Tag: emotional personality

Navigating the Holidays: What we can Learn from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Posted on by Brook Thornley

One year around Christmas when I was pretty little a teacher read the story, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” I remember because it was right around this time of year; just before Thanksgiving and then Christmas was the next holiday. I fell in love with all of the characters but it was when I got to experience the show on TV that, for some reason, I really fell in love with the Grinch. He just warmed my heart from the beginning.

In order to understand why I fell in love with him you have to freeze the beginning of the story and look at it and name what was real or what it looked like. For me, even as a little girl, I remember watching the very beginning of the show and thinking, as they scanned his life and his circumstances, there was a feeling of desperation. Although I couldn’t define it as a young girl I certainly felt what, as an adult, I have learned to be a feeling that he was totally overwhelmed. I remember vividly when they introduced his living conditions—how he was a bit isolated, how limited his resources were and how he put antlers on his dog to make a reindeer—feeling overwhelmed for him. That is the exact reason that I loved this story and the exact reason I fell in love with the Grinch. He was just moving forward the best way he could.

The challenge the Grinch faced is that he was in what is called his emotional personality in a big way. Our emotional personality is the part of us that splits off when we get overwhelmed. It is designed to help us survive tough things and it has its own skills and even its own set of likes and dislikes that are completely opposite from our authentic self.

I remember being so happy at the end of the show when he returns to his authentic self and is seen for who he really was all because compassion and kindness were present.The key word or feeling in this example of the Grinch who stole Christmas was OVERWHELMED. When we hit overwhelmed it puts us immediately into our emotional personality. If we don’t learn how to navigate that part of ourselves well, it has potential to go destructive quickly.

I think around the holidays we have high potential to become overwhelmed. My fear for myself and others is that we have potential to be drawn to things that could overwhelm us. Like how things look or projections. Fear of feeling isolated or not having enough. Feelings of inadequacy of any kind. These feelings or circumstances can lead to feeling overwhelmed when we focus on them.

In the story of the Grinch, if only he could have marched down to Whoville and shown his authentic self from the very beginning and just defined what was real (all of his flaws but also that great big heart when it grew two sizes) I have no doubt they would have loved him from the beginning and not had to navigate the emotional self and all the destruction it brought with it. In the end they finally did get to enjoy the real Grinch and, here is the best part, so did he. He got to enjoy himself and interact and form relationships with those around him by simply being who he really was. He was able to integrate the challenges with all that good to tell a complete story. The real one that tells who he really is and celebrates all aspects of his life: the wins, the losses, the pain and the triumphs. And he can be grateful for all of it because it defines him and at the same time others can have compassion for how hard his challenges were to navigate.

Come Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and even New Years, just get out there and be who you are, in whatever shape and form it is right now: a work in progress, but an amazing work at that. Be more authentic, work harder to understand yourself. Don’t become a Grinch and hide it, twist it, or project something that it is not. When you begin to feel overwhelmed, recognize it and don’t let your emotional personality take over. Understand yourself, celebrate your authentic design, and then celebrate others. Work hard to understand them and their journey as well. This will most certainly lead to more happiness, more peace, better interactions, and a true sense of what really leads to a happy holiday season. And keep in mind as you navigate the events of the season….Everyone is a masterpiece!

 

Relationship Dynamics: How to Get Rid of Hopelessness

Posted on by Brook Thornley

It feels so good to be blogging again. Sometimes Human Art requires our attention elsewhere, but being this is one of my favorite things to do, I am glad to be blogging today.

With that said, one of the tasks that we spend a considerable amount of time with is with families; giving them information that helps with family dynamics (or any relationship for that matter). In every case we find one thing that is all too familiar: It takes time to build new skills when it comes to relationships, but it takes no time at all for a destructive dynamic to rip progress apart and sometimes we feel like we are right back where we started from. That can be a hopeless feeling.

Hopelessness looks different for each design. If a specific dynamic in each design falls apart, that can bring a feeling of hopelessness to the relationship from that person’s perspective. The Saturated design needs clarity in dynamics, Whitened needs enrolling availability, Grayed needs deep connections, and Blackened needs their expectations to be met. You can see that each person’s need in the dynamic is different, so it has a different version of hopelessness and therefore is often misunderstood because it is not the same version of the other person’s hopelessness. It has potential to get complicated. But it doesn’t have to. Just remember in building a relationship don’t destroy the progress you’ve already made.  Honor the other’s needs in a dynamic. After all most of the time when we are upset we are reacting to a dynamic, not the person themselves. We love the people we choose to be in relationships with. We sometimes get frustrated with the dynamic.

 

Three Things to Clear out of Dynamics in a Relationship

  1. Hijacking and Overriding. Hijacking is an external punishment designed to take control or stop dynamics but is destructive. Examples would be temper tantrums, intimidation, aggression, or drama. Overriding is avoiding or withholding. Minimizing a dynamic and pretending it isn’t there or just stepping right over it. It is designed to avoid and excuse oneself from taking responsibility.
  2. Emotional personality. We have an authentic personality that includes our autonomy, our development, and our skills in a relationship. An emotional personality is developed when we feel overwhelmed and our authentic needs in a dynamic are not being met. It has its own set of skills and talents that are usually nothing like our authentic personality and are very destructive, like anger or harshness to name a few. The trick is to minimize our emotional and destructive personality (it is not who we are) and maximize our authentic personality in relationship dynamics.
  3. Get rid of Harshness and Add Compassion. We have equal compassion for ourselves and the person we are in a relationship with. No one gets more or less. We can have compassion for the other person and see why a dynamic is hard for them and have equal compassion for oneself and understand why they might be struggling also.

So take a little inventory. What are the dynamics in your family? What are the authentic needs? What can we clean out to avoid hopelessness? Remember, if someone you love is overwhelming you it is possible it is a dynamic. Make it easier by using your authentic strengths and a little compassion and you can tackle the dynamic. If you do, you will know you have done your best. That provides an opportunity for others to do the same. It will strengthen your confidence in relationships. And always, always remember: everyone is a masterpiece!