Читать книгу Healing Your Emotions: Discover your five element type and change your life - Angela Hicks - Страница 59

We are all indirect at times and this is appropriate. When we are direct, we are aware of our own desires and are willing to ‘own’ these desires publicly. This enables us, when necessary, to ask for what we want. Some Wood types find this difficult. Often they are reacting to the past. They may have been prevented from getting what they wanted at an earlier stage of their lives. Subsequently they compensated by becoming indirect.

In order to understand this better we can go back to the child who is reaching for a toy and is told ‘No!’ Soon the child anticipates the ‘No’. She begins to check if the preventing parent is present. This is perhaps using natural caution. The caution later becomes internalized so that the child proceeds more and more indirectly. For example, the child may say to her parent, ‘My friend Billy (and by implication not me) likes to play with this toy.’ As time goes on the Wood type may stop owning their natural desires. They may still ask for things, but indirectly.

At times being indirect can be useful. We may know what we want but understand that it is best not to state this publicly. Sometimes, for example, it may be the best way to move forward. Challenging people head on is not always a good idea. Eleanor has to deal with some angry customers at the travel company where she works. She told us:

Sometimes people complain about their holidays and they’re almost wanting to pick a fight. I have to do my best to diffuse the situation to avoid a head-on confrontation. It can be difficult and I often have to suppress my own feelings to do it.

Another Wood type, who is a friend of ours, uses her chronic inability to be direct in a positive way. She is a hypnotherapist and has become very skilled at making indirect and useful suggestions which enable her clients to make positive changes in their lives.

Many Wood types can swing between being very direct and indirect. If we avoid being direct too much we may feel a need to take it out on other people. As Eleanor told us:

At work, if someone criticizes me I’ll avoid dealing with the situation at all costs. I’ll try and pretend that I haven’t noticed. It will affect me though and later on I know I often go on a ‘go slow’ with my work. I suppose it’s my way of paying them back.

Being indirect can also manifest in our sense of humour as Jacqueline admitted:

If I can’t be directly angry I can sometimes find myself making bitchy remarks. I’ve got a nasty cutting edge to my humour and I realize I’ve sometimes offended people deeply.

At the worst extreme we may not be able to be direct with ourselves. In this case we may end up losing touch with ourselves and what we want. Excessive indirectness can lead to an apparent absence of desires.