Wednesday, January 20, 2016

What's up these days

These days I have been obsessed with Podcasts. I am not sure when or where I made the discovery but I am so glad that I did. Each time I start to clean my house, fold the laundry, take a long drive in the car by myself or prepare a meal, I throw in my earbuds and tune into a Podcast. It makes the time go by quickly and I feel like I learn something new each time.

I started with The Simple Show by Tsh Oxenreider. I have been a faithful follower of Tsh and her ideas of simplifying life for a few years. Emails would come into my inbox and introduce a new podcast and I would delete it not knowing where to start or how to access it. Finally, one day I just decided to click on my podcast app on my phone (comes pre-installed, who knew?) and give it a shot. As my kids and husband would tell you, since then I've become a little (or maybe a lot) addicted. Halle has even started listening to Webkinz Podcasts on her iPod. She came home from cheerleading and let me know that NONE of her friends had ever listened to a podcast. My little trendsetter!

Tsh's show led me to The Sorta Awesome Show with Megan Tietz and three of her sorta awesome friends. I love listening to their show! It is like sitting down and having coffee with girlfriends. They dish on their "sorta awesome of the week," goals, confessions, books, holidays, birthday parties, tv, you name it. I look forward each week to their new podcast.

But the area I have become most enthralled with and the reason and I am back to take a stab at blogging is the podcast called Personality Hacker. Megan mentions in her show (actually almost every show) her obsession with Myers Briggs personality types. One day she talked about the Personality Hacker podcast and how it has helped her with personal growth. I was instantly drawn to this show and really can't get enough of it. It feeds right into the part of my brain that led to my psychology degree.

Each episode, Joel Mark Witt and Antonia Dodge explore a different facet of personality. (*Disclaimer: I am not an expert, but I have just been listening to their podcasts and will do my best here to synthesize what I have learned.*) They are typically devoted to Myers Briggs typology but more than just helping you understand your personality and how you are wired, they are out to help people understand how to be the best version of themselves. This is where the hacker part comes in. They believe that if you understand how your brain functions, then you can also utilize how you think to overcome stress, self-doubt and other issues that get in our way, make us feel stuck or hold us back.


One way they do this is by looking at cognitive functions. I wasn't familiar with this before and am still trying to wrap my head around it. Joel (of Personality Hacker, not to be confused with my Joel) and Antonia have given Genius personality types to each Myers Briggs type and they use a car analogy to help you understand how your brain is functioning. Even though I am evenly fixated on my type as well as my husband's, I will focus on my type for this blog post (I am sure Joel (my sweet love) will chime in one of these days on his type.) For your reference, I am an ESFJ on the Myer's Briggs test. Back to the 4 passenger car analogy. (If you are interested in all the details, you will definitely want to check out the Personality Hacker podcast or website.) The two main parts of your personality are the Driver and the Co-Pilot (remember the car analogy?) My driver is Harmony~making sure everyone's needs are met, and my co-pilot is Memory. No, not, "I sure have a great memory," but more along the lines that my memory of my experiences make up who I am. When things are stressful or going rough in the front seat, I want to jump in the back seat and take a break. Behind the co-pilot sits my 10 year old self. That's Exploration. The "What If?" In my life, that plays out in the area of shopping. When all things seem to be spinning out of control, I need to buy something new! Or start a new project that I will never finish (think stenciling.) That is my 10 year old self kicking in and trying to make everything better. Yikes! Behind the passenger seat, in my blind spot, sits my 3 year old self, Perspective. My 3 year old self thinks it knows everything that is going on behind the scenes and ruminates on it. I have discovered recently that I think a lot of my fear and anxiety are coming from this place. When I am spending all my time making sure all the needs of those around me are met and I am not spending time thinking about my true life experiences, I become stressed. Stressed beyond what a shopping spree would fix (thank you 10 year old self), I head down the dark path of thinking about untrue things.

Learning these things and discussing them at length with Joel has caused a veil to be lifted from my eyes and a fog to be lifted from my mind. I feel a new sense of purpose and I have a new set of vocabulary for exploring my thoughts, feelings and actions. There is so much power, for me, in being able to put words to my thoughts. There is light shining in dark places.

Fascinating!! Like I said, I really can't get enough. But the best part is recognizing that even though my brain is wired to behave like this, I don't have to. I have power to spend time intentionally filling my cup and joyfully seeing to the needs of others, to spend time with my Memory co-pilot (scrapbooking, journaling, blogging, reading, doing something fun that I used to do when I was younger) and to look for personal growth and appropriate responses to stress and conflict. These podcasts have led to great conversations between Joel and I. He has had great insight in helping me try and figure out how my brain is working and how to help me be the best me. I have also been able to listen to the podcasts that cover Joel's personality type. It has been so good for me to see how his brain works and to think about how I need to communicate with him and to see how I can help him be his best self. My poor kids......... they are next.

So, all that to say, I'm back. Spending time reflecting on the ins and outs of my daily life will give me much needed time with my co-piolot Memory. My goal for the year is to spend as much time in the front seat as I can.

No comments:

Post a Comment