What Makes Me Do That?

By Penny Whillans

Why do we behave in the ways we do, especially when it doesn’t seem to help us? This book provides answers to this question. The short answer is that it is about our coping. It is about how we try very hard to live the best way we can and that sometimes we don’t feel good about the results. We overdo.

Written in casual easy to understand style with helpful illustrations drawn by the author this book can be read cover-to-cover or in a random fashion, opening it at any page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CIES Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476102672

Penny Whillans

Penny is the Director and Founder of the Canadian Institute for Enneagram Studies (CIES) and she is a practicing Health Psychologist, teacher, facilitator and supervisor. Her work focuses on understanding how we cope and on the experiencing of who we are at our core, in our aliveness. She emphasizes the application of Enneagram principles in everyday life. She teaches weekly Enneagram classes as well as Enneagram workshops and trainings - all of which focus on living our lives at our very best and on the application of the Enneagram in our daily living.

Book preview

Introduction

Why do we behave in the ways we do, especially when it doesn’t seem to help us? This book provides answers to this question. The short answer is that it is about our coping. It is about how we try very hard to live the best way we can and that sometimes we don’t feel good about the results. We overdo.

How to Read this Book

This book is meant to be easy to read. It can be read cover-to-cover or it can be read in a random fashion, opening it at any page.

The introduction provides an overview of what coping is and of what our personalities are. The middle section looks at 9 different personalities and their ways of coping. The last section reviews suggestions which focus on supporting us to be who we are at our best.

Coping Is Trying … Trying to Make it Better

During our everyday lives most of us are trying to cope. One definition for ‘cope’ is to ‘deal with’ or to manage different situations. Another meaning of ‘cope’ is a type of cloak or outer covering to protect us from the elements.

When we cope we are trying to manage and to protect. We are, for example, trying to feel less fear, more control, more compassion, to be happier, more functional, to reach a goal, feel more ease, feel helpful.

Coping always involves trying. And most of us try very hard to be our best and to manage ourselves and our worlds.

Our Coping = Our Personality

Our personalities are systems of coping. None of our different systems of coping is better or more ‘OK’ than the others. They are our ways of trying to believe in others and ourselves and they are our ways of trying to manage our experiences and ourselves. 9 different personalities are outlined later in this book.

We can make the mistake of believing that we are our coping. When this occurs we see ourselves as being a ‘certain kind of person.’ We take a position about who and what we are and we usually try to become better at it. We see ourselves as being ‘someone;’ as someone, for example, with strong beliefs, someone who tries to be good, or creative, or one who experiences pain, or someone who is spiritual, powerful, good natured, loyal, or efficient.

Coping and Getting Stuck

And we get stuck in our coping.

We get stuck when we believe these positions to define who we are.

These experiences of being stuck can be so familiar that we tolerate them and may even believe that ‘being stuck’ is what and who we are. When we are stuck it seems impossible for us to see or experience ourselves outside of our own familiar ways of coping. And this means we usually end up recreating our behaviours and ingraining our positions more. We do the same things, trying even harder to manage, and we feel worse. Perhaps we repeatedly get angry, or withdraw, or numb-out with food. We can see that what we are doing isn’t helping us, but we can’t seem to stop ourselves. Often we believe that we can never know how to stop.

When we can’t seem to stop ourselves we are stuck in our personality patterns of coping.

Later1, we will look at ways to become unstuck.

1) Refer to section entitled ‘Becoming Unstuck Tips’

Our personality: Like an Acorn?

Our personalities are like the outer layers of an acorn which cover and protect the alive essential nature of ‘tree’ and the acorn’s potential to become a tree. The nut’s outer layer must crack for growth to occur, and for the alive nature of the tree