Identifying your own personality and the personalities of others is the road to greater compassion for all. It allows you to extend infinitely more grace and understanding to others and, more importantly, yourself. Personality tools like Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram are incredibly helpful in the journey of self-awareness and other centeredness. Understanding personalities shows us that "we can’t change the way other people see, but we can try to experience the world through their eyes and help them change what they do with what they see" says Ian Morgan Cron.
Thich Nhat Hanh explains this well. He says, “When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change,” he says. “But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.”
If you want to see a real change in the people you work with, your family or your spouse, the first step starts with understanding them and yourself better.
Think on what Thomas Merton said:
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
In this episode, Joel + Casey talk about:
1.)How to Identify your co-worker's, family's and spouse's personality type
2.)Understanding Enneagram Personality Types
3.)How to live with more grace and compassion for others and yourself
SHOW NOTES at joeljohnson.org/podcast
(SHOW NOTES - include a detailed summary of this podcast episode, with links discussed, materials and free stuff! Enjoy!)