Who fell over in Wizard of Oz and why?
Comments (3) I’m Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director of Creative Edge Focusing (TM) at www.cefocusing.com . I have thirty years experience as a psychotherapist, peer counseling teacher, and decision making consultant. But, here in this blog, I will talk about whatever comes to mind, be it food (Intuitive Cooking), sex (Collaborative Edge Sexuality), Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening (Core Skills taught at www.cefocusing.com ), shopping, relationships, conflict resolution, personality tests, spirituality, creativity, Creative Edge Organizations — everything I’ve learned and want to share.
I think of this blog as Ultimate Self-Help — sharing what we learn that can help others save time, money, their relationships, their spirituality, their world, their work situations, etc.
The story below points to dynamics that happen in all relationships, be they for love, friendship, or business. I don’t believe that we can understand other people unless we come to grips with the idea that people can be really, really different from us, like from another planet, but that there are categories for these differences, as simple as fire, water, air, and earth, but also way more complex “personality tests.”
You can read a more theoretical presentation about The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), my favorite test of individual differences, in the article “Jung, MBTI, and Experiential Theory” at http://www.cefocusing.com/pdf/2f1n_Jung_MBTI_Exp_Theory.pdf and actually find links to take a version of this personality test and others at http://www.cefocusing.com/freeresources/2e.php, but here is a funny illustrative story:
Yesterday, I went to my doll club (yes, this is how I “lighten up”) It was a Halloween party, the theme was Wizard of Oz, I was in charge, and we had contests: Best homemade costumed doll, Best bought homemade doll, Best diorama (this is a scene in miniature).
My story is about my diorama and how it was totally misunderstood because of a personality difference between me (an iNtuitive on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, MBTI, 25% of people) and the majority (Sensors on the MBTI, 75% of people).
There were two entries under Dioramas. Both of us had gotten our 5 1/2 ” dolls from a McDonald’s promotion, so the 8 “character” dolls we used were identical. We both used a cookie sheet size “ground.”
In mine, I had the Wicked Witch of the East (was that the first sister, with the striped stockings and ruby slippers? We iNtuitives are really bad at details, but long on imagination and creativity!) lying down with a miniature house lying on top of her, legs sticking out (you know, Dorothy’s house blew away from Kansas in a tornado and landed on the witch!).
I had the other Witch (of the West? In black) standing over Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Lion, who were all lying down in a drugged sleep in a field of “poppies” (red fake flowers) next to the “yellow brick road” (yellow construction paper). The Tin Man was still standing (of course! He didn’t fall asleep because he didn’t have a heart!) in the midst of them all, trying to help. There were small pumpkins, munchkins, and Glenda also in the scene. I thought it was an extremely imaginative way of telling part of the story.
The other diorama, made by an accomplished seamstress, artist, county-fair winner, had yellow construction paper all over the “ground,” and she had painstakingly drawn in “bricks” (a kind of detail work I would never consider). The eight characters were simply lined up in two rows and “glued” to the base. Now, granted, she had supplemented with a tiny basket and tiny dog for her Dorothy (a detail I would never think of). But, there was no “story-telling” there.
Well, I was busy tallying votes from all the contests, so not watching over the dioramas. But, when I did go over to look, I saw that someone had picked up the house off of the witch and stood the witch up and stood the lion up — obviously, she or they thought all the dolls had “accidentally” fallen over!!!! They didn’t get the story at all!!!
The vote was 8 for Sensing her, 6 for Intuitive me (not bad, considering!!). It seemed like such a great illustration of the difference between imaginative, iNtuitive thinking and concrete, reality-oriented Sensing it made me laugh.
In most work situations, there are only a few iNtuitives, in the “creativity” departments, but they drive a lot of the innovation which the Sensing people so carefully bring to realistic expression.
Kathy
Themocracy