What I wish someone would have told me about relationships.
It's not true that people (including me) can't change.
Greetings from the Bay Area!
I'm here for an Enneagram retreat that is part of my certification process. (If you don't know the Enneagram, you can learn about it here.)
I had a conversation with one of the other attendees at dinner last night, who was concerned that things might not work out with a man she started dating a few months ago because of their (seemingly) clashing Enneagram Types.
She is very emotional and likes to sit in her feelings and share them in depth with others. Her new boyfriend is not wired this way; going deep doesn't come naturally. He's more in his head than his emotions.
And as everyone always says, people don't change.
I'm not sure I've ever encountered another falsehood perpetrated with such certainty as this one.
The problem with this maxim is not just that it can cause us to walk away from sometimes hard relationships that could become great partnerships. It's that it sends a not-so-subtle message to us that we ourselves are not capable of real change.
This is s…