Janice 0:00
I think for me to expand or develop, it's going to be important to keep noticing my unconscious biases and maybe the limitations I've put on my own awareness. And I My sense is I can't push the river on that, but if I have that intention, it's just sort of naturally going to unfold.
Josh Lavine 0:22
Welcome to another episode of what it's like to be you. I'm Josh Lavine, your host, and on this show, I interview accurately typed guests about their experience as their Enneagram type. My guest today is Janice, who, at the time of this interview, is 84 years old, and she's a type three like me. I was really excited to interview Janice because as a type three myself, I wanted to know at her life stage what facets of the three ego were still intact, still driving her, and what had fallen away. One of the things I really admire about Janice is I think that she really embodies the healthy three paradox of being both radically self accepting and self developing. She has a lot of assertive energy, having both three and seven fixes,
Janice 3:52
didn't get they didn't look at their partner's way of looking at the world as valid. So I had them all take the Enneagram test, and then we saw how, yeah, you have a different position, a way of seeing things and there and it's valid too, or her way, or his way is valid too. So my intention was to open up some tolerance, some acceptance of the differences, and it worked well, so that that allowed me then to learn more about the any of types. So one of the things that I think is, first of all, let me just say, I Our friendship is so great. I love our friendship. I do too, and the context in which we met is fascinating. And just, I don't have many friends your age, and
Josh Lavine 1:03
a lot of assertive energy pointed towards her development. She's staying on the developmental edge. She's exploring her curiosities, learning about math and physics these days, attending classes, etc. And at the same time, I can see that she really does accept herself for who she is. Right now, I think that you can really feel Janice's practical self, pro social three energy that envelops her very sprightly, curious spirit, and that spirit is very much still intact. You know, she sees herself as an Amazon woman, not a little old lady. And we talk about in this interview how she has dealt with a kind of a lifelong inner tension about knowing and wanting to meet the expectations of the world, or, you know, what's expected of her, what she should do as a good as a good person, and wanting to be free of all that just to do what she wants. And so you've got some attachment three stuff there. You've got some two super, two wing, super ego stuff there. And you've also got some, you know, a nine fix and also seven fix, both of which for whom freedom are really important, and also this kind of inner three journey of doing what's expected of me and performing versus being my authentic self. So all those themes play throughout Janice's life story, and we explore them in this conversation. And if you are curious about what the heck we're talking about, what 3297, assertive, what a fix is all this stuff, then I recommend check out our website, the Enneagram school.com, and even more, I recommend that you check out our intro course, where we lay out all the foundational concepts of the Enneagram and put it into a coherent framework, so you can see what really comprises an Enneagram type. Okay, with that said, let's get into the interview. Here is Janice. Let's start with you, and I did a Enneagram assessment. We you submitted a video and collages, and then I took them to my colleagues, and they have, they officially typed you as a, okay, full typing, self preservation, social throughing Two with seven and nine fixes. Remember the whole thing. So what I'm curious is, what was the impact on you of learning about that, and is it still alive for you in some way? And how do you carry, do you carry the Enneagram with you at all that was like, kind of your first step towards it, as I remember,
Janice 3:26
not exactly I had, okay, it was a much. It was a deeper understanding of the Enneagram, probably 15, 815, 18 years ago, I looked into the any Enneagram because I was doing some couples programs. I was working with couples, what I noticed in couples is that very often they
Josh Lavine 4:45
it's and you are. Can we what's the number? Can we say the number 8484 That's right. Yeah. So my experience of you is that you are. Are as sprightly and curious as or actually even more so than most people might. I'm
Janice 5:07
more sprightly and curious now than I was in my 40s and 50s. Fascinating my 40s and 50s, I was still trying to figure figure I was still trying to achieve. I was still trying to do. Okay, all of those things, yeah,
Josh Lavine 5:30
maybe that's the way in to this conversation, actually. Because, okay, so one of the things that I have from you, just to set context for listeners, is because we met in this program that was about human development. One of the things that we did, each of us, is we wrote our biographies from the point of view of looking at phases of our life from different stages of development, or how our life, phases of our life, represented us struggling with issues that pertain to stages of development. And you sent me yours. And it is quite remarkable, just in terms of its scope. Like to see you're now 84 to see you remembering things from when you were four years old and six years old and 12 years old. And there were certain themes that came out that were, in addition to the stage specific themes that you're pulling out. There were certain kind of lifelong themes, like one of which was developing more and more self trust over time. Another thing that's I'm remembering from it is this awareness when you were 16 years old, of not wanting to be mainstream. Do you remember what I'm talking about? Yeah, and I know that when you were young, you had this clarity that you were going to go to college. And I imagine that that was a that was a different thing for women your age, that was a sort of unique thing. Is that true?
Janice 6:51
Well, it was it. I can't I had a small circle of friends. In that circle of friends, my two best friends both wanted to graduate from high school, get married and have babies, and I thought they were crazy. Uh
Josh Lavine 7:08
huh, yeah, say more because,
Janice 7:11
um, because, well, probably because I had a single mom, and I saw that as a pretty hard life. And I saw I had only one example where close, close into my circle, where there were parents that weren't divorced. And I thought, okay, you get married, you have a kid, you get divorced, you're a single mom. Not my story. Yeah, it, it was that simple. It was that simple at that age, right
Josh Lavine 7:45
in terms of Enneagram three language, or some ways that we could characterize it in Enneagram three stuff is a sense of wanting to make something of yourself or express your value, kind of like fulfill your potential in some kind of way. Is that a fair lens to apply to that experience you had, or is it
Janice 8:07
something different? There's something slightly different, I'm sure, on a deeper unconscious level, make something of myself might have been in there, but how it felt to me more was I can do anything I want to, if I just put effort in. Yeah. So it was the efforting. It was I classic statement. I was the little engine that could,
Josh Lavine 8:38
yeah,
Janice 8:39
yeah. That's what, how it felt.
Josh Lavine 8:41
Do you remember? Do you remember how young you were when you first became aware of that?
Janice 8:48
I think it had to be there in my late teens, and how it probably let me tell you my memory. And I don't know what age this would been. I was old enough in a safe neighborhood that I was allowed to walk and wander, but I remember from a very early age when I was feeling some kind of tension or discomfort, I would just go off and what I would be alone. I would wander off and be alone. That pattern still persisted into my 50s and 50s with that seminar company, we traveled a lot. Initially, when I first started traveling, I I, I didn't intend to do this, but I just did. I would wander off and they wonder, Where the hell is she? You know, we're supposed to be together. We got to get on this next plane, and I'd be wandering off. And it was just what I would do. I would just wander off on my own.
Josh Lavine 9:52
Yeah, and what was in that for you?
Janice 9:55
Comfort?
Josh Lavine 9:58
Uh huh. Yeah, I can't help but connect it to we were just prior to the recording. We were talking about you just went on your first cruise of your life and talking about how amazing and lovely it was to disconnect, and how relaxing and just how saturated this word disconnection is for you with some what's in that? What's the
Janice 10:22
freedom?
Josh Lavine 10:25
Yeah, freedom not from
Janice 10:29
as a child, probably, freedom from the difficult, the friction between my mom and dad of as the one wandering off in the airport. Freedom of structure, freedom of have to do this or that. Now it's just flat freedom to do it ever I want.
Josh Lavine 10:56
Yeah, oh,
Janice 10:58
oh, wait, there's another piece to that. Okay, freedom to do whatever I want without feeling I should be doing something else. It's very internal. Now,
Josh Lavine 11:09
okay, yeah, yeah, and the should, yeah, can you say more about that? What is, what's the character when it's alive in you? Of that should, what
Janice 11:18
I notice is just falling off of me is any kind of sense of responsibility to others around me.
Josh Lavine 11:28
Okay, sounds great.
Janice 11:33
I respect them. I respect them and give them the freedom to be who they want to be, and I just don't have that should be a certain way anymore. It's very odd. It's very odd.
Josh Lavine 11:44
Maybe let's backtrack and see how we got there. Actually, I want to look, I want to look at your bio again, just so I can remember. So there's a couple of pieces here. There's one when you're nine years old, standing in front of a classroom at a chalkboard, the teacher asks you a question, and you choose not to answer it even though you knew the answer. So that was your first exam experience of withholding something as you as you put it. And I'm tying that maybe, in a sense, to this going on walks kind of wandering off. Is that a fair thing to
Janice 12:20
Yes, interesting. What you say, withholding, yeah, there's a I can feel that theme running way through my life, even a little bit now. And what it what it feels like is, I mean, the nine year old version, it's just really crude, crude. It's very crude. But a more subtle version, as I've gone through life, is just holding back a little bit, not letting all of me out there as I went through my life, how it might have felt when I was 50, is it was about power. How it feels now is just more like protecting is too strong a word, but protecting my
Josh Lavine 13:16
freedom. And when you were nine,
Janice 13:20
it was so unconscious, I only can say that looking back, what I remember in the moment, not understanding why am I doing I mean, I knew I was doing it, and I didn't understand why, but I couldn't not do it. I couldn't not and I don't even understand I had some there was another time that I got sent to the principal's office, and it was same kind of thing. There was some behavior in me I didn't quite understand, but it was strong.
Josh Lavine 13:50
It strikes me as relevant to your relationship with this should that exists is in your head somewhere. There's like the should that sometimes you enact where you should be nice to someone or whatever, or you should answer the teacher's question. And then there's another part of you that rebels against that should, or that feels that the part of you that just doesn't want to do the should get stronger in a particular moment than the part of you that want that does the should. And so there you are withholding or rebelling or something like that. It
Janice 14:26
feels like this is the transition most of my life. This I like the when you brought in the concept of super ego. For most of my life, the super ego had a strong voice. And so I would be nice or compliant from that super ego position. Now I might be nice, but it's not from super ego it's from just it's it just feels like what I want to do. It's authentic. It's not super ego driven. It's more just authentic. Physically, authentically. I'm a nice person, I'm not a bad person, I'm not a mean person, I'm not an angry person,
Josh Lavine 15:09
yeah, well, do you there's like in our friendship, you've sent me books, and you have such a like, Your presence is so warm and curious and kind of like in yourself. And also there's a, there's just like a profound non neediness, you know, in you, there's like a, for sure, you know what I mean, like you've got your life, you know, and you have your you got your books, you got your cat, you got your curiosities. And then we show up on a zoom call once every couple of months, and there you are with your being a nice person, like our friendship, is probably not. Well, maybe it is. Maybe it would in the in the past, have been a place where you would have been more enacting of the super ego niceness or something like that. But my experience of when you do sort of acts of kindness with me, like if I show up on a call and I'm going to and I'm in a really dysregulated state, and you're just kind of with me, you know, in a coaching Yeah,
Janice 16:06
there are a couple of things I want to say, because you just triggered it. Yeah, yeah. You were talking about our relationship, and what if, and we might have had a relationship earlier in my development, our relationship earlier in our development, it wouldn't have the super ego version wouldn't have been nice. The super ego version would be responsible. I feel responsible to be a good fill in the blank. Pod. Leader,
Josh Lavine 16:35
yeah, right, right. Coach,
Janice 16:38
whatever I want to be sure I hold up my this has been real strong in me my whole life. I want to be sure I hold up my end. And I want to say something about that, in terms of what you brought in. You said there doesn't seem to be much neediness in me. I would say throughout my life, I've had a strong sense of not needing which kept me blocked from receiving what. All these years I've been traveling, I'm Amazon. I think I'm an Amazon woman. I weigh 118 pounds. I'm five, four and a half. I think I'm an Amazon so I would, because I was new in the company, I would lug the heavy sound system. I would throw my baggage up. Now, in the last few years, when I travel, I spot a man sitting on an aisle. I go up and I indicate I'd like to sit in the aisle seat, and nice, and I start to lift my suitcase. Could you give me a little bump? And of course, they say, Oh, let me do that for you. So I just enjoy being the little old lady that I'm not.
Josh Lavine 18:01
There's okay. There's so much to draw to what you're saying. I want to just be like a little bit Enneagram pedagogical for a second, but a lot so three with a two wing, especially, there's two wing thing coming out where there's a super ego. Need to be kind of responsible or nice for other people and having a hard time receiving others kindness towards you, actually having it land inside you and feeling cared for. But what I'm mostly interested in is this, like the the way you're describing how you see yourself as this Amazon and that you're, quote, unquote, not the, not this little old lady. I mean, in one way you are, but another way, yeah, yeah. But the But, see, the way that you're not, is actually the thing that I'm more interested in, because that's your self image. That's what I'm saying. So, like, what is that? Like, how do you what is yourself? How do you see yourself? Maybe, as a I wonder if you can, that's quite a broad and direct question, but
Janice 19:02
I see myself, someone who's been incredibly Lucky, incredibly supported by life, and I I live in such a natural state of gratitude right now, because I'm aware of what life was like and what it is like now, and I look around and see how other people's lives are, and I'm just so grateful. I don't know if that answers, if that's an answer to that question, but I wanted to say that my self image, I see myself as somebody in I'm incredibly grateful gift. I don't mean gifted. I mean receiving gifts. Have received many, many gifts and been supported by life. I. I don't know if I answered your question self image.
Josh Lavine 20:04
Let's see. Well, partly my question was your answer was beautiful. But my my question, I guess my question is more pointed at the contrast between or maybe you don't even see it this way, but now, ostensibly, there's a contrast between literally being, quote, unquote, a little old woman and also not seeing yourself as that.
Janice 20:31
So when I, when I use that phrase, little old woman, it's done with a little bit of tongue in cheek, uh huh. Because I'm not a little old woman, you know, right now, somebody may. I'm always surprised when people say you're so petite. I don't feel petite. Yeah, and people are. And I was working with a client, and I was trying to I do this was in person, and I sometimes do a, you know, push against I do a little push against each other to get the sense of when you resist, there's resistance back. Well, I was, I was pushing, and she just collapsed, and she said, You're so strong. I think I am strong. I have very good balance. If I were, if I were holding someone, I did some family constellation representation this weekend, and in that constellation, I was holding someone, and I realized I'm really strong. I mean, I was holding a woman larger than I am, and there was no problem. I'm I know how to ground myself. I know how to stance I know how to use my body. Those aren't characteristic of little old lady.
Josh Lavine 21:54
Yeah, I get how you're how that phrase conjures a certain kind of
Janice 21:59
frailty, frailty,
Josh Lavine 22:01
of frailty there. Yeah, that was the word in my head. Yeah, right, yeah. So, you know, one thing I'm wondering is being a core three, if you have so there's this, there's been this major shift in you, around needing to be nice to people in a certain way, in the way that we've been describing. And some of the three stuff is around needing to be seen as admirable or valuable, or something in that direction, like needing to be successful, needing to make something of yourself, to be somebody, you know, these kinds of things. And as I was reading your bio, I was tracking certain certain themes that could be framed in that way. But I'm wondering if it's an authentic framing for you. Like, for example, we talked about going to college, and then there's these careers that you've had, and then now, at this phase of life, I'm wondering what your relationship is with that impulse or that kind of need, if that's alive in you,
Janice 23:18
I'm going To share something with you that I realized, and it's not a direct answer to the question you asked, but I think it fits in. When did I realize this? I realized this after I had gone into coaching. Oh, this is good, because I'll take it all the way back to my childhood. Grandmother, big influence in my life. Grandmother, really the matriarch. Grandma set the tone for the family. I grew up hearing grandma in this idolize doctors. I think I internalized the best thing you could do in life was to be a doctor. Now, by the time I got into high school, that was not my goal. I didn't have a goal to be a doctor. By the time I got into high school, I'm just sort of sorting life out, you know, I'm not thinking that far ahead, even I know I'm going to college and I liked science, and as a good student, I didn't apply myself in high school, once I got into college, I really started applying myself. I I graduated from high school and got a little I got it my first job is a little cafe as a waitress. I had so much fun that summer with people, and I said, then, oh, I don't want to be stuck in a lab. I want to be with people. So I started to look, well, what could I do in science that would be with people? And dental hygiene was what showed up. I don't remember how. I didn't know anything about dental hygiene, except I like working with my hands. It was. Scientific. It was health care. And I remember a career counselor, they were interviewing people, and I was one of the people they wanted to interview, and she was asking me about dental hygiene, and she said, Well, how much do they make? And I said, I don't know. I had no idea. I just knew I wanted to be a dental hygienist, because it was science, it was health, and it was hands and and I loved it for all those reasons. So I went into dental hygiene. Then I had a I had a traumatic I had a marriage in second marriage, I had a second marriage and and I realized it was my life was wide open. I could do anything I wanted. And I thought, well, what are some of those things that I thought I wanted to do one time or another? Oh, you wanted to. You wanted to be a doctor at one time. Well, let's look at that already by then, though I I was sort of a verse to the what I saw as a medical model of there's a problem, you fix it with drugs or surgery or so. I started looking at Chiropractic. I like the philosophy, so I went into chiropractic. Went back to school after I was in. I was a chiropractor for 11 years. Not halfway through there, I was still felt I was chasing symptoms. That was the term I should have used medicine chases symptoms. I still felt I was chasing symptoms. There were deeper issues that were locking people's bodies up. And then when I met the man that had the seminar cup, they became a client, and he was doing phenomenal healing work, people, healing emotional pain, and I thought, ah, that's more fundamental than what I'm doing. It's health care. So the thread I'm seeing in my life is I'm always looking and even now, I will tell you, that's why I'm studying physics right now. I want to know I looked at what this eastern spiritual people said for a couple of years, I went into vendata and learned what the message was about, what's fundamental in life. And I thought, well, now I need to know what are the physicists say is fundamental, that drive for the fundamental is the theme that I'm describing, been a big theme in my life.
Josh Lavine 27:21
Yeah, and that actually tracks and so that must be, I mean, here you are as a coach, and you've been coaching for a long time, and
Janice 27:32
30 years, 30 years, actually it's, it's 30
Josh Lavine 27:35
years you've been coaching. That's remarkable. But there's this, there's this drive. My experience of you is, you do have this drive to keep kind of penetrating more and more close to the center of this thing, like, what's most helpful? What's at the core, what, what's what would be the most healing thing? Yes, I have two minds. I want to ask you, like, what's at the edge of your kind of personal growth journey, or, like you're set, or do you even think of it in that way? Like,
Janice 28:03
yeah, I think my edge right now, yeah, is I really have a desire. And I'm not like, sitting down and pondering this, but, oh, that's the cool thing. I don't have to sit down and ponder anything. I just have to get a feeling I kind of would like that to be the case. And boom, it just starts popping up in my life. But my edge right now is I would like, I would like to keep uncovering my unconscious biases. I would like to keep becoming more aware of what I'm not aware of. I'd like, I think, for me to expand or develop, it's going to be important to keep noticing my unconscious biases and maybe the limitations I put on my own awareness is another way to say that part of it is using developmental language is really becoming more, maybe more living in that realm of construct aware, and I don't, and I, my sense is I can't push the river on that, but if I have that intention, it's just sort of naturally going to unfold?
Josh Lavine 29:25
Yeah, yeah, let's see. We've sort of already explored this, but I wonder if there's anything more here about just your relationship with your body now and this inner sense of being an Amazon, which let me actually just say it's funny, because that's kind of how I see you too. Actually, it's like you have this what's the way to put it? Like you have a fierceness, and when, when you. Yeah, like, some of my favorite moments when we were chatting, your moments when you just kind of get impatient and cut me off and, like, get to the point, just things like, it's like, just so hilarious. And it comes in the context, I mean, like, I experienced so much care from you. And then also these moments of just like, wow. And anyway, I guess my point is, yeah. Like, do you have a sense of what is your relationship with growing old my body? Yeah, yeah.
Janice 30:30
I really trust my body, and I I trust my body, and I also have a context that I take care of my body, and I surrender to the fact that there are changes occurring in my body because of I mean, they will continue to because of aging. So there's a lot of that in my awareness I see of the possibility of taking more agency in terms of what's going on in the body, not just collapsing into and so part of that's the attitude, right, right, right. It's an attitude,
Josh Lavine 31:21
yeah, what's it like to receive questions about that topic?
Janice 31:29
I find all of your questions interesting. I love having to focus on me.
Josh Lavine 31:36
Yeah, yeah. I guess what I was. The reason I asked that at that moment was because I'm wondering about, if there's anything in you about me drawing attention to your age, that is some in contrast to the way that you see yourself as like this Amazonian spirit. No,
Janice 31:56
I see myself as an 84 year old woman who is in good shape and still has her mental capacities. There was a time about two, three years ago when I started kind of having trouble bringing a word up, you know, I thought, oh, you know, are we sliding into old age, dementia here, and it kind of felt that way, but I I just sort of rolled with it. And then when I started this intense, and it's funny, when I started reading in science, the intensity is actually growing. Intensity might not be exactly the right word, but I'm understanding more because I know more, and the more I know, but it's more of an integrative knowledge. There's a lot of integration going on. My memory is getting better.
Josh Lavine 32:57
That's amazing. Yeah, this is pinging something that you wrote in your in your bio. Maybe it's the same thing. I'll just drop it here actually, so you can kind of ping off it. But you said when you were 51 three episodes of memory loss, not able to recall something that would have been right at your fingertips normally. And then you heard yourself saying, I think I'm losing my mind. And then here's what you said that clicked. I realized that I had been in a massive process of cleaning out beliefs and attachments to specific ideas. It became clear that I had been doing it at a radical speed, and I relaxed. I wasn't losing my mind, just losing some of the clutter that was clogging up. Yeah,
Janice 33:37
and this is very similar to that. I think what's happening is I, I'm not bothered by not being able, and it'll happen now. Gosh, I it happened with these people that were visiting me. We were taught, we're excited. We're talking a fun topic. And and I said, and so, you know, when somebody says something, it pings two or three things in you. Well, I follow the one of the pings, and I said, Wait, and there's something else. I had another question. I can't it'll come back. Always comes back. It's that relaxing, yeah? I experienced that from you. Yeah, yeah. And relaxing into it, and that's what more and more is happening now, is I'm relaxing into waiting. I'm willing to wait a little bit, and I'm not troubled by it, and if it doesn't come back, I'm not even troubled by that. I mean, yeah, I'm really just surrendering to what is. Had an interesting thing happen Alethea coaching. Love Alethea coaching, I've had a hate love relationship with it, but I'm in love with it now. I'm working with my practice partner, and she's taking and we entered into the session without a without a topic, without an issue, and I pretty quickly could drop. Into just presence, just essence, just presence. And a little voice said, and I felt she said, What is the experience of that like? And I said, Well, it's really calm, really calm. When I said, calm. Little boy said, Wait a minute, Janice, don't get too calm. Something really significantly bad could happen. And I sat with that, and what came back was, if something really significantly bad happened, this is exactly where I'd want to be. And that was profound. That was another one of those moments like that, three times you were missed. That was another really deep moment. It was like a final clunk into all I need to do is to be present and trust whatever comes to me will be the appropriate move for me to make or place to move from, or that's happening. I don't know where it's gonna end up, but it's a whole new zone of it. I mean, how profound is that trust? You know, it's just a deep, profound trust, right? Can
Josh Lavine 36:22
we talk about your relationship,
Janice 36:23
sure, with your husband? Yeah, which one?
Josh Lavine 36:30
I didn't know there were more than one. I was like thinking of the most recent one. I've had
Janice 36:35
three husbands, and I had another nine year relationship that was without marriage. But was that that connected a relationship? So I've had four long term relationships. My last one was the longest we met. You know, we met later in life. He was 10 years older than me. So what would you like to know about that relationship? This is the one that I said died,
Josh Lavine 37:02
right? I have two general question, curiosity, spaces. One is around just in relationship, what kinds of things come up for you as patterns of ways that you get stressed in relationship. And I mean, I think that's a really interesting way to look at the Enneagram. It actually relates to the way that you were using it when you first discovered it, however many years ago. But the Yeah, kind of like what you tend to be looking for in relationship, that sometimes maybe gets disappointed and how you are relationally. You know what I'm saying?
Janice 37:52
Disappointed isn't a word I would ever apply to relationship. So that says something. I'm not sure what it says, but it's not a word that would come up
Josh Lavine 38:01
says something about my lens more than yours, yeah, yeah. And maybe yeah,
Janice 38:08
frustrated or sure annoyed. Maybe Yeah, let's go there. Yeah. More the angry energy wouldn't be than the just Yeah, yeah. I don't get disappointed. I get angry, but not disappointed and sad, is something that lives in me very deeply.
Josh Lavine 38:27
Okay, that actually real quick, because that was the second curiosity was, was, what's your experience of the kind of darker emotional side of life?
Janice 38:40
Say something more that question,
Josh Lavine 38:42
yeah, I'll say more, um, my, my experience of you is that you are so ebullient. And partly, I think there's a time of life thing. I mean, you've just really reached this place where you feel so at peace and in flow and but I'm curious also, I mean, there was a journey getting there, and the kinds of frustrations or annoyances or things that got you angry and and I'm thinking particularly about so in the Enneagram language, type three and seven, which is also part of your kind of whole type structure, are both kind of go, go, go types. You could say they're both assertive types, and seven in particular has a kind of, let's stay up. Let's stay feeling good kind of energy, you know. And one of the struggles that seven can have, not the your core seven, but having seven in your type structure, is kind of dropping into the the dark places that need to be processed to actually fully saturate yourself in whatever experience you're having, to fully process it so and I'm kind of putting these two things together in relationship,
Janice 39:48
and this is good, because it's it. There are two times in my life where when a relationship ended, I went into deep depression.
Josh Lavine 39:58
Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Okay,
Janice 40:00
so let's go through the four relationships. Relationship, okay. Relationship number one, married when we were, I had, I was still in college. He was just finishing up dental school. We were, he was the one we did the sailing. We that was a fabulous time. It was two people, brain to brain. No feeling. Okay. Great team. And we finally got to the place, and I actually hired a woman I knew he would like in our dental office. I was the high and and that one ended and we ended friends and we stayed friends, probably about three years after that, he married her. Three years out, he took his life. He committed suicide. Whoa, that was sad. Okay, that's number one. So number one ended, hey, let's shake hands and go our ways. Yeah. Number two relationship
Josh Lavine 41:07
was with
Janice 41:09
a cowboy in Colorado. That relationship ended, and that one was like, I went into a deep depression, and one day I was alone, and I knew there was a shotgun in the closet, and I thought about getting it scared the hell out of me, ran out into the corral screaming, got on the phone with my sister in law in Utah. I said, I'm in western Colorado. I said, I need help. And she said, I'll get you an appointment. Get on the bus, come and she did. I saw this person once or twice, flipped me around, and then it was a process to come out of that deep depression, but I did. And that's when I then said, Well, what do I want to do now? And that's when I went to chiropractic college.
Josh Lavine 42:06
But real quick, the the depression, do you have a sense of like the texture of it was it just missing
Janice 42:14
the relationship, not seeing a life beyond what just happened, not being able to see a life going forward, it was just like,
Josh Lavine 42:23
well said, yeah, that's it.
Janice 42:24
So, so the next relationship went to chiropractic college and met a chiropractor who was the master of the procedure that I was studying. He invited me to come after graduation and be his associate, and I did, and that developed into a relationship, and that was nine years long. That one ended, and I went into a deep depression. Oh, my God, I'm going to be a bag lady under the under the bridge kind of thing.
Josh Lavine 43:03
How old were you at this point? That
Janice 43:05
would have been about, yeah, about 50, yeah. So what happened? Then I stayed another year and worked in the office, and that was fine. We could do that. And we stayed friends. We stayed dear friends. By the way, all these men are dead now all my men are dead. That's it.
I just keep charging on. No more men. I met a man who said I'd like to be in a relationship, I'd turn and run the other way.
Anyway, back to how did I get out of that depression? How I got out of that depression? I just finally, I would wake up in the middle of night. I couldn't I couldn't sleep, all these images, and I started getting up, and I would just write the sentences. My head was saying, you're going to be a bag laying under the bridge. I might write that 30 times. And finally I'd look at it and say, well, that's ridiculous. You know, it gave me objectivity. And then I just started turning around and coming out of that. So anyway, that I turned around and and then it was shortly after that period that I got connected as a client with the man that I then mentored under for coaching. And then a couple years after being a client, I said, I want to come and do what you're doing. I was ready to step out of chiropractic. I This is another little theme in my life. I've never left anything. I've always gone to something. So it's never been pushing something away. It's been, oh. Oh, this has my attention. Now, this looks exciting. This is where I want to go. That's a very strong theme in my life. That's
Josh Lavine 45:07
bring stuff up for me, but let's so then husband
Janice 45:09
number four, now we have the ultimate science PhD, chemical engineer PhD in something like nuclear fission, from MIT. Brilliant man. Brilliant man, wonderful man, also at some time in his life, had explored development, but didn't trust it. Example, one time I remember he something happened for him, and it was kind of an intuitive thing. And he said, I hate that. In other words, he could experience it, but he wouldn't, didn't want to, because it was somehow demeaning, I think is the word that came to me. And so my work, which is a lot about the, you know, the field and connection, and he just would keep challenging. He was very Socratic in his so but he taught, but he he was such a good man. He tolerated it, but that, as remember 10 years older. He died little over two years ago, towards the last couple of years as his of his life, as his health decline, and he was a health freak. I mean, he took handfuls of supplements, you know, and he instructed his doctors about what the treatment was to be, because he researched it all. So when he started to decline, and I'm not declining, I think, and he actually admitted that one time, he said, I'm envious of you. And so that started to create some separation. And so the last two years were kind of rough. The last few months were pretty awful, and now I can look back with more grace, but at there were some, a couple of really sharp, mean things that occurred that it just gave me the freedom to step back and just leave him to his process. And so he had hospice and, and then passed in our apartment and, and that was a huge relief for me.
Josh Lavine 47:34
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've talked about, how was there actually, what was your experience of a grief process? Did you have a grief process with that?
Janice 47:50
I mean, I There were moments when I had tears, but I but I think the initial, initially, it was such a relief. And then I don't think there was a grieving, there was a turning around where I could really start to appreciate him again, because that last six months were so ugly that I was just glad it was over for him, as much as me, he was, he was just not a happy camper. It's hard to watch. It's hard. You can't do it. I didn't have anything. I could do anything. I know that my wanting to my probably my two coming forward was more annoying that it was helpful and felt controlling to him, I see, and it probably legitimately was, you know, I mean, I can see that side of it too, now, sure,
Josh Lavine 48:49
yeah, prior to that decline, you guys were in relationship for, for how long, 20
Janice 48:58
years we were married, kid. We were in the relationship for 20 years.
Josh Lavine 49:04
Yeah, fascinating. But there is, you're sort of attached into this dynamic where it felt like you had to keep giving something. And the like, the experience you have now of freedom, not needing to take care of people, that moment, of not having to return the Hi, how are you?
Janice 49:23
That's like, Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, it feels so good. Josh, I
Josh Lavine 49:40
Yeah. So you've told me a number of times that this is the happiest time of your life. This this time you're in now, yeah,
Janice 49:53
and part of it is the I have economic freedom. I. And I don't have, I don't have a responsibility to take care of somebody else's needs.
Josh Lavine 50:06
Well, I'm noticing the time, and I am wondering what this has been like for you to be the subject of this interview.
Janice 50:17
I keep waiting for you to ask me a question that that would have generated the need to ask me if you could ask me anything. At the beginning, you said, golly Darn. I thought we were going to get it something really juicy. Let's see. That was just as a way of you asked what my experience was. My experience was. I kept waiting for the the touchy subject, and it doesn't, I don't think there are any, is what it amounts to, but I, I just didn't. I thought, Well, wonder what he's going to ask me that he thinks I might not want to answer or visit too
Josh Lavine 50:59
personal or something. Well, I wonder if there are, and I just haven't touched on any of them,
or if there really is a sense of like, there just isn't for you. I don't know. Is there? Do you have a like? Are there topics that, you know, my
Janice 51:14
sense is there just isn't. I've given up having to be perfect. Wow. So I went through, you know, most, most, I went into my 50s, still having a strong perfectionist event. And at that point, you could have maybe shamed me with a question, or embarrassed me with a question, because I was still trying to be something, and that is falling away now. So I don't, I don't hold to myself that I so if someone pointed out something, I'd appreciate it, because it would be something, it was be the blind spot that I hadn't seen, and I I would want to address it and integrate it. Yeah,
Josh Lavine 52:04
right. One. One thing that's coming up for me is I'm remembering this moment that you and I had where, let's see we it was during the program where you were, it was like a coaching call where I had some, tell me, if you remember this, I had some, I had been going through something, and you showed up on the call and had a clear sense of, like, I want to teach Josh about the presencing process. And okay, we got maybe, like, 2030, minutes into the call, and I said something like, you know, this is really not that helpful to me right now. Like I said, what I really need is just to be kind of attuned to and I feel like you kind of came in with an agenda, you know, yeah, and my experience of you was, it was actually you were amazing. Actually, you just were like, Oh, actually, that's great feedback. I need to hear that. And that was then we kind of moved into it. I believe, I believe, I felt it was authentic. That's why it worked, actually, yeah. But yeah, there was a sense of, like, yeah. My experience of you was that it was not at all popping some kind of, like, I need to be a good coach bubble. You know what I'm saying? Yeah,
Janice 53:23
yeah, that I'd already gotten to that place, and it's a great place to be. It's so less stressful,
Josh Lavine 53:35
yeah, yeah. Because the other thing that would potentially be touchy, just drawing on typology, is being a three areas of competence where your competence is called into question, and that triggers feelings of, I'm not valuable. I'm not doing it right, I'm not being good, I'm not perfect, whatever, these kinds of things.
Janice 53:58
And I, I have, I noticed this in the Alethia program. I noticed that, because we're we have practice partners, I noticed there was that little nudge in me to want to be a good practice partner, and a concern, because I don't have issues, that I wouldn't be a good practice partner. I wouldn't a lot of, I don't know, 4045, people in this program, International. Good percentage of people were not coaches, so they're learning, and they need issues, right? And I'm thinking, I am just not a good practice partner and and that made me then withdraw a little bit from being proactive in making sure my middle we had three throughout the process, and the middle one just sort of had a lot going on, and I just sort of let that fall away. This is funny now, I tell you, but there was this woman in the program that was really I could tell she's so articulate and just spot on. And and really could, you couldn't tell. I couldn't tell from her postings whether she was actually that evolved, or whether she was that aware and knew the language. So I didn't want to be her practice partner. Guess who my third practice partner was That was her, and it was so and then as soon as I saw her name was my, I thought, oh my god, now I'm going to fall in love with her. And I did. And she's awesome, totally. She's authentic. She's authentically there. She has something I do not have, and that's the gift to articulate what's happening, and I just admire her so much. So I recognize there are places where I I'm not, you know, I lack, really, the the skills that some people have. I lack the understanding and I I just, that's just where I'm at. I'm peaceful with that, but I'm also expecting to keep expanding. So there's both of those are true.
Josh Lavine 56:14
Well, I want to respond to that really quickly, because so one of the things that you're talking about, like her ability to articulate, what is it that she's articulating, like her, her in the moment? Process? Well, for
Janice 56:27
example, yeah, the process is going that. So what we're we have our practice sessions, and we exchange one coach, one client, and then we go, we're asked to go online, which I didn't do. I didn't do that part of the program. I got tired of it because I, I don't know that would be another, I mean, that would be a whole, another whole topic to go into, because there'd be something in there about me. But she, when she wrote particularly our last session, which was so rich for both of us, when she wrote about me as a client, and when she wrote about herself as a client, the beauty, the depth, the texture that she captured, was just amazing. And I don't have that capacity, and I admire it,
Josh Lavine 57:16
and you don't have any sense of self recrimination or like, wish that you had it from a place of, I don't know, some kind of, not quite peace, identity,
Janice 57:29
or, yeah, I I'm totally at peace, but that's where I'm at. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll get better at that, I don't know that I'm at peace with how I am and I can really appreciate her, yeah,
Josh Lavine 57:48
amazing. And as a as a fellow three who is a few years behind you, it's inspiring to hear that there's that possibility. You know,
Janice 57:59
there is that possibility, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Josh Lavine 58:06
cool. Well, this has been amazing, and thank you for being so open, and thanks for doing this. I really appreciate your willingness to do this.
Janice 58:17
Spend two hours with you. Oh, man, that's easy.
Josh Lavine 58:21
Cool. Well, okay, until next time we're done. Okay, yeah, thank you. Thank you for tuning in to my conversation with Janice. If you liked this conversation, then please click the like button or hit subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, or if you're listening to this as a podcast, then you can link up to a five star review and leave some comments. Those are free and very effective ways to support me and the show and what we do at The Enneagram School. If you'd like to learn more about the Enneagram then I'd love for you to come visit us at the enneagramschool.com. You can go straight to our website. I invite you to subscribe to our email list, which is where we'll send updates about new podcast episodes being released, as well as upcoming courses and retreats and other events. And also, I recommend you check out our intro course, which I also plugged in the beginning. The intro course is where we lay out all of the basic concepts of the Enneagram and then weave them into a coherent tapestry so that you can see what comprises a type. And then we do deep dives into each type using all those core concepts to build up an understanding of type from the ground up. Okay, if you think that you would be a good candidate to be interviewed on the show, then I would love to hear from you. You can contact me straight through the Enneagram school.com go to the contact page and send me a message there. Preference goes to people who have been officially typed by the typing [email protected] the typing team at enneagrammer is, in my view, the world's best Enneagram typing team. They have refined their method that's over years, and they're very precise and very sharp. You can go check out their typing [email protected] Okay, that's it for me. Thank you very much, and I'll see you next time.
Unknown Speaker 59:44
You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
