and how they might be experiencing this phase as well. You need it, they need it, and we all need to stay safe.

And remember everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men: Leaving Our Imprint (week 2)

Posted on December 12, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

As we talked last week about our individual imprint that we leave when we interact with others, it got us all thinking here at Human Art this week. We have had many discussions on how others might experience our personality, or in simple terms, what affect we have on others. We dove deeper into that concept and we became very curious as to how we leave people feeling when they experience our personality or design. It occurred to us that our design could be experienced in a positive or a negative way, depending on how we use it to interact with others. It became very important to us that we used our design to leave peace, wherever we had the chance to interact with someone. That is especially important to us at Christmas time. “Good will towards men.”

The Whitened person is a master at that when they are interacting in their authenticity. They love it when everyone is happy, so they are drawn to positivism and to upbeat interactions. They seem to share a desire to leave others in a happier state when they interact with them.

3 Things a Whitened Person Leaves With Us When They Serve Us (Their Imprint):
Lightheartedness
Belonging
Enrolling

As we find ourselves in the middle of the holiday season it is great to give gifts and provide activities, but make sure some of the gifts are small acts of kindness in that Whitened way. To the degree that you have Whitened in your design or personality, is the degree you will want to serve in this way. It is a great way to serve others at this Christmas time.

Remember, everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

What Does a Whitened Person Need When We Come to the Table?

Posted on November 14, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

The holiday season is upon us and we are creating social events and offering invitations. Socializing is one of the best ways to renew our relationships with those we love. It protects relationships from getting stale. It breeds life and progress into relationships and helps them move along. When you really evaluate it, we do most of our interacting with others in social settings.

The holidays are a great time to focus on our friendships, old and new, and get to know each other at a deeper level. It provides many opportunities to play and laugh with others. Socializing happens at those holiday parties when we come together as families, co-workers, and neighbors, but those are not the only times we will find ourselves socializing this holiday season. It is any time or event that we personally deem a “social” situation. For example, it could be a meeting, but we deem it social in our mind. These are also places we have opportunities to get to know each other better.

As we come around the table on Thanksgiving Day, as well as other times, it is how we interact with each other in our social circles that either provides growth or becomes a barrier to further interactions and bonding.

This week let’s talk about what is important to those close to us that are Whitened.

Five things that a Whitened person is grateful for when we all come to the table:

Enrolling everyone that is in our social circles
Spontaneity is key
Anticipate each other’s needs and show up with fun surprises that matter
Laughter and light-hearted interactions
Flexibility and curiosity to just see where things will take you

If we take a few minutes to make sure these things are considered when entertaining our Whitened loved ones, it will insure a better interaction and a deeper bond.

Happy holidays and remember:

Everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

11.6.18 Thanksgiving: Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Who Am I Supposed to Be? Overcoming Self Doubt (Week 2-Whitened)

Posted on October 15, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

Self-doubt prevents you from looking inward and discovering what is uniquely yours; those things about your personality that make you who you are. The fear of not belonging tips the scale and you become more interested in conforming than in performing in a healthy, authentic way. This has high potential to place you on a destructive trajectory. It can generate a LOST kind of feeling. Some might minimize the effects of self-doubt and reduce it to “having a hard time”, and others might see it as some form of humility, but if we dare to take a deeper look and run into our feelings of self-doubt we can collect good information. We can assess in a healthy way where we might be doubting our self. We could possibly sit there long enough to see what we think others think we should be. If we stay long enough and tolerate those feelings, we can even notice where we are outsourcing and who we are outsourcing approval to. If we can do this, it is the first step in taking our healthy power back.

When you are experiencing self-doubt, you are not operating in your character. Character is an enduring pattern of behavior based on correct principle. Self-doubt is abandoning the work that you have put into creating these patterns over time and creating the foundation of your autonomy. One the other hand, when we consistently work this routine along the way, day to day, it cannot help but enhance your design. Those of us in self-doubt abandon this process and vacillate between building our authentic patterns and mirroring others. In mirroring others, we crash our boundaries often and that is where we lose parts of ourselves. It is exactly at this point we stop enrolling others and we find our self submitting to them instead.

In early childhood development we work to find what they love. If they were a child, maybe he has interest in airplanes. He might go on in his life to collect airplanes. He could possibly even fly them. If the secure parent can just follow him in this interest with curiosity and support his interest, taking him to museums and exploring books on airplanes, he will find his place and where he lands. If the parent can’t tolerate it because they like something else, that shuts down his interest and leads to self-doubt, the kind at this point he can only feel and might not be able to verbalize yet. Conversely, in a healthy situation, even if the child doesn’t stay with airplanes, they definitely get the message that their interests are important and they have a secure environment to explore. They are forming who they are.

This month we are looking at what self-doubt looks like in each design. This week we will focus on the Whitened design.

In the rapprochement model that we focused on last month we know that when a Whitened person gets overwhelmed it usually has to do with their circles of people or relationships. When they cannot please these people or get others to be together in healthy ways and it can overwhelm them. We know that their social intelligence is high and we know they are exceptional at anticipating others’ needs, so if those in their circles are not reciprocating, that will overwhelm a Whitened person over time.

One challenge with a Whitened person is they will not tell you they are getting overwhelmed until they have had it. In some cases they will never tell you, so they just abandon ship and it looks random or doesn’t make sense to you. In reality, they have been leaving the situation for a long time. It could leave those in the Whitened social circles or relationships scratching their heads and asking “how did that happen?” It is the Whitened persons way of saying “I’m out.”

When a Whitened person gets to this point it goes something like this in their head: “I have been trying and trying to love this person. I have been thinking what they need, and they in turn don’t even know me, so why even bother?” In this place, they still love this person and they still have a desire to be in their life, they have just lost their desire to enroll them into their vulnerability. The consequences of this is that they are now in a space where they do not anticipate the needs of this person or relationship, so it has the potential to look flippant to the others in the relationship. The relationship can lose its energy, and it tends to fizzle out with no confrontation just a very subtle separation over time.

Here is an example:

Two good friends in a work situation have been close friends for some time. The Whitened person is constantly anticipating, bantering with the other who is introverted, shy, and has an injury of being socially anxious. The Whitened person, in a light-hearted way paves a path when things become social that makes it very easy for the introverted one to step into any social situation. Time and time again when there are parties or large amounts of people involved, the Whitened person is there to pave the way, so no one even notices that the other person even struggles with these situations.

This goes on and on for years, and the Whitened person is getting fatigued of this, a little at a time. In the meantime, it is so easy to lean on the Whitened person that the introverted person at some level just gets accustomed to it and, after all, the Whitened person looks as if they are enjoying the ride—they make it look effortless. It is here where the Whitened person just wakes up and says, “I’m out.” They feel as if the other person in this work relationship doesn’t know them. They come into work and, later that day when there is a party, the introverted is ready for the paved road. Instead, they find themselves alone outside the door waiting for their Whitened friend, who doesn’t show up. They find out later that the Whitened friend is not even at this work party, but at a completely different party all together. The Whitened person does not even bring it up again. They are still nice but show no interest in creating the paved road anymore. Over time, these fast friends drift apart.

If the introverted friend, despite their social anxiety, could just meet a need of the Whitened co-worker here and there, even in small ways, the Whitened person would not fatigue. It would actually lead to a conversation of gratitude, which makes it easy for a Whitened person to step into vulnerability and helps them open up about what they need. This cannot help but strengthen the relationship overtime. They will appreciate the thoughtfulness and sincerity of the introverted person. This can go far in setting a foundation for a secure attachment in the relationship. It will also lead to healthy vulnerability.

The interesting thing is that in these situations, where the Whitened person gets overwhelmed and they are not getting the relief that they need, they do act in random ways, which often leads to criticism from others because their actions appear so random and illogical. This just leads to more distance and puts a wedge in the relationship.

If you are high in the Whitened design, use that Whitened charm to engage in relationships with healthy people. Create a space that is light-hearted and safe because that is the hallmark of your relationship. But stop along the way to get your own needs met and don’t be so quick to put them to the side. Think of it as feeding the relationship and preventing it from becoming fragile and brittle. Remember that always putting your needs to the side will not overwhelm you until suddenly it does, so work hard to prevent this dynamic along the way.

Really focus in on the example I gave and freeze the situation that we just talked about. The moment that paving the way for the other friend becomes a routine rather than something that happens in the moment, we see where the Whitened person can start to become overwhelmed. They get the feeling the other person does not know the Whitened person. This is the moment the breakdown gets its start. The introverted co-worker doesn’t know the Whitened person because the Whitened person doesn’t give them the chance. They are too busy paving the way, meeting the other person’s needs. So this is the very point when the Whitened person could just simply pause, speak up, and tell the other person about what they need. Negotiate. It could be something as simple as, “Hey I’m a little tired, when we get into the party could you find me a chair? Sometimes paving the way can make me tired.” That little bit of information gives the other a chance to reciprocate, which leads to bonding. Remember, we can only bond if we are receiving as well as giving. The receiving end is where we have potential for strong bonding. So if we are not receiving and always giving, then we are not bonding in healthy ways.

At the end of the day we ask ourselves those two questions

Who am I?

You are you in that light-hearted, social way. You are you the way you like to enroll and serve others.

Why am I outsourcing to others more than I am supporting myself in my design?

Remember, if we are outsourcing our approval at any point and putting that approval above our own authenticity we are in trouble. We might be paving a way for others to find relief, but we are paving the way to broken relationships as well if we are not negotiating, receiving, and bonding at the same time. That is a sure recipe for self-doubt!

This is critical for all designs, but it is especially critical for the Whitened personality. When we are collaborating we are still bonding; if we are hushed the relationship could be in trouble. Instead of staying hushed, go find healthy relationships. Seek for give and take interactions, live in the moment, and live in your design’s integrity. Remember, everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

Rapprochement: Who is Providing Relief When We Are Overwhelmed? Part 2

Posted on September 17, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

An important component of rapprochement is to be present enough when interacting with a child that you get what is original about that child, and not to project on to them what it is that we want them to be; in other words, to make them like us, or make them navigate more in our own design instead of theirs. We fall into the trap sometimes of thinking that since our design traits work so well for us that others would benefit if they would just use them. This is not always the case. They can definitely learn from us and our traits, but originally as a child is navigating life, he or she does better when exploration is done organically, in their own design and growing their own authenticity.

This is where we would do well to follow them in their discovery. They can then circle around and plug in some of the strengths from others’ designs that will strengthen their character and leads to a more expanded autonomy and independence. If we fail to allow the authentic growth of the child and we can’t get them to give in to our way of doing things, it tends to put the attending adult (us) in distress as well as the child. Then you end up with two infants having a temper tantrum. We are both in a fight for our own autonomy and both feel it at a soul level. It can hit a traumatic level where, more often than not, the child gives in and surrenders their autonomy—forsaking their authenticity. This is due to the threat of the caretaker holding their survival in their hands.

In relationships, adults can do this to each other as well. It is especially true if you have a dynamic where there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. Where there is sometimes a fight for power and control. The more dominating adult plays the caretaker roll and the less dominating adult plays the child roll (infantile regression). This imbalance of power is where you might see this dynamic most, but any adult can fall into this trap because we all love our own way of doing things

This month we are focusing on what the rapprochement needs are in each design. Today let’s talk about the Whitened design.

What tends to overwhelm a Whitened person, and how do they find relief?

A Whitened person is socially driven, so their social circles are very important to them. In other words, ALL their relationships are important to them. One of the indicators of how they are doing in relationships is measured by how happy the people in those circles or relationships are. They love to please others and they do it with no agenda. They just want to enroll each person in these relationships in a lighthearted way. They use their advanced social intelligence (that usually comes with them, even when they are very young) to match others’ emotions.

The Whitened person can get very overwhelmed when someone does not follow them in what is emotionally important to them. This is particularly devastating to them because they spend a lot of attention on the other person to make sure they feel secure in their relationship and they are quick to anticipate needs. When that is not reciprocated, they don’t get mad, they find themselves confused, and engage in a halted type of preoccupation.

Another thing that can really get them overwhelmed is when someone gets angry with them. If this is an adult that is their primary caregiver, this dynamic will be even more devastating. It will feel as if all is lost with this person and they will then react in their type of pushback, which is random, or might seem obnoxious. It is an attempt to alarm the caregiver that they feel alienated and they are completely overwhelmed. It can often embarrass them, and this embarrassment is their form of shut down.

If you want to match their enthusiasm, follow that heightened social intelligence and have that heightened awareness of them and what is going on around them. Follow how these dynamics are affecting them instead of how it is affecting you. If you navigate in that order you can then interject correct principals that are important to you and have helped you. They will absorb them and remember them because it is done in an emotionally safe environment; the kind that they tend to thrive in.

If you want to support them when they are overwhelmed, enroll them in a social and active engagement. Keep it light—they love to banter in lighthearted teasing that is designed to build them up not embarrass them. They love playful activities or conversations, no matter if they are children or adults. They are extroverted, so they will want to socialize what just happened—they literally just want to bounce it off you. If you are not in the mood to do so, you don’t have to socialize it or process it, you can just listen in a light and happy way. When they are small, they might not be able to articulate what the dynamics are, but they will most likely tell you how they absorbed or experienced the dynamic from their view. Where an adult might say, “I was angry with how you handled that,” the child will only be able to say, “you hurt me.” If you are the adult, don’t bite on that; they are not criticizing you they are trying to tell you what happened to them. They are telling you THEY did something to make you mad and they don’t understand it, or they are saying, “it’s on me.”

Here is an example. A client’s daughter is Whitened. She loves to please her family, especially her mother. She works hard on those things that make her mom happy and proud of her, but when it comes to the things she spontaneously does in the day to day play in life, her mom does not relate to them. She gets confused when she so enthusiastically enrolls her mom to see what she just came up with and is met with a look or reaction that is full of confusion but looks a bit like disdain. This would annihilate the Whitened child, and she felt like all was lost in the relationship when really the mother is just confused and trying to connect the behavior to a threat or a future negative pattern in the child’s character. In reality, it is not that deep for the Whitened child. They are just skipping through the day in free movement and expression and it is not designed to cement into a future pattern, just an expression of the happy state they are in today. However, when the parent gives off the displeased cue, the child then reacts in a way that looks like negative attention but is just a desperate attempt to establish connection with the parent. At this point they will take it in a negative way if that is the only option, and will repeat the behavior to elicit more connection.

In these situations, if we could just follow the Whitened child and unpack what it is they experience and how they are blaming themselves or are confused about the relationship, we can offer relief through reassurance that we love them and that the social circle we share with them is intact. That is literally all they need to move out of the negative space. A little lighthearted banter, like a tickle or a funny expression, will always bring the light back into the conversation and the child is in a better place to express their feelings the next time they feel this dynamic. Keep in mind they love change so you will probably never experience the same thing twice, but consistently getting to the bottom of their confusion is the key.

If you are Whitened, or have high amounts of Whitened in your design, go through this week identifying when you are feeling overwhelmed. Identify what social circle or relationship is affected and move to offer yourself your own rapprochement. This will go far in bringing healthy dynamics back to the relationship that is affected. In other words, be your own best friend. If you learn to support yourself and always have the relationship you have with yourself intact, then you are in a healthy place. You will always have one consistent relationship that is in good condition and will offer relief when things might not be going well with others. Create that light environment for yourself so that you always have a place to thrive. Sometimes Whitened people have to flip the golden rule to, “do unto yourself as you would do unto others.” You have got to love yourself before you can truly love others in a healthy way.

Love others as you do, love yourself as you should, and always remember: everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook