When my wife Anne and I turned 40, we decided to run a marathon to celebrate reaching middle age.
Unfortunately, three months into race training, I pulled a hamstring. But rather than rest for a few days, I applied a generous layer of Icy Hot--(a mentholated ointment that heats up and soothes sore muscles) to my thigh and went out for a run.
Unbeknownst to me, however, as I was pulling up my running tights, a gob of Icy Hot came loose from my thigh and smeared itself all over the inner lining of my shorts.
Yes, this would end in tears.
Three miles into my run, I felt a sharp, burning pain in a highly sensitive region of my body. It felt like someone had dropped napalm into my shorts!
I started panicking! I had no way to wipe off the Icy Hot, and so I turned around, hit the hyperdrive switch, and started sprinting toward home.
Now, if I had read the product description on the jar, I would have known this was a huge mistake. The effects of Icy Hot only intensify as your body temperature rises! Soon, I was in blinding pain so, what did I do? I ran even faster, which, of course, only increased my suffering. I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst enemy!
That said, my Icy Hot story taught me an important lesson. It’s a metaphor illustrating how all of us deal with problems in our lives.
When we experience emotional or psychological pain, we often double down on our personality type's old childhood strategies to make the suffering disappear.
But the strategies we used as kids to protect ourselves and cope with our pain backfire on us in adulthood. We try to outrun them, and it only makes the situation worse!
Here's the deal, friends: we can't outrun our difficulties and expect things to improve. On the contrary, they will only increase.
The real solution is to stop running and face them. To see the truth of what's happening in the moment and do the hard work of disentangling ourselves from our personality's unhelpful behavior patterns.
Notice and question your personality type's antiquated strategies for dealing with life's problems, and see if you can't find new ones. Then, stop running and ask whether your behavior is helpful or rooted in the shadow aspects of your personality. This is how we use the Enneagram to realize freedom and become the best expression of ourselves.
-- Ian Morgan Cron
