This weekend begins today with Juneteenth—a holiday celebrated each June 19 to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States—and ends Sunday with Make Music Day, a worldwide celebration of music that is perhaps happening in your town. It also happens to be Father’s Day—and I know some stellar ones who deserve some celebrating. How will you be honoring these events?
Here in Davis, Juneteenth is typically celebrated at a huge community event sponsored by The Culture Co-op, the Yolo County Library and other community spaces, but in the absence of large gatherings, Preacher Cleveland, host of “Praise Time with Preacher” on KDRT, our local radio station, is taking over the “Listening Lyrics” spot this Friday, June 19 at 4 PM with a special show—a mix of history, touching on topics from the evolution of Juneteenth to the Tulsa Massacre, weaving in songs of protest and praise, and connecting it all to the current-day Black Lives Matter Movement. The National Civil Rights Museum also has a children’s storytime featuring the book Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper, if you’re looking to introduce it to your kids. Finally, there’s also a wonderful piece about the Juneteenth holiday in The New York Times today, with great archival images. “To me, Juneteenth matters because it says: Keep going, the future you want is coming. — Veronica Chambers”
Wishing you all well this weekend—and Happy Father’s Day to Aron and to our dads, John and Al!
In honor of Juneteenth, I wanted to re-share a post I wrote a couple of years ago, when National Memorial for Peace and Justice first opened in Alabama:
Last May, I noted that the question “What number are you?” seemed to be coming up for me frequently—with other parents during a play date, on a Saturday morning workout with a girlfriend, or maybe at a meeting of a book club. “Enneagram numbers are everywhere, promising to help us to better understand ourselves, our relationships—even our parenting styles.” I wasn’t sure, however, whether I was a skeptic or a believer, and so I wrote a post about the Enneagram hoping to hear about others’ relationship to the test. One reader wrote that they find the types to be thought-provoking tools. Another wrote that it was especially revealing when she and her husband compared results: it was “like marriage counseling, really, to see how our types live together, affect each other, and do life.”
So I was especially intrigued to meet Stephanie Hall, just after she had moved to Sacramento, and learn that she is a certified Enneagram coach. Her book, The Enneagram in Love: A Roadmap for Building and Strengthening Romantic Relationships has just been released—an exploration of how the nine types interact in relationships—and I asked if she would share the inspiration for writing it, along with some of the questions people ask her most often. Here’s what she had to say…
I’ve always been interested in human personality, but I first learned about the Enneagram in 2015. I actually found my type (type 3) the way I tell people not to find their types now—through a quick, free, online test. When the moniker “The Achiever” popped on my screen, I thought YES! I WON! I was excited to be named the top achiever of this new (to me) tool.
As I began to learn more about the Enneagram, that enthusiasm for my type faded. I read things about myself that were both true and unflattering. I read aspects of my personality that I thought I had been so good at hiding… and I learned that perhaps I was less skilled at hiding them than previously assumed. There was a particular comfort in feeling so seen, yet an equal amount of shame at feeling so exposed. For a while, I even wished I could change my type.
But as I sat with those uncomfortable aspects of myself, something interesting began to happen: I began to change. I started reflecting on what I didn’t like, examining what motivated those actions, and then breaking the pattern. It was slow at first, but over the years, I began to see real growth in myself. This growth is actually what has propelled my work with the Enneagram and my desire to share it with others: once I saw more empathy and growth in myself, I had healthier connections with others, more self-acceptance, and deeper self-understanding.
Seeing growth in myself and my relationships using the Enneagram has inspired me to share this tool with others. And like any good growth tool: the work is never done. I hope readers of both this post and my new book will invest in the ongoing work of personal growth using the Enneagram as a tool.
Any social media account is bound to get comments and direct messages, but the Enneagram is so complex that I often find myself inundated with questions and requests for clarification. Below, I’ve spelled out the three most common questions I hear regarding the Enneagram and my book, The Enneagram in Love…
We’ve had stitches (three for Skyler and three for Hudson), travel cancellations, protests, and many hard (but important) conversations. We’ve also had celebrations! School just ended—a crazy year of distance-learning and deferred socializing—for these two incredible, resilient little ones. We are saying our thank yous and goodbyes to our kindergarten teacher today and waved goodbye from the car to our third-grade teacher in a last-day parade yesterday. Once again, we enter a new phase of quarantine. We’ll have to wait and see what it looks like… I can tell you that we’re all ready for some more time away from the computers!
Hope you’re doing well. Here are some (slightly belated) links of note from this past week…
