Reading, Watching and Listening Lately (September 2, 2024)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I originally intended to do a reading wrap-up, but then decided that I want to include things I’ve watched or listened to as well. I hope that means my post is still welcome with It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (#IMWAYR). I’m also joining Bookish Bliss, Musings and More.

Reading

I said this a few days ago already when writing about my love of memoirs, but I recently started reading a book by a relatively new foster care momoirist. The book is called Jacob’s Story and is written by Louise Allen. I think that title is horribly unimaginative, but the story is good. Louise mostly writes from her own perspective, but the prologue parts are written from other people’s perspectives.

I’m also reading a children’s book, Shamrock’s Seaside Sleepover (Unicorn University, #3) by Daisy Sunshine. The first two books in the series, I finished in one sitting but I apparently didn’t feel as much in tune with my inner child when first picking this one up.

Lastly, I’ve been diving deep into the Enneagram again by reading The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut. I’m not a Christian, so most Enneagram books don’t fully speak to me as they’re Biblically-based. I still, as a spiritual seeker, find some elements to be useful though. However, this book is totally accessible to people of all spiritual or religious walks of life.

Watching

I don’t currently have a subscription to any streaming services except for YouTube Premium. I also haven’t watched anything of note on YouTube recently.

Listening

First off is the podcast The Art of Growth. I listened to an episode published some months ago in the series Nine Love Languages, specifically the one on type 4. This was also what got me into reading Chestnut’s book.

I also am a lover of true crime podcasts. The episode of the podcast Cold Case Files I listened to recently had me totally chilled to the core. It’s called The Perfect Murder.

I usually listen to podcasts on the app Downcast. I used to love Overcast, but they stupidly revamped that app so I no longer use that one. Besides, though both apps are in English, only on Overcast does VoiceOver recognize that, which is a drawback since it then starts reading the titles of Dutch-language podcasts with a strong English accent. I’d rather have it the other way around, as on Downcast. Both apps will let you manually add podcasts from a URL, but both have a search feature too, through which I found the podcasts I mentioned.

Experiencing Envy As an Enneagram Type Four

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Lately, I’ve had some real struggles that got me thinking hard about myself. I often want to love myself and that, interestingly, seems to include denying my less than stellar qualities. Then again, if I really want to love myself as I am, that includes accepting my shadow side too.

Today, I am focusing on one of these aspects of myself I’m not so proud of: envy. I’m exploring this from an Enneagram point of view.

As those who’ve read my other Enneagram-based posts know, I’m a type Four. Fours’ core vice is envy. More specifically though, I’m a sexual/one-to-one (SX) type where it comes to instinctual variants. These are not just focused on envy, but on competition.

I don’t necessarily consider myself very competitive in sports or games or whatever. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. However, I realized I’m an SX type when reading the first chapter of The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut and watching some YouTube videos too. I realized I do compete with my fellow clients for care.

Like, I can’t stop claiming that one particular fellow client doesn’t need to deal with temp workers. Whether that’s true, doesn’t even matter to me, as I honestly couldn’t care less about his care. In that sense, I’m not competitive. Oh wait, that’s a lie. I didn’t start competing for care until I met the full-time one-on-one client at the intensive support home, so in this sense, it does matter what others have.

I do also believe envy is part of what got me to decide to enter a forum my spouse is active on recently (I left when my spouse called me out). My intention wasn’t to spy on my spouse, but rather I was envious of the connections my spouse had made through that forum. Never mind that I am on a ton of forums myself and could have developed genuine connections if I just cared to put in the effort. I probably have myself and my being a Four to blame for the fact that I never feel like I belong anywhere. Which makes me think, maybe I really am not an SX type, but a social (SO) type. I do need to look into instinctual variants more.

Lovin’ Lately (January 5, 2024) #FridayFavorites

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t shared the things I loved recently in a while, so I thought today it would be fun to do so. As usual, I’m linking up with Friday Favorites.

1. My new clay extruder. I got the Makin’s Professional® stainless steel one. It’s a lot sturdier than my previous extruder, which I managed to damage within weeks of getting it. I only got the new one yesterday, so am still learning to use the extruder. For this reason, I haven’t really made anything using it yet.

2. Cernit polymer clay. This is a new to me brand of polymer clay and I haven’t yet made anything out of it either, but I’m loving all the beautiful colors it comes in.

3. The book The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut. Okay, this one I’ve had for a few weeks already, but I really like it and, since I haven’t done a list of my favorite things in a few months, I think I can still mention it. It really helps explain not just the Enneagram types, but also the instinctual variants.

4. The book Feelings First Shadow Work by Benjy Sherer. The author advertised the book in one of the personal growth groups on Facebook I belong to, saying something about what if, say, your leg hurts because of a baseball hitting it ten years ago and you kept going to the field to chase that baseball down. That, he claims, is what most people do when they start doing shadow work: focusing their minds on details of past traumas rather than truly feeling their current feelings and processing those. I cannot articulate what the author said nearly as well as he could, but his words were spot on. Another appealing factor about the book is the fact that it has journaling promts. Then came the big bummer: we’re instructed to read the entire book first before jumping to the journal prompts. Having the short attention span that I do, I’ve only just started the book, but it so far seems quite cool.

5. A huge chocolate Christmas tree. Unfortunately for you (or maybe fortunately as I’d just make your mouths water), I’ve already eaten part of it, so I cannot take a picture. I got it from a temp worker on Wednesday when we strolled down to the town’s bakery to buy some apple-filled pastries called “appelflappen” for the two of us and the thing stared at her. She said she gave it to me as I was her first client of 2024. How lovely!