Tuesday, February 15, 2022

40 for 40 Number 3: On being a w4 and Federico’s daughter

After I learned that I was an Enneagram 3 I mostly ignored the fact that I was also a w4. The 4 types are the artistic creative types that thrive on being original and creative and moody. I used to say that “I’m not creative” but boy is that not true. I think I put some stock into creative having to mean artistic in that we can paint, draw, or sculpt or play an instrument. But being creative, or feeling that need to create… to exist in creative spaces and to put beauty into the world is vital.

As I’m writing this I am sitting in my “Room of Requirement”: the home office that functions as playroom, den, tea parlor, lady cave, guest room, home school, and sometimes office. I painted the room in a beautiful grassy green and I have a mauve couch, pink chair, and yellow sideboard. There is a disco ball and plants and framed art and drawings made by the kids and all kinds of colorful and happy things surrounding me. I wanted this space to be a reflection of me and the things I love and you would never guess the person that owned this room was ‘not creative’. 


I made mention of the troubled relationship I had with my mother but there is another figure that exists in my life that is half of me… my father… Federico Camacho. 


During the pandemic, my mother decided to go to the denial route and fell to conspiracy theories and all that. My father on the other hand decided to do the right thing and stay home, make masks, tended his garden, took up drawing, and befriended the neighborhood cat and bought it a jacket. While I grew increasingly frustrated with my mother and had to block her toxicity, my father was regularly texting me Bible verses and FaceTiming me to show off his latest garden adventures and I mine. Since I lived with my mother, that was the most influential person in my life and I realized that it was a squeaky wheel gettin the grease type situation. I kept focusing on the parts that were like hers but I rarely ever thought about how my father had made me who I am today. It was always so strange how my mother loathed all living creatures and my father would go out of his way to talk to my dogs. That part of me that is curious, creative, in tune with nature, that is my father’s contribution. I don’t know why it took a pandemic to slow me down enough to realize all I was missing out on and neglecting my relationship with my father but better now than never. 


Sometimes we feel out of place or that there’s a part of us that is not paid enough attention to. A part of us that is quieter than the other. That part of me took a whole new meaning during a time when I was unable to perform or achieve the way I normally would. I leaned into that quiet and that curiosity and found myself bewildered by it but it was right there all along, living and breathing in my father. 


It finally all made sense. 


I was Federico Camacho’s daughter too. 

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

40 for 40 Number 2: On Being an Enneagram 3

About… 3 years ago my former church (recently former, we dissolved and that’s a whole essay) got really into talking about the Enneagram personality test. Out of curiosity I took the test and learned to my chagrin that I was an Enneagram 3 (w4). The Achiever. “The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious”. When I read the description of my personality type I said “no, this can’t be me, this person sounds like an asshole.” So I took the test again and I got the same result. Dammit, I am the asshole.

Once I came to terms with the numbers being correct I started reading about what that personality types’ driving forces are. What makes them feel seen and appreciated. What their underlying motivations are. It was all true. I was driven by wanting to feel valuable and worthwhile, I did want to feel that I was the best and that I stood out. I was acutely aware of how I was projecting my image at work and in life. 


The 2nd day of my journal writing at age 12 had this written in it: “I have to try not to talk so much. Everyone thinks I’m a show-off. Have I got news for them. All I want is for everyone to like me and I want the teachers to think I’m smart & I know. I get really angry at my friends can’t they realize I need them? But I guess I need to change as much as they do.” Even then I knew what I wanted out of people. 


Why I wanted it is multi-layered. I realized in 2020, watching my daughter’s school experience completely taken from her and going to online schooling, that school had always been a safe space for me and a place where an adult paid attention to me and affirmed me positively. I don’t think I got any of that at home. At home I was selfish and lazy and whatever other accusations could be made of me in a home with a mother that most likely has ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. But I stood out in class and I liked it. 


I’ve learned that my personality type is very charming and a chameleon which explained why I thought I wanted to act or why I thought acting seemed easy to me. It wasn’t that I had the gift of acting like dear friends of mine do, it was that I was performing a part and that part was whatever I wanted or needed at the time. I enjoyed having large and varied groups of friends and didn’t like being tied down to one best friend or one group. My type is fickle and shallow when unhealthy, we move to the next cool thing fast. We excel in life because we want the appearance of perfection or having it all together. We want to be admired and liked by everyone. We are rarely satisfied with enough. We can never be satisfied, God I hope you’re satisfied….!


I gotta tell you, something about learning that I was not an insane person and that I fit into the characteristics of a certain type of personality that has certain tendencies and motivations was a freedom and understanding of myself I had not found in many searches. I own it to the level where I admit insane honest truths like “oh no, I’m fine to do this, I love attention” “hey you know how I think everything is a competition..” “I have to be the best at this pretty fast or I won’t care anymore” and other things. 


I check myself regularly on all these tendencies and by and large try to use them to the advantage of whatever group or work environment or organization I’m in. Naturally inclined to leadership and outspokenness I have to figure out when to put that into effect in a way that's selfless and more for the good of the team. I suffer from a deplorable excess of self-assuredness which many find baffling. Insecure about things? Millions? But by and large I walk around with confidence in who I am and what I am capable of. 


So yes, of course I am a producer. Of course I am the breadwinner. Of course I get chosen for committees and such. That’s how I’m wired. But let me tell you… none of that external fluff meant diddly squat compared to learning who I am in my identity with Christ and God and Holy Spirit. The work of mental health and healing has brought so much satisfaction to my life, more than any awards ever could. I know when the pulls to be that achiever are coming at me and when I need to listen and when I need to ignore them.


The other fun part of this equation and something that I really leaned into this pandemic has been the other side of my personality which is being a w4 (wing 4). Speaking of which…