No single detail, like "tie-pulling" is the whole answer. Posted by John on March 22, 1999 at 13:58:58:
In Reply to: Oops! Not sure where that "cut & paste" came from, try this one... posted by Jeff on March 22, 1999 at 10:12:22:
I think others will have the same questions that you are having here, Jeff. Yes, you are noticing that we *do* get down to details in this class. We are not dealing in generalities here when I attempt to paint portraits of these eight types for you . . . because, in mindfulness, one doesn't see "generalities" but the "suchness" of it that comes up in high relief. I'm putting in details that you students can actually see when you are awake in the course of your life (only when they are actually before you, of course!).
That doesn't mean I am suggesting that you "base your whole diagnosis" on a single observation, such as the "stretching of a tie." What I am trying to do for you there is convey something of the visual display of the Teacher/Con Artist type that is available to you when you look over a roomful of people. It is that "stretching to appear taller," being very erect and poised, seeking to be "superior" to the others that are around in the very physicalness of it--albeit unconscious. This hint is what I'm trying to convey. If you happen to wake up and pick up on a person who is doing "that sort of dance" before your very eyes, and you go on watching and begin to see that they are saying some Con-Artist things like "playing to people's admiration," you begin to see "how the whole thing goes together."
On the other hand, if you see somebody slumping in their chair, and at the same time, pulling on their tie, I wouldn't have a "presumption of Con Artist" there. I'm trying to give you students a "constellation" of specific details in this course. You may see it in how the person looks, in what you can see of them visually, in any obvious emotion they display, in the words that they actually say, and in the "typical" behaviors that they do.
Someday, Jeff--I don't mean to be flattering myself in this--a day might come when noticing some man stretching his tie, might tip you off that he is sitting there thinking, "Hmmm. What can I get out of him?" In such a time, from your training in recognizing the other characteristic traits of the Con Artist, that might be the "bell that goes off," if you get what I mean. And you'd start picking up right away on the "sales pitch," IF IT WAS ACTUALLY THERE, or the exaggerations and misrepresentations--or the fact of the *hidden agenda* in the other person, "the con."
So that example of stretching the tie might never be of any value to any of you students, and, on the other hand, it might ring a bell some day, when you'd rather be aware of it than not, that you're "in the scenario of a con artist."
In the same sense--and I'm glad you brought this up, Jeff--any of the other specific descriptive characteristics of the types *might not be good clues at all*! When you recognize them (from your training in studying the wheels), they can be like "flags." And you can go on watching mindfully from there. You are not attempting to "find the answers" by recognizing only one of these flags. All such flags (that you have learned by study) can be reminders for you to wake up. *Whatever you see* by being awake and watching "finds the answers."
>I have been somewhat hesitant to try to attach, or project onto people characteristics or traits based on a predefined type. No offense
I don't mean to discourage your expressions of skepticism, Jeff. On the contrary, I encourage more of them! And perhaps the wheelbook may not be the approach that is beautiful for you and "turns you on." I can only speak from the perspective of a person who has not been hesitant to do this type of exercise. That's all it is, another exercise. Perhaps I was fortunate in years I spent as a therapist, where I was obliged to attach detailed diagnosis to every client's presentation in the therapy room. (As I've said elsewhere, I tried out all the diagnostic systems I could find, and the wheelbook is designed to both *work*, as well as any other system I've known, and especially, to be *easy to learn and easy to use* off the top of one's head when it's been learned, while practicing mindfulness.)
I got to see how learning to understand what was going on in people's lives in this focused and categorized way helped me to focus the interventions and treatments that I was obliged to select in *working for them* as a therapist. It helped me to know what to do. You students may have no such motivation as this. In teaching the wheel here, it is with the idea that you may be served by this method in the same way that I have been served by it--in relating with the people that you know by having this simple, practical means of understanding them in what you see before your very eyes.
>the tie that I haven't worn for 6 months(or more). Maybe it is expression of wanting to be more important, but I've generally thought, I can't wait to get out of this tie.
Yes. *That's* what's so! Doesn't sound at all like Con Artist here. Doesn't this sound more like the music of the Rebel? Some Rebels won't accept jobs where they have to wear ties, or dresses, or whatever is "the norm," "the uniform." I've been a Rebel about wearing ties throughout my life, and not very often had to wear them, either, unless the boss absolutely demanded it. That sounds like my Rebel to me.
And "wanting to be more important"--in the sense of rising up above the people around you and acting as if you are better than they are, may simply *not be your thing*. You'd probably only pull on a tie if it was choking you, and "spoiling the beauty of it" for you at the time. :-) On the other hand, even if you aren't a Con Artist, the brilliance of the Teacher that is in your essence, certainly appears to be intact and working.
>Then comes the kicker when you pick up on my traits very well.
Well, I am still getting to know you, Jeff, from the aspects of the wheel that you go on expressing here in Classroom Talk. And I appreciate it.
>I'm still not sure how [Kreuger] got into my garage, but I am seeing a pattern to Mr. Kreuger's observations and John's. Both are cognizant of what is going on around them, whether mindfully or from a trained pattern of observations(test results over time).
Well put. We are talking here about becoming able to do this kind of diagnostic work in the present moment, while the behavior is going on. To attempt this, a person is best served by going on practicing mindfulness in all the ways that they remember and like. (Doing this "exercise" of the wheelbook is also a good way to get in this practice, if a person likes it!) Mindfulness is a necessary concommitant of being able to do this kind of on-the-spot diagnostic work, because mindfulness gives us a calm, centered platform from which we can notice the specific details of life popping up into high relief, and simply see whatever they are, and reflect on them.
Can't you just see me rising up in my chair and sitting tall as I'm doing this "sales pitch" above. If I had on a tie, I'd probably be pulling it. :-) "We are talking here about..." -- "We . . ." That's a typical Con Artist line! What's in it for me? Getting you to "buy" my product. Heh-heh. {wide grin} Even in the guise of "the Teacher"--and it's appropriate teaching, I suppose--a little Con Artist can creep in, a little manipulativeness now and then. Do you see what I mean?
It is not a question, by the way, of whether Mr. Kreuger's approach is more right than your ol' coach's approach. Both these approaches are "right." Both of them work. And so do the other diagnostic approaches, from the Enneagram, which is widely known in spiritual circles, to the Tarot, to the many clinical approaches used in this country in counseling agencies and psychiatrists' offices. Any system "works" if it succeeds in bringing you face to face with a few of the basic conditioned syndromes that block you in your life and bring about most of the troubles that you face. The wheelbook is a tool that can enable you to "see a movie" of your life, and study it, just the same way that coaches study game-films with their players, with a view to making skillful adjustments in the way they play the game. And you can also, with practice, learn to "remember it and see this game-film" while the game is going on. It is a mnemonic memory-jogging device.
I liked your sharing of your experience in the theater. That's all a valid analogy of what we are looking at here! And "getting the chance to step out of character and see what happens, to open the door to the dance of our essence, the infinite possibility." Yeah! Right on.
I continue my invitation to you, Jeff, to point out to me any aspect of human beingness that you sense I seem to be "leaving out" of the wheel that we are using here.
>I can see how this can help with interpersonal relationships, as long as they are taken with the appropriate amount of caution(ie. reading too much into the tie stretching type activity, it may be valid and it may not be).
Yes, I'm not in any disagreement with you here! Be cautious! Don't jump to conclusions! When you have learned enough of the specific traits that describe "the music" of each of these eight distinct types, and you start hearing that music in your own self and the selves of other people, it will get clearer and clearer. With practice, you won't find you need to do any guessing. It's just in spotting what you do see, and reflecting mindfully upon it.
In the final analysis: "I don't know" is always the wisest starting point, in proceeding with anything. Then there can be *knowing* if you keep awake.
Coach
Archived 15 Jun 99