I am sharing a current personal experience as an example of the upside and the downside of my Theorist Essential Motivator Pattern with the talent for thinking strategically and the core needs for knowledge, competency and mastery. 

My husband is in the hospital and as I am sitting with him I am reflecting on how my Theorist core needs, values, and talents are at play. Before I talk about these, I want to assure you that he is doing a lot better than when I brought him in a couple of days ago and we look forward to bringing him home. We are grateful for the thorough testing they did and the discovery that what we thought was the problem is probably not the root cause. I am always looking for root causes rather than just treating symptoms and am spending a lot of time analyzing and searching for what these might be. Then we can treat something strategically rather than just treating symptoms that may come back. 

John and I both have preferences for the INTP (Designer Theorizer) pattern, or you might think Behind-the-Scenes Theorist. No matter which lens we look at, I can see how our responses and stressors play out. I can see my Behind-the-Scenes Interaction Style that can’t get enough information to integrate into a solution.

Last evening it became obvious to me that I needed to be at the hospital with him, so I cancelled our Thursday and Friday zoom sessions. That was painful, but our students have been very understanding and supportive. I feel so thankful for all their support.

Now that I’m here, I keep analyzing and thinking about what might have been the cause of the other problems. One of the physicians was here and was very helpful in explaining what was going on, but so far, there is no expert to help me understand what triggered these other problems. So I just keep trying to fit the puzzle together and have to realize that I need to let go and let the experts take care of it. Our functional medicine physician is likely to be able to help with a more strategic solution, but first the caregivers must do the treatments that will stop the problem and support his system.

So for now, the biggest stressor is not being able to get enough information to get to that felt need for knowledge and having a strategy. The core need of the Theorist pattern is for knowledge, mastery and competence, so I’m pretty sure that is at play here. I think he resisted calling the doctor, in part, because he wanted to try to master the problem with the recommended treatments. And we both felt we understood the problem. Now I feel guilty for not realizing that he needed to get help sooner and am asking why I didn’t push him earlier? Thus my own lack of competence.

I so appreciate the variety of help I am getting from family and friends. One, with an Improviser pattern, was ready to spring into action and come down to emergency with me Tuesday night. Of course, they wouldn’t have let him in, but he really wanted to help me. He knows the ropes of the system since he has dealt with his dad recently. He also said he could come stay with John so I could teach or take a break, but the covid rules are such that only one person can visit a day and it has to be the same person each day. He also helped me with texting and joking to keep my mind occupied. I don’t know if he was aware of that, but that was my experience and I really felt supported.

My daughter has a Catalyst (ENFJ) pattern, and she provides a lot of emotional support and especially helping me take care of other things with work. She took care of crafting the message and letting our students know about the cancellation. She is so gifted with writing just the right message.

I wonder if there is someone supporting us with Stabilizer talents and attitude. Perhaps an example is the fatalistic attitude of one of our relatives. She is more matter of fact about where we are in our lives and what to expect. She said something in a text about how we never know when our time comes. It was so matter of fact and seemed to emphasize that we need to accept the things we cannot change. Fatalism is about expecting things to remain the same, and she was the one who took care of her parents when they became ill. If she were here, she would be attending to the creature comforts and ways to help us out.

Having this awareness and writing this blog has helped me to be more patient with my need to know and understand it all. In some ways it will be helpful to be so inquisitive, but I realize there are no easy answers and I need to be patient.

Thanks for listening,

Linda