Day 4: Book That Shaped My World View
There are three books that immediately come to mind. I can't choose just one.
These three books have made a world of difference in my life, marriage, friendships, family relations, and parenting. All three have been life changing.
It all started with Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages which identifies 5 general ways that people express and experience love. It blew my mind that Tyler and I could have completely different ways of expressing and experiencing love...and so could our children! This book was incredibly helpful. It put an end to a lot of our arguments. In case you are curious... Tyler is Physical Touch and I am Receiving Gifts.
The next book that rocked my world was Gretchen Rubin's The Four Tendencies. This book identifies four personality types and how they respond to outer and inner expectations. This book saved my marriage and my relationships with my children. It also gave me great insight about my mother.
The 4 personality types are:
Upholders: Responds readily to and meets both outer expectations and inner expectations. (Self-Motivated)
*I do what others expect of me and what I expect of myself.
Questioners: Question all expectations. They meet an expectation only if they believe it is justified, so they resist outer expectations and respond to only inner expectations. (Driven by logic and reasoning)
*I do what I think is best according to my own judgment. If it doesn't make sense I won't do it.
Obligers: Responds readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations. (Needs external motivation)
*I do what I have to do. I hate to let others down but I often let myself down.
Rebels: Resists all expectations, outer and inner alike. (Meet challenges when they can do it their own way.)
*I do what I want in my own way. If you tell me to do something I am less likely to do it.
This is just a basic breakdown of the tendencies but if you are curious:
Kristin: Upholder
Tyler: Obliger
Reilly: Rebel
Kameron: Questioner
Ailey: Questioner
Bryn: Obliger
My Mom...Rebel. I gave her the quiz myself and we read through a lot of this book together and discussed it in depth on one of our many road trips together. So fascinating!
Knowing my families tendencies has saved us from ALOT of arguments, wasted lectures, frustration, and wanting to *kill* our kids as teenagers/young adults. It helped me to understand family members and their "odd" (to me) ways of doing things or NOT doing things.
Every interaction with Reilly wherein I *request* something of her has to be relayed to her in a way that doesn't sound like I am telling her what to do. If it ever sounds like I am telling her to do something she does the exact opposite. It drives me nuts. My mom's rebel tendency expressed itself in her impulsive decisions and if you questioned her on the logic of those decisions she would double down on them. That also drove me nuts. Ailey and Kameron's constant questioning does the same and I think that is why they fight with each other so much. Throw in Tyler and Bryn's struggles with motivation and my inability to understand why someone can't just self-motivate. My tendency is often seen as rigid and inflexible. So you can easily see why there has been some conflict over the years.
The last book that changed how I viewed myself and my family was The Road Back to You where I learned about the enneagram. Wow has that ever been helpful!! I won't go into a bunch of details because the enneagram is a bit more complicated and there are a lot of books/resources out there. Learning about our enneagram numbers has truly been THE MOST helpful tool in helping my marriage and my parenting.
In case you are curious:
Kristin: One
Tyler: Nine
Reilly: Three
Kameron: Eight
Ailey: Three
Bryn is still a little young to know her enneagram type but if I had to guess...I would say she's a two.
These are three books that definitely shaped my world (and family) view. I highly recommend all three books!
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