You know when you come home as an adult and you come home to the delicious smells of your childhood?

I came home this weekend to the aroma of all things, pea soup. In my childhood, this meal, adored by parents, was a winter staple of torture for me. With hot dogs. The humanity!

I couldn’t see past the color, the thickness, and above all, the smell. I could not make my way through a bowl, ever. I didn’t care if I missed supper. Not the healthiest of choices. A childlike choice.

When we live life without self-awareness, it’s like walking through a pea soup fog.

You are pushing through, going the same way you’ve always gone because you can’t see to change to a new direction.

Self-awareness tools lift us out of the self-deceiving pea soup fog. There is great wisdom in understanding your way, in knowing your patterns, acknowledging your gifts and foibles, but mostly understanding the motivations behind those ways and means.

Without understanding motivation, you’re like Sisyphus pushing a hot dog chunk up the hill in a pea soup fog, only to have it roll back down again.

Conflicts repeat, unhealthy patterns continue, and frustration that change seems just out of reach remains. Why do I keep doing what I do not want to do?

The power of self-awareness tools, especially the Enneagram, is helping you see why you go a certain way. What the motivation is deep below the surface.

When you understand your motivation, you see the way you see. When you understand how you see,  you have the power to cope with the root of the issue, making choices toward love and health. Rather than deceiving yourself about your own mind and continuing to live in a pea soup fog. 

(Clearly, I was traumatized by pea soup.)

I’d love to offer you a free Enneagram core motivations and strategies eBook. 

(Thank you, Judi & Ron Barrett for imagining a pea soup fog Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs).