Words of Affirmation

It was either the fall of 2016 or the spring of 2017 when I began learning about the Enneagram.  I had heard it mentioned in conversation, and it seemed to be coming up more in podcasts and books, so I decided to start learning what I could.

If you aren’t familiar with the Enneagram, it is essentially a personality assessment that has been around for a long time.  Suzanne Stabile, who has spent a large portion of her life learning about and teaching the Enneagram, says that there are roots back to the desert fathers and mothers.  Basically, there are 9 distinct personality types and they are identified by the numbers 1-9.  Each of those numbers is also given a name.  I’m not going to go into a deep dive on the Enneagram here, because there are a lot of other resources on that if you want to learn more.  A great place to start is with the book The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile, followed by The Path Between Us by Suzanne Stabile.  But there are many, many other options.

I discovered pretty quickly that I identified as an Enneagram 1.  The name given to this personality is often the perfectionist or the reformer.  The Enneagram is all about the motivation behind why you do what you do.  For Enneagram 1’s the motivation is to be good or right.

For much of my life, I have been critical of myself.  There has always been this voice in my head letting me know I was failing.  Telling me I should try harder.  Letting me know when I didn’t measure up.  I have always worked hard to do things excellently.  To not make mistakes.  To follow the rules.

And that little voice in my head doesn’t stop with critiquing me.  It notices errors when I enter other spaces as well.  I notice when systems don’t work.  I notice when there are typos in books.  I notice when the dishwasher is loaded poorly.  I notice when ….  Honestly, the list goes on.

For a long time, I thought this voice was the Holy Spirit letting me know all the ways I was disappointing God and everyone else.  In my late twenties and early thirties, as I was parenting my young children, I began to understand God’s love for me in a way I never had before.  I began to realize it was unconditional.  And I began to realize that critic in my head was not the Holy Spirit.  At the time, I didn’t know why it was there, but I began a journey - discovering that I was deeply loved by God and that he wasn’t actually expecting perfection from me.

It was a relief to know that I could host an event, things could go wrong, and it wasn’t the end of the world.  It was a relief to relax and know that mistakes are a part of life - that I could do excellent work, but I could also allow for error.  It was a relief to delegate work to others and to let them do it their way even if their way was different from mine because it meant I didn’t have to shoulder everything alone.

When I began learning about the Enneagram, what I discovered was that not everyone has this same type of inner critic constantly assaulting them.  It was sort of a shock, but it also helped me understand why others could be more flexible, and why certain things didn’t seem to bother them so much.

A few days ago I was thinking about how my primary love language is Words of Affirmation.  I hadn’t really thought about this in a long time, but at that moment it clicked for me why those words are so important.  They are like beacons of light that acknowledge when I am good or when I have done something well.  They help me to know I am loved.
 
This is a tricky discovery for me.  There is a part of me that wants to have people cheer me on and let me know I’m doing a good job.  That part of me wants to bask in their kind words and praise.  But there is also a part of me that struggles with the praise.  Isn’t knowing God loves me enough?  Is there a way to receive the recognition without the recognition trying to become the thing that drives me?  I think this is an area in my formation that needs me to sit for a minute and unpack it.

In the past couple of weeks, I have had several situations where I have found myself needing to learn something new to accomplish a task set before me.  It has caused me stress because I know there is a chance it won’t work out and then I will have failed.  In those moments I hear that critic roaring at me - this isn’t going to work, this needs to be perfect, what if you make a mistake.

But in the middle of that roar, I hear the Spirit’s gentle whisper - daughter you are loved, slow down, trust me, everything is going to be ok.  And I am reminded that being formed by God is not about getting it perfect every time, but rather noticing what is happening along the way and being willing to bring it to him.

In what areas is God deepening your formation in this season?  I’d love to hear about it.
 

~  Melissa