Creative, Perfectionist, Anxious: Negotiating those traits and the Enneagram

Recently I’ve discovered the Enneagram, and that’s a huge can of worms I don’t want to open just yet, but it’s got me introspective about my personality. What is hard-wired? What isn’t? Am I throttling my true self by not tuning into my creative side? What is caused by my mental illness and what is just the realities of life?

At this point I’m no where near being an expert, but the number types do give me a helpful way to talk about the identity struggle (I’m hesitant to call it a crisis just yet) I’m currently wrestling with.

Exploring an inner coversation

What I’ve been thinking about really intensely is what feels like the conversation between two types, one and four. Since I first discovered the system, and through all of the tests I’ve found to do, I’ve been a four. And your type does not change throughout your lifetime – it’s something you come to know through self-exploration. For some, it takes very little time, and for others, an eternity. Although most metrics sit me as a four, I also identify very strongly with type one. The most interesting part of this dichotomy is that type one is the type that fours tend to lean toward when they are unhealthy.

Ones and fours: Principled and creative

Essentially, a four (The Individualist) is a creative, and a one (The Reformer) is a perfectionist. Being a creative has been at the core of my identity for as long as I can remember. However, in recent years, it’s also a part of my identity that I’ve felt quite disconnected from. I could attribute this to any number of reasons, and probably will in a later post. But in my journey of discovering whether I am a one or a four, I’ve found myself looking inward. I’m also looking back. I think that for a person with a largely idyllic young childhood, I think it’s easiest to reflect on the essence of who I am as an individual by looking at that time. It was a time before things like rent, living circumstances, work, school, and relationship conflict changed how I tackled life.

The creative as a child

Early in my life, when life was not something to be battled with, I turned to creative endeavours with all of the free time I could grasp. Markers, pencil crayons, paint, paper, pens, pencils, glue, glitter, cardboard, felt… my dream jobs were cartoonist, architect, and interior designer. The biggest fissure between my creative life and the life I live now came in university. This was when I rejected art as a career (another story for another day). Retrospectively, looking at my creative instincts in childhood and adolescence make me believe that at my core, I am a four.

The island of unfinished creative projects

There is one other trait that as I four I am currently identifying with very intensely. It was also a quintessential part of my childhood. Intense, regular formulation of new, exciting ideas, with very little follow-through. The number of creative projects I have begun with gusto and never finished throughout my life is unfathomable. I’m in one of those creative phases right now and it’s impossibly frustrating. I’m working full-time, 7-3. Four days a week, I drive straight to UBC for class, getting home around 8pm. On the weekends I spend all my spare time doing readings, marking, and writing assignments. So all of those creative ideas, at their best, get written down and “saved for later.”

But when is later?

That’s when the anxiety perfectionism comes in. I currently have two new instagram accounts and plenty of ideas. My bullet journal is full of lists on lists on lists. I have ideas by the bushel. But even if I had the time to follow through on any of them, would I?

The perfect time

I get caught up in “waiting for the perfect time.” But I’ve come across some media recently (thanks @selfcaresunday) that’s been focusing on the idea that there’s no perfect time for anything. There’s just time and what we do with it.

I think that my anxiety and perfectionism keep me from really letting myself be my true four self. They push me into the unhealthy side of four. This magnifies the negative tendencies of ones to be too hard on themselves and others.

Whether you subscribe to the Enneagram typing system or not, it’s an interesting concept to think about. And I think the result of it at this point for me is that regardless of my true type (I’ll keep ruminating on that), I want to make an effort to just do the thing. Part of that is typing up this blog post in about an hour, editing very minimally, and just posting it. Normally a blog post is a slow, painstaking process for me. I iterate and edit, iterate and edit, and post and edit and repost. From idea to publish button, this one has taken less than an hour.

Where is the creative going from here?

Part of doing the thing, for me, is going to be exploding the the month-long “creative ideas” list I’ve been carrying around with me in a drawer in my brain. I’ll blast it all out onto some paper. Maybe in coloured marker.

Another part will be choosing one of those ideas and taking concrete steps toward manifesting it into being every day. Even if it’s just five minutes.

There are a thousand reasons why this is “not the perfect time.”

To that I say: there is no perfect time. But this is what my soul needs to do.

Thankful Thursday 20: Being Mindful

Welcome to the twentieth instalment of my Thankful Thursday series, Being Mindful! This week’s post has a lot to do with last week’s – I’m sensing a theme.

I have arrived – I’m posting this on Thursday! But how is it possible that it’s already week 20?! This week, I’m focusing on gratitude for learning to be mindful.

Here’s my Thankful Thursday for the week of September 21 – September 27, 2018!

Things I am thankful for over the past week:

  • I decided to run this week’s 10k on Friday because I felt great after work. This relates to last week’s post about listening to my body. I usually plan to do my longer runs on the weekend for a lot of reasons. Mainly because:
    1. My half-marathon training programs always put the longest run on Sunday, as that is usually the day of the week that races fall on.
    2. I tend to have more energy on the weekends and not early in the morning before work or after a full day of work and/or school.

This week, for some reason I felt awesome on Friday and decided to do my 10k before the forecasted 75mm of rain that fell over the weekend. It went awesome – I beat my previous PB by 3 minutes! The rain ended up starting when I was at about the 5k mark, but it was gorgeous:

I took this photo in colour and it turned out almost completely grey, I love it.

  • I had a recording session with my client (for school, not a real client) on campus on Saturday. I’ll never get over how gorgeous it is there during the fall. Some examples:

Near Martha Piper Plaza.

  • I got to meet my fur-niece, Luna. HOW CUTE?!??!!?!!!

She is a blue merle miniature Australian shepherd.

  • Rugby on Sunday morning was NOT RAINY and super fun. The Capilano youth women went 3-1 at the U19 level and 3-0-1 at the U16 level!

  • My two classes went really well at UBC, and after Tuesday’s class, I SAW AN OWL! It was amazing.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a snowy owl like Hedwig, but it certainly looks like one due to the light in this photo!

  • Over the past few days (Monday until now) it’s been gloriously sunny and feels a lot more like Vancouver’s typical September weather. After two weeks of rain, it’s fabulous.
  • My school held their annual Terry Fox Run this morning, and I ran it. I was the first teacher to finished, and beat the 1k record on my running watch! I ran for my friend Stephanie, who is currently fighting brain cancer.

And finally, the theme for this week, Being Mindful!

My two profs this semester are both focusing on teaching us mindfulness. The program in general sees it as very important for counsellors in training, and I totally agree.

Mindfulness, drilled down to its most essential, is noticing without judgment, or focusing one’s awareness on the current moment with compassion.

Often practicing mindfulness is a form of meditation. You can try to notice things that are happening in your body, or just notice your thoughts without judging them. At the start of every class, we do a short mindfulness practice, and I’m really loving it. I’m going to try to do it more on my own – as a practice, it’s best to do it every day, even just for a short time.

I’m finding that thanks to this practice, I’m feeling a bit less anxious. I also think that I’m finding it easier to eat mindfully and listen to my body, especially when I’m choosing workouts.

There you have it!

So, that’s my Thankful Thursday list for this week. I hope it inspires you to make your own, and get on that gratitude train!

Peace and love,

Bee

Thankful Thursday 19: Listening to my Body

Welcome to the nineteenth instalment of my Thankful Thursday series, Listening to my Body!

Here I am on a Friday again, wondering how it’s been a week since last time. And wondering how I’m on week 19! This week, I’m focusing on gratitude for learning to listen to my body.

Here’s my Thankful Thursday for the week of September 14 – September 20, 2018!

Things I am thankful for over the past week:

  • I’ve run a 10k once a week as one of my cardio sessions, and this Saturday’s was wet and wonderful.

Just past Second Beach and the outdoor pool.

The section of the seawall between Prospect Point and the Lions Gate is my favourite.

I get the most beautiful view of the Lions Gate right at my 5k turn-around point.

  • My best friend Joy took me to Teppenyaki for the first time on Saturday evening. We got a super great Groupon deal, and the food was amazing! I was really enjoying being present throughout the experience and only got one (not so great) photo.

Cooking our fried rice.

  • We had a beautiful, sunny, fall Monday afternoon. I took advantage by going for a walk when I got home from work. Fortunately, my tutoring session was cancelled which meant that I was home while the sun was still out. I even got to take one of my huge leaf photos like I mentioned was in the works in my last post!

It’s not the biggest one I’ve ever seen, but as we’re getting a major rainstorm this weekend, I’m sure I’ll have more to choose from in the coming days.

  • This week was busy, with the first rugby games of the season on Sunday, my two regular classes at UBC on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Meet the Teacher night yesterday. They all went quite well (despite the rugby being exceedingly wet).
  • I’ve accomplished my goal of staying on top of my readings for school, prep work, and marking for teaching for another week!

And finally, the theme for this week, Listening to my Body!

As a person who really loves routine, and who also sets rather high standards for herself, I often find it hard to let things slide.

Missing a workout, for example, can lead to me berating myself in my head and trying to make up for it on another day by doing more than I normally would.

It also means that even though I have an inordinate amount of stuff on my plate, I still expect myself to be able to keep the kitchen clean, tidy the apartment, keep up with my exercise program, blog, work on creative endeavours, and have time to myself. Oh, and spend time with my husband. Aiya.

As I mentioned in my post last week about coping, I have definitely recognized that this new full-time work + part-time grad school + coaching gig is taking a lot out of me. And I’m coping with it. But I’m also learning to listen to my body better. That’s what I want to focus my gratitude on this week.

What listening to my body has looked like:

  • Not scheduling my BBG workouts and runs a week in advance. I’m planning a big post on intuitive exercise that I’m excited about! I don’t want to get too much into that, but I’m used to planning a workout schedule in advance. Then, I tend to ignore how I feel and just blast it out regardless so that it gets done. This week, I’ve been choosing my workouts on the fly, and it feels so good.
  • In the same vein, taking two mornings this week to sleep in for about an hour instead of getting up to work out. I made one of those days my full-on rest day. On the other, I worked out in the afternoon instead, when I was feeling energized.
  • Lightening up my BBG workouts – listening to my energy levels and taking a bit more rest when I was feeling really tired instead of pushing through for more reps.
  • Eating at more regular intervals. The high school block rotation is not conducive to fueling your body when it needs it. I eat breakfast at around 6:45, and lunch break is not until 12:50. I’ve been consciously packing healthy snacks that I can easily eat between classes at 10 and 11:20. And I’m only eating when I’m hungry.
  • Not doing the dishes at all. Like I mentioned, it was a busier-than-usual-busy week. I got home after 8:30pm three days in a row, having left the apartment by 7am. I unpacked my things and curled up into bed with a book. And some chocolate on Thursday, thanks to my hubs!
  • Leaving the definitely dry laundry on the drying racks for three days.

I’m going to be focusing on listening to my body more and more as the weeks go by. I know it’s a big part of why I wake up most mornings feeling motivated and ready to go during this draining time. I also think it’s a huge contributor to the fact that 3/4 of my closest work colleagues have been pretty sick this week and I have not gotten it. Cross your fingers, though, those whiteboard markers are deadly contaminants!

There you have it!

So, that’s my Thankful Thursday list for this week. I hope it inspires you to make your own, and get on that gratitude train!

Peace and love,

Bee

Thankful Thursday 18: Coping

Welcome to the eighteenth instalment of my Thankful Thursday series, Coping!

Hard to believe, Thursday came around again (and went again just as quickly). This week, I’m focusing on gratitude for coping.

Here’s my Thankful Thursday for the week of September 7 – September 13, 2018!

Things I am thankful for over the past week:

  • To start off my week, I had a busy Friday, with work, an appointment, and my grad school department orientation. I was a bit apprehensive about the thing, because it was several hours long and involved a lot of socializing with new people, but I handled it well.
  • I then had a lovely weekend! A short run on a beautifully grey Saturday morning:

  • Followed by an afternoon jaunt. I took this photo because I looked up and just thought, “Man, that’s pretty.” I need to take more moments to appreciate and be thankful for how amazingly pretty my everyday surroundings are.

  • I’m struggling with this abrupt transition to fall that we’re having here in Vancouver. It seems like we went from 30 degrees, to 30 degrees and smoke, to COLD and WET. However, I do love the leaves. It’s almost time to take my annual huge leaf photo!

  • My latest gel manicure lasted almost an entire month, and after removing it, my nails were long and fresh for the first time in forever. I have a lot more to say about this because of my chronic health issues and my BFRB, but I’ll save that for its own post.

Naturally, in true Murphy’s Law Becca style, I broke my middle finger nail on a binder right before taking this photo. It had been just as long as the others.

  • I also had a lovely long 10k Sunday run, albeit very wet. This view at super low tide was a treat:

And finally, the theme for this week, Coping!

This week I’m feeling really grateful for the coping I’m managing to do. It’s not glamorous, but it’s important. In a time when everyone seems to be talking about self-care in terms of bubble baths and face masks, it’s important to remember that self-care is often boring.

It has been a very busy week, and that’s not going to let up for me any time soon. Very busy is the new normal, for the next two-plus years. For now, during this intense adjustment period, I’m coping. And that’s self-care. Boring self-care, but self-care regardless.

Some things I have done to cope this week:

  • Be in bed (not necessarily going to sleep, but at least ready for sleep and under the covers, usually reading) by 9pm most nights.
  • Still getting up at 5:30 and doing my planned workouts and runs before work. Except on Wednesday, when I listened to my body telling me it was exhausted and slept in instead.
  • Waiting in line at Starbucks for 20 minutes for a PSL I’d been looking forward to and craving all day. Taking the time to just relax and enjoy being a human being while waiting in line.
  • Appreciate the sound of the pouring rain.
  • Wear cozy sweaters to work where it is now as cold as a walk-in freezer.
  • Bullet journal to keep organized.
  • Work away at my grad school readings a little at a time.
  • Play games on my phone when I need to zone out.
  • Take showers that are a little longer than usual and just enjoy standing in the hot water.
  • Listen to podcasts on my drive to and from UBC.
  • Stay on top of my work e-mail.
  • Do the dishes as soon as I get home after work or class so that I can have a clean kitchen to pack my lunch/dinner in the next morning.

I’m busy, and I’ve got a lot of stressful things going on, but I’m coping. I’m not exhausted, I’m challenged. And most of the time, I’m enjoying myself!

There you have it!

So, that’s my Thankful Thursday list for this week. I hope it inspires you to make your own, and get on that gratitude train!

Peace and love,

Bee

Thankful Thursday 15: Movement

Welcome to the fifteenth instalment of my Thankful Thursday series, Movement!

It’s been about a month! For my husband and I, it’s been a month FULL of travel, so I took almost all that time off from blogging. We hit up Seattle for four Blue Jays games, and went to our hometown in New Brunswick to visit friends and family.

Now that I’m back, this week I’m focusing on gratitude for movement.

Here’s my Thankful Thursday for the week of August 17 – August 23, 2018!

Things I am thankful for over the past week:

  • On Friday, our last full day in NB, Andrew and I hosted a BBQ at his parents’ house with a ton of our friends and their kids. Great food, company, and baby cuddles, what more could a girl want?!
  • Our trip back to Vancouver on Saturday went off pretty much without a hitch. Even though it was smoky when we got home, it wasn’t too hot in the apartment, and we slept well and adjusted to the four-hour time change quickly,
  • We grabbed brunch at our favourite weekend haunt Sunday morning – I’m sure that helped us adapt, too!
  • On Monday, I did a whole bunch of major adulting things make me anxious – getting things sorted for the upcoming start of my M.Ed. program, and making phone calls for things like car maintenance, car insurance renewal, and getting my new glasses.
  • I spent a lot of time reading and relaxing.

  • I took the time to enjoy the chalk art that has taken over my home corner of Robson Street recently.

  • And although I really hate the smoke because it’s keeping me cooped up inside, it does make for some eerily cool photos.

    On the way to Starbucks, very close to my home. It felt like walking around in a dystopia that day!

The view from my counsellor’s office. Normally you can see a huge stretch of North Shore mountains. Not so on this day!

An angry, red, smoky sunrise.

Out our apartment window, that crazy, yellow, hazy post-apocalyptic light.

And the theme for this week, Movement!

This week I’ve felt gratitude for the exercise routine I’ve gotten myself into over the last month. I believe I mentioned in my last Thankful Thursday post that I started a new workout program. I’m doing Kayla Itsines’ BBG program using the Sweat app. And it’s doing me a world of good. I knew I wanted to do a body weight exercise-based program to go along with a reduced running schedule as cross-training during the half-marathon off-season (which for me is July through December). I’d seen a few others trying and loving this program, and it was easily accessible for me and reasonably priced ($20 a month, and I can do it at home!).

It has been really smoky here in BC since we got back from vacation. I am so thankful that I’m in the rhythm of doing these workouts, because I’m still getting my body moving even though I can’t run outside now. I’ve always needed to exercise regularly for my mental health. Even though I’ve done the BBG workouts, I’m still feeling antsy because I haven’t been able to go for a run. But I am thankful for the movement I have been able to do! And to get some cardio in this morning I pulled the stationary bike out of the closet to do a little HIIT.

A little more about BBG

I love everything about this program except its name. BBG stands for Bikini Body Guide. Ugh, even typing it out makes me cringe. All bodies are bikini bodies, not just bodies that are as RIDICULOUSLY sculpted as the trainers in the program videos. I have to admit, it would be nice to see someone a bit more average-sized demonstrating the exercises in the app occasionally. I’m not trying to be down on myself, but with the lifestyle that I want I am realistically never going to look like Kayla, and sometimes it makes me feel bad. I’m human.

Anyway, the program is composed of three resistance sessions a week that take 35-40 minutes each. Then, you can do whatever kind of cardio movement you want three times a week. For me, this is running, obviously (or stationary biking this week, due to the smoke). It can be hiking, swimming, walking, biking, whatever. The last part is recovery. One day a week is completely off, and one day you incorporate a stretch and foam roller session. I think this is a really great balance that helps me keep my running legs. And I also get to build muscle and strength to help me do even better next half-marathon season. Plus, it’s structure that works really well for my mental health. It’s gotten me into a really great routine, so it’s easy to motivate myself to do it. And it’s almost daily, so my anxiety levels are partly managed by all that movement.

There you have it!

So, that’s my Thankful Thursday list for this week. I hope it inspires you to make your own, and get on that gratitude train!

Peace and love,

Bee