The questionnaire, which can be found at http://www.philrosinski.com/cof/ (the website for the author of Coaching Across Cultures, an amazing book) invites you to consider what cultural biases you might have with regard to time use, communications style, personal boundaries, organizational preferences, etc. And taking it -- just looking at your way of being in the world -- can be a real eye-opener.
I talked about this a bit in an earlier post, about how some of the reading I was doing for school was helping me to understand that I tend to move at a fast pace, and do a lot of parallel processing. I mean, here we are in this lovely environment which offers a constant invitation to sit and watch the birds or smell the beach or listen to the waves, and I spend most of my time being "busy." And what's that all about?
And the information about direct vs indirect communication styles, and about high context and low context communications all helped me understand some of the early misunderstandings in my current marriage as well as some of the things I see going on with my daughters' relationships.
But what really struck me yesterday was this: we had to print off our results, so I had done so and stapled them together, leaving them at the top of a pile of papers I printed off yesterday for class. My daughter found them and was greatly amused to read my self assessment. But she was particularly intrigued by the low rating I gave myself for functioning in a competitive environment.
I had to think about that for a minute. Because the fact is I can be very competitive; I remember it was one of the problems in my first marriage, because we were BOTH competitive. So you'd think I would thrive in a more competitive environment. Where I think the problem comes is that I don't approve of that side of myself, so I don't like being in situations where it wants to take over. And though some part of me wants to be a winner, I also don't want to be a loser, and I feel enormous sympathy for other losers, with a little guilt thrown in. Maybe it's just too much drama for me?
At any rate, it's something to explore. It's always fun to poke around in those tight places and see what emerges; new insights so often bring leaps of understanding. Now if I could just sit still long enough to examine this. I think that's one of the challenges of doing Centering Prayer, as opposed to Buddhist meditation practices: Centering Prayer encourages you to let go of whatever thoughts come into your head as you sit, while the Buddhist style seems to be to lean into them a bit, see where they take you. So maybe that's what I should do on my walks, and CP is for my sits? Hmm. Something else to explore...
2 comments:
I so admire your ability to keep digging deeper to uncover yourself to yourself, and to understand what the discoveries mean, especially for your relationships. You're going to be a great coach, I think.
Self-assessments - we/I/you-maybe - need to take a clue from those closest to us and realize how we undervalue the talent, creativity, playing to win strengths that we possess. I see you as nothing but a winner - STOP AND THINK about that today:))
xoxo
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