The Five Personality Patterns in Relationships - Steven Kessler

Steven Kessler has been a psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost 30 years, teaching both locally and internationally. He is the bestselling author of The 5 Personality Patterns: Your Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others and Developing Emotional Maturity.

More information and descriptions of the patterns are available at... www.The5PersonalityPatterns.com. 

Steven can be reached at Steven@The5PersonalityPatterns.com.

Your Sample Chapter is available at...
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Transcript

The Five Personality Patterns
Todd Zemek Speaks with Steven Kessler

 
Todd Zemek (00:03):

Have you ever been in a relationship or on a date and you've been wondering to yourself, why is this person behaving this way? Why they're reacting by smothering me or being aggressive seemingly for no reason, or just obsessing about the tiniest of details? Well, our guest today is going to shine some light on the people that you're closest to and perhaps yourself as well, is the author of one of the books that I refer people to, the most called The Five Personality Patterns. And I've lost count of the number of people who've come back after reading it saying, now I get it. Now I understand why this person behaves this way. And the lovely thing about this book is that not only is it so succinct and so clear, but it's actually a very compassionate book. It actually adopts the stance of, of understanding that we're all human beings with a nervous system, and we're all trying to be safe. So there's such compassion and creativity that comes from this. And particularly if I, if I share it with couples, often they'll come back with this understanding and they're already working on new ways of relating with one another. So we're really grateful to have the author with us today. Stephen Kessler, thanks so much for joining us, Stephen.

Steven Kessler (01:13):

Very glad to be here. Todd,

Todd Zemek (01:14):

It's certainly a, an important contribution that you've made with this book and with your work. Tell us a little bit about what drew you to working with personality and character. And I guess the, the question I'm most interested in, in, in your history is how does someone go from studying physics at MIT to… How the hell did this happen? That's,

Steven Kessler (01:40):

That's pretty weird. Yeah. The through line of my life has been what is real. And when I was young and I began to first hear about physics, I mean, I remember like in fifth grade hearing about, oh, life travels in straight lines, except when it gets to a big gravitational, feel like a star. It'll bend a little bit. And I'm like, wow, this is great. And gradually during high school, I began to realize that the real religion of western society is science. That's the one, the thing we look, to give us an explanation of what's really going on, who we are, where we come from, where we're going, all those questions. I was quite blessed in high school to have an advanced physics course in which they didn't just tell us the answers, they told us the pieces, and then they said, now you figure out the answer.

(02:40):

And my brain was on fire. I loved it. And I managed to get into MIT to study physics. And then when I was in MIT, I was asking my physics professors these questions about like, like, what is going on in the world and where did it all come from? One of them said to me, Steven, these are not science questions. These are theology questions. I mean, basically you're asking about God. And I thought, oh crap, I can't get any answers here. And I also noticed that while I was in MIT, that a lot of my friends there were not only as messed up as I was from childhood, but even more so. And I thought to myself, it's not getting better by staying here. So I also had done a fair amount of acting in high school. I had been really interested in human beings and why we behave the way we do, and like, what's going on with people.

(03:38):

So I managed to audition for and get into the acting school at Boston University, which was just down the street. So I was in acting school for four years and then kind of, you know, like, what am I doing next with my life? And I sort of fell into psychology. And, you know, I wasn't a great talent as an actor and I was not one of those people who was gonna get paid millions of dollars for a movie, but in psychology, I got to keep studying people. So that was the road that I went down. And then in psychology, I began studying maps of personality, and I realized there's no book for regular people, I mean, for psychotherapists or just interested people who want to understand themselves and understand each other. And I gradually realized, I guess I'm the guy to do it. I have the skills.

(04:40):

I didn't know why I'd been accumulating these various skills over the years, but you know, how you, you look for a, a purpose in life, you know? And I had been saying to the universe for a decade or more, like, come on, use me. I'm smart, I'm talented. And I got stuff like, what am I supposed to be doing here? And then this book kind of landed in my lap and I realized, oh, I'm, I'm supposed to do this. One of the things I love about this map is that it helps people see themselves and understand what's really going on inside themselves and why they do what they do. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and how to come out of whatever prison they actually have been caught in and come more towards being present in the world, being able to act to, to respond to the present moment and respond more wisely to the present moment instead of the automatic reaction of whatever patterns they get stuck in.

Todd Zemek (05:41):

So speaking about this map of these five patents Yeah. Can you just briefly introduce us to what are the five patents? And then we might start our tour of each.

Steven Kessler (05:52):

So the easiest way to understand this is to understand these five patterns. Each, each pattern grows out of a particular safety strategy that a child can use. The patterns grow out of the safety strategies, because if you find a safety strategy that works for you, you tend to repeat it. If you try one and it doesn't work for you, you discard it. So, the five safety strategies and, and these are ways that you move your attention and move your life energy. The five are when you are feeling scared about something or distressed about something, upset by something in your environment, you can try to get away from it. That is leave. You can reach for help or look for help, try to connect with someone and get them to fix it for you. You can pull your energy in and, and go down in order to hide from it.

(06:55):

You can kind of duck and cover hunker down and just endure it. If you're a little older, you can pull your energy up and push it out against whatever is scaring you or hurting you. You can kind of fight against it. Or the developmentally oldest option is you can kind of stiffen and get a little more rigid inside and contract inside to try to, to diminish the flow of life energy through the core of your body so that you can turn down the volume on the distress. It's like if you're listening to music that's really loud and you don't like it, you go to the volume knob on the stereo and you turn the volume down and then it doesn't bother you as much. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So those are the five methods. Leave, connect pull in, you know, hide and endure rev up and fight or get rigid contract and get rigid.

(07:58):

So what I did was to give new names to most of the patterns, and I named them for what the person does to try to feel safer. And I want to emphasize that because I feel it's really important to understand that the patterns you run and a person typically runs more than one, they'll run two usually, but the patterns you do are not who you are. Who you are is essence or your presence. And then your patterns take you away from that. But that's the idea. They buffer you from being really present and actually vividly feeling how bad it feels.

Todd Zemek (08:40):

So it's providing that buffering, but potentially then providing the prison.

Steven Kessler (08:46):

Exactly. The buffering mechanism is a kind of anesthesia and then any buffering mechanism that you use, I mean, say, we'll take the first one leaving, say that in your family growing up, you tried out all five of these and one that really worked well for you was leaving. And that might mean physically leaving, it might mean abandoning your body. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, just taking your attention to some other dimension, leaving the physical plane completely. But maybe that worked well for you to help you feel safer. And if it worked well, then you would do it more and gradually it would become a habit, and then it would get conditioned into your body. And the, the way that you contract your muscles to make that work would get kind of frozen into your body. You get muscular armoring and it would become something automatic that happens in your body anytime you feel distressed.

(09:47):

And that's how the original safety strategy grows into being a pattern. And the pattern begins to actually distort your thinking and your feeling and even distort your perception. So it becomes self-reinforcing. It doesn't just solve the problem. It it buffers you from the problem. It gives you some anesthesia, but it also reinforces its own beliefs and attitudes. And then you get caught in that. And that's how it becomes a prison. And then like, if you're caught in that particular pattern, then every time that you feel a little upset, your body just automatically does that. And you're out of here and you can't stay present

Todd Zemek (10:35):

Until,

Steven Kessler (10:35):

And you also think this whole place is scary as hell.

Todd Zemek (10:39):

I bet at that stage that there's no doubt about it. All the internal evidence would be that that's your reality.

Steven Kessler (10:47):

It is your reality absolutely is your reality. That's one of the amazing things about this. It becomes your reality to such an extent, and it's so consistently your reality that it becomes hard to think that anybody else could have any kind of different reality.

Todd Zemek (11:02):

Well, there'd be no evidence to the contrary. It, it would be your exactly. It would be the only culture that exists.

Steven Kessler (11:08):

<Laugh>, there's no evidence to the contrary. And then you meet another human being who doesn't do one of your favorite patterns. Or maybe you have two patterns and they have two patterns, but there's no overlap. So you have your two little slices of reality and they have their two slices, but they're completely different slices. And then they respond so differently to a given situation. And you think, how can this be <laugh>? Like there must be something wrong with them, or it must be something wrong with me, but this is weird.

Todd Zemek (11:37):

It can't be me because look at all the evidence. Look, look at how life has worked for me. So it's clearly not me. <Laugh>.

Steven Kessler (11:43):

Well, interestingly enough, in some of the patterns, you assume that you are right and they're wrong. And in other patterns you assume that you are wrong and they're the ones who are Right,

Then those two people get together and marry each other <laugh>, and they both agree on which one is wrong. Then they show up in my office for couples’ counselors.

Todd Zemek (12:06):

Perfect. So, let's, let's go through the tour and then maybe we'll come back to some of those, those common combinations. So yeah, we, we were starting with the, the leaving pattern. So for people who might feel like there were a, a black sheep I guess this would be of particular interest for people who, who feel like they're attracting people who are distancing from, from them in some way. So tell us about the leaving pattern, how that works.

Steven Kessler (12:31):

So the safety strategy is when in distress the person leaves, physically leaves or energetically leaves, their energy goes away from the other person and even away from their own body. And the, basically they just get out of there in order to feel safer, they disappear. Mm-Hmm. They might be dissociating in psychological terms, and that's what the person does to try to feel safer. That's, I'm going to give them to you in in sort of developmental age order. If you think of child development, leaving pattern is usually the one that gets set in earliest. It can even start to happen before birth. And then merging pattern starting right after birth. The, the time when a child is in the oral stage of development, it's all about connecting. You know, mom and dad are supposed to fix all the problems. Like, if I'm hungry, you feed me and if I'm wet, you change me.

(13:31):

And if I'm tired or if I need to be burped, you burped me. If I'm tired, you put me to sleep. So this person, when they get into distress, or a person who is caught in this pattern, because I, I don't want anybody to think, well, each person has only one pattern. That's, that's not how it works. A person typically does too. So when a person's body has been conditioned into the merging pattern, when they get distressed, they will start looking to connect with other people and they will want to get the other person to fix it for them. Hmm. So their energy goes towards other people to connect and it's often more a heart to heart kind of connection. Like, do you like me? I want you to like me, I need you to like me. I like you. They become pleasing and accommodating and placating. They are nice to you. Mm. Which makes you want to like them and take care of them. Very useful strategy if you don't really get to grow up. But, you know, because you're staying kind of the baby.

Todd Zemek (14:37):

And I see this 31, I see if we, if we have a look at those two, a little bit more detail, I, I guess with the, the merging pattern, I see a lot of people merging so much their attention is external on other people's experience. Yes. No so much that they often get forgotten internally. There's this sense of private hollowness and disappointment of when is someone going to come back, when are they going to find me? This is so unfair.

Steven Kessler (15:05):

When are they going to find me? Because it's their job to find me just like I find them.

Yeah. And this is a great example of how doing any of these patterns requires two things. One is that you have sort of the natural talents for it. If you don't have the talents and can't do it at all, it'll never work for you. But then as you do it over and over and over, you get more and more skillful. And one of the talents that's needed for the merging pattern is an ability to actually feel, to reference, to sense the inner experience of other people. So you can know directly what they're feeling and if you're really skillful what they want from you, who they want you to be. So you can become whoever they want you to be. At the same time the pattern tends to sort of stifle or or muffle your ability to feel yourself. Because if you feel yourself, if you feel your own core and you discover that what you want is different than what they want, then that might lead to conflict. So you can't feel yourself, but you can feel them really clearly. And then you become terrific at knowing what they want and pleasing them and pleasing them kind of starts to rule your life, but you don't know what you want.

Todd Zemek (16:37):

And that can be so uncomfortable if people feel it in order, in order to be loved. I've gotta go back to merge, to be a def a defined individual who's actually taking part in relationships, the anxiety about feeling selfish or being blamed or, or the other person saying, Hey, this isn't you. Get, get back into your role. You know, you're supposed to just go with the flow. Why are you being so sensitive?

Steven Kessler (17:00):

You're supposed to do whatever I want

Todd Zemek (17:02):

<Laugh>. That was their deal, wasn't it that ideal? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I, I would, I would suspect that while the majority of the people listening are going to have, like you say, one, two, potentially even three of these patterns running, my guess is that people who are most curious about other people's internal world are, are more likely to, to identify with some of this merging pattern.

Steven Kessler (17:25):

Yeah. And certainly people who are most skillful at directly perceiving other people's internal world. Mm-Hmm. That's really one of the gifts of emerging pattern

Todd Zemek (17:36):

In terms of the leaving pattern. If we look at, and one of the lovely things in the book also is that you look at both the gifts and the, and the challenges. Right. How would you describe those in terms of the, the leaving pattern? Because again, it be from the outside, it'd be very easy to judge, why are you so defensive? Why are you so, why are you running away?

Steven Kessler (17:54):

You mean you mean gifts or challenges or both? 

Todd Zemek (17:57):

Both. I, I'm just curious about what, what are the gifts, what are the, what are the challenges there?

Steven Kessler (18:02):

So one of the gifts is this is a person who typically never really attached to the physical plane. Never really attached to their physical body or to the physical plane in general. So this is frequently a person who finds it very easy to go to other dimensions, to connect with the spirit world, maybe to go to the dimension. Like if you remember in the film Amadeus in which Mozart is just downloading concerts, music Right. Faster than Soer can write it down on paper. I, I mean, I'm told by my friends who are really good at this, like there's a dimension of music. You just go there, you can download stuff mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, there's a dimension of geometric shapes. There're all kinds of different dimensions where there's stuff you can get the stuff and bring it here. And so a lot of the people who are really seminal thinkers in any discipline do the leaving pattern and they can go to other dimensions and get stuff and bring it here.

(19:12):

And it's really completely new and, and amazing at the same time. Never having really claimed your own body. Never having claimed the physical plane makes it hard to navigate in the physical plane. If you get scared, you get knocked out of our body. In the physical plane, we have this thing called time and space. You don't have that in the spiritual world there. It's like all time is not the same as here. So if you are not really here in time and space, then you make an appointment to meet someone on Friday at noon for lunch in that restaurant. And you're probably going to be late because you're having trouble navigating through time and space. And the physical world will seem foreign and o often actively hostile. Like this place is cold and unloving and you know, and frequently people who are really caught in the leaving pattern don't really want to be here.

(20:22):

Their attitude is, yeah, this is one possibility, but it's not a very fun possibility. Like, I'd much rather be in this other dimension. You'll notice when they feel distressed, they probably won't say, I feel hurt, I feel scared. They'll just disappear. They won't want to create any conflict. They probably aren't in their body enough to actually feel the sensations. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and name the emotion their, they'll, most of their attention will be up in their head in ideas or even out of their body. So they probably won't be able to have like a heartful conversation about it. But what will happen is they disappear. Now their body might still be here or their body might have left the room, but even if their body is still here, they're not really in there. They can even fragment under pressure mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and kind of lose a center to operate from and not be able to function at all.

Todd Zemek (21:22):

And so for someone who's in a relationship or dating someone like this, I guess that would be very helpful information to potentially interpret the fact that I haven't necessarily been rejected or abandoned or dismissed. Right. But this might be a sign that we've hit a limit here,

Steven Kessler (21:41):

Right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I mean one of the first principles of almost any inner work is whatever the other person is doing, don't take it personally, because it probably has a lot less to do with you than you think with a person who's really caught in the leaving pattern if they suddenly evaporate or disappear. It's not really that they don't like you, it's that they started to get overwhelmed or overloaded. Now it might be something you did. It's also important to notice that if you think of the spectrum of intensity of interaction that they're used to like being on the low end of the spectrum, a very light touch will work much better with them. Not a lot of intensity.

Todd Zemek (22:30):

That's such great advice. Yeah. If, if people are coming together in relationships to relate, usually they've got the expectation that, well isn't this just a standard? Is isn't everyone capable of going, looking for each other or, or being close. So just, just that alone that this person may just have a, a lower threshold for closeness, for intimacy or, or for, for overwhelm could be incredibly

Steven Kessler (22:58):

Impaired for intensity in general. Mm

Todd Zemek (22:59):

Mm

Steven Kessler (23:00):

Intensity in general for intensity of, of experience that could be the loudness of a noise, the brightness of a light, the the amount of charge in the body. I mean, people at the farther end of the spectrum, the, the older patterns will want a whole lot more charge in their body to feel more alive because they don't feel their bodies as, as clearly a person at the younger end of the spectrum, especially leaving pattern, will feel that charge very vividly and can get overwhelmed very easily. It's just like if you have a four month old child in the house, you're careful not to slam a door because just a door slam will shock that body. You can see the shock trauma go through their body. Whereas, you know, if you've got teenagers in the house and nobody younger than that, there's doors slamming all the time. Nobody really cares. You know, <laugh>, it's like, it's just what happens. Nobody gets damaged by a slam door, but a young child doesn't have any buffer around it yet.

Todd Zemek (24:05):

If we, if we just dive in a little bit further to the merging pattern in terms of gifts and in terms of some of the challenges that would be faced if you,

Steven Kessler (24:14):

Yeah. So as we said before, this capacity to actually feel other people sense what they feel and what they need, what's going on with them. Do they need attention? Are they scared? Tremendously important skill, difficulty in referencing their themself, feeling their own core, knowing what they personally need. That's, that's a real difficulty. Self-Care is the, the path out of being caught in the merging pattern. And it's important that it's about self-care. You noticing what you need and arranging to get for yourself what you need or get it yourself. It takes real practice, especially if your childhood involve being trained not to do that. Mm-Hmm cause many cultures, many families actually train some children to disregard how they feel and what they want. Cause it's inconvenient from arm and Dad or because they think it's incompatible with this child's gender or station or something like that.

(25:23):

Frequently a culture will train the girls that they're supposed to be there for everybody else and, and take care of everybody else's emotional needs for any person to, to come out of being stuck in any of these patterns and to heal the, the trauma that has been keeping them stuck in a particular pattern. It's some important inner work. And I would recommend that they not be relying on their lover to be the person who does that work with them or who is like their therapist in this. You can't be someone's therapist in their lover at the same time. So if I needed to do really inner work, which I have been doing for many, many years I don't think asking my lover to be my therapist in that is a good plan. I would need to have a teacher, a therapist somebody outside the couple that I go to who works with me, but not bring it home. That's not for at home.

Todd Zemek (26:32):

I, I think that's such an important point. And, and so many people have so many expectations of their relationships that this is supposed to be a place for you know, a, a lover, a therapist, a friend, support person in every dimension. So that's tremendous advice. How

Steven Kessler (26:47):

About the, it does be place for really deep healing, but it would be sort of mutual healing. Not one person as therapist and the other as client or one as teacher and the other as student.

Todd Zemek (27:00):

And a tremendous way to just dissolve any sense of polarity or spark.

Steven Kessler (27:04):

Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. Not so sexy. That's right.

Todd Zemek (27:09):

But again, if we've got that merging pattern that, that may have been the expectation that this is a, this is a way of getting closer that would lead to that. Inevitably it's almost the opposite. So Yeah. Yeah. That, that differentiation's really, really important.

Steven Kessler (27:22):

That is, yeah.

Todd Zemek (27:23):

So how about the the enduring pattern?

Steven Kessler (27:26):

Yeah. So third in line in terms of psychological development is the enduring pattern. And this typically comes online for a kid as a, as a possibility as they get to be about two years old. And will and strength begin to come online before that. For a kid who's 12 months old or even 18 months old, will is not quite there fully yet. Strength is developing slowly, but will isn't really there. I, if a kid of 18 months is toddling in a certain direction and you pick him up and turn him, he'll just toddle in the new direction. Because he's just going, it's like, you know, I'm moving.
 
 

But it's, it's moving. Whereas after the kid is about two, you pick him up and turn him, he'll turn back because it wasn't just, I'm going, but I am going mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I have a goal and you are getting in the way. I'm going back to my goal. So that's when the terrible twos happen. When the kid discovers the word no. This is the beginning of psychological separation of I'm different from you mom and dad. I want what I want, not what you want me to want. That can lead to a whole new set of problems between the kid and the parents. If the parents can't tolerate the kid being different, and if the parents can't stand the kid being different and they start punishing the kid for being different, making the kid lose all those fights the kid eventually realizes I just can't win. And they pull in and they send their energy down in the lower part of the body and even down into the ground underneath them in order to hide. And they just hunker down and endure. But they get stuck down there. So the advantage of the enduring pattern is basically you can endure every anything. And the disadvantage is you get stuck and you can't move, you can't pull an energy up to do anything. No, not much self-expression. Not much self-action. This is often known as the strong silent type.

Todd Zemek (29:47):

If there's such a locking down, I imagine they'd be prone to experiences of depression of, of some way because there'd be so little that that got in to stimulate.

Steven Kessler (29:57):

Well, there's energy that goes in, energy goes in, but it just doesn't come out. So I see depression more as a way to not feel by keeping your energy low. It's not that this person is diminishing the flow of energy, they're slowing it down. But then actually expressing anything was what would bring the attack from mom and dad. So the kid learns to not express anything or take any action. So that begins to look like not saying any, when someone says, how are you, the answer is fine. Not I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm scared, I'm angry. I I want some ice cream. Let's go to the circus just fine. Which is basically code for go away and don't bother me because this is a kid who has been over controlled, who's been invaded energetically. And they don't want you doing that anymore. They want you to go away.

Todd Zemek (31:02):

So they'll stay and they'll be, they'll be good at staying.

Steven Kessler (31:06):

Absolutely. They have the strength of the rock. Yes. The object,

Todd Zemek (31:12):

But the, the responsivity of the rock as well.

Steven Kessler (31:16):

Exactly.

Steven Kessler (31:18):

The responsivity of the rock. <Laugh>.

Todd Zemek (31:21):

Okay. So how do you relate with the rock? I guess with all of these? We're talking, it's a question of degree, isn't it? But for people who, for people who are listening and just going, oh my god, yeah, that's, that's my partner.

Steven Kessler (31:35):

Well first recognize that the person's wound is invasion and they want you to respect their space and not be putting your energy into their space or into their body. Now they're not really protecting their space, they're not defending it. They don't have a, a wall out there that they're defending something. But they want you to respect it. So you have to learn about space and about respecting their space and about pulling in your energy and not invading them energetically. And the less you invade them, the more they will trust you and begin to come out.

Todd Zemek (32:19):

Okay. So in terms of relating or, or trying to start that, would it, would it be a question of acceptance that that's, that would be step one?

Steven Kessler (32:29):

Yeah. With, with any of these patterns, understanding your sweetheart through this map, one of the first things to do is to understand how were they wounded as a child, what scares them, what upsets them, and how you can help them feel safer, sort of what to do and say and how to approach them so that you don't step on any toes.

Todd Zemek (32:57):

So how, how would you approach someone who was in, in that rocklike state?

Steven Kessler (33:03):

First contain your own energy field, and then don't ask them to initiate anything. For instance, say you think it would be good for them to go to the gym and do some exercising. And if you say, well, why don't you go to the gym? They'll probably say no for a couple of reasons. One is you suggested it and they don't want to, you know, it's coming from you. So they're going to resist any outside agenda. Secondly, it requires them to take initiative. A better way to approach it would be to say to them, you know what? I think I want to go to the gym and get some exercise and I think I'll probably set out to do that in about an hour. And if you'd like to come with me, I'd be happy to have you come. And then you turn and you walk away.

(33:56):

Don't ask for an answer right now. They need time by themselves to go through their inner process of, do I want to do this? Is it good for me? Well, but, but it comes from them, but maybe I want it, maybe I do. Okay. And then when the time comes, you show up and you say, well, I'm, I'm leaving for the gym in a few minutes. You want to come. They don't want to be left behind. But they also don't want to take initiative. It's easier for them to join your program than to start one by themselves. And then if they don't like it, they can say, well, you know, it was your idea. I never thought I'd like it. 

Todd Zemek (34:36):

That's great. I love that. I love that initiatives. Yeah. And that and that you could repeat that multiple times without any shaming. Absolutely. It's just an offer. And then they can get on and off the train anytime they like.

Steven Kessler (34:48):

It's a way to make it easy for them instead of forcing them to confront some situation. That's scary. One of the great things about understanding these patterns is as you begin to understand each pattern, you understand how to present any, any idea to them in a way that they can understand and maybe accept.

Todd Zemek (35:30):

What about the if there's a pattern that gets judged more than harshly than the others, it's, it's probably the aggressive pattern. So

Steven Kessler (35:38):

Probably so. Cause the, the safety strategy here, now, this is a kid who's a little bit older than the enduring pattern. This with the enduring pattern will and strength have come online, but you haven't really been able to use them successfully to defend yourself or, or win any battles in childhood. The aggressive patterned person did win the battles in childhood. Maybe mom and dad were not able to really fight, hold their ground. And this kid learned they could just run over everybody. It's probably a kid who had a big energy flow in their body in the first place and they learned they could pull up a lot of energy and throw it at people and get them to do what they want. So they've learned, I'll just pull up more energy and I'll throw it at you maybe as anger, maybe as a demand, maybe as a command.

(36:32):

And if I hit you with enough energy, you'll probably just do what I want to make me stop so I get what I want. No problem. And of course, it's not a great strategy for being socially popular because it feels like abuse to other people and they don't like it. You know, sooner or later they say, God damn man, you're always just bashing me and I don't like it. I don't feel safe. And the a person who's caught in the aggressive pattern doesn't understand that because they're operating kind of in a whole different part of the, the spectrum of intensity. We talked about leaving pattern being way down at the low end. This person is way up at the high end. Everything is done in big intensity. If we're having a party, it's a loud party. If we're doing a sport, it's an extreme sport. If we're in, in a contest, it's probably not a spelling bee. It's, it is probably like boxing or you know, football or it is not mental stuff. It's physical stuff.

Todd Zemek (37:39):

What does this look like in a relationship? How would this come across if you were dating somebody,

Steven Kessler (37:44):

A person who keeps going one up on you mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, they go one up and they put you one down. They try to intimidate, dominate control.

Todd Zemek (37:55):

So, in terms of when people are in relationships, it, if you're in a relationship with someone that you've identified is running that aggressive pattern.

Steven Kessler (38:03):

Yeah.

Todd Zemek (38:04):

Any suggestions about either how you protect yourself or how you express yourself, or when you do try to come back together, how is that done?

Steven Kessler (38:14):

Well, when you speak to them, you have to be in your own core and speak directly from your core to their core. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if you don't have a strong sense of your own core as you speak, they will hardly even hear you. They will think, okay, you're not really there. It doesn't count. So, you got to be in your own. I mean, you can think of it as this is a person who's very plugged into the warrior archetype and who experiences the world as a battlefield. And you always have to be ready to do battle. It's a life and death situation. It's a fight for survival. Only the strong survive. So, you just can't afford to have weak people around because you know, they feel like I'm going to have to carry you later. And that's hard for a comrade in arm. You, you got to bring the strength inside you, and I need to be able to see it when you first show up. Now that said, in terms of relationship, often a person who's really caught in the aggressive pattern will want to be in a relationship with someone who's not an aggressive pattern. It becomes a kind of dominant submissive relationship. Hmm. And I don't mean that in terms of like bondage and discipline sexual stuff, but in terms of one person is clearly the power and the other is the follower. There's a leader and there's a follower, and we don't trade roles.

Todd Zemek (39:43):

Okay. So approaching definitely from being conscious of being strong in your own core. Yeah. Any other, any other thoughts about how

Steven Kessler (39:51):

Also no pussy footing around like from merging pattern? You want to flatter the person. You want to say, oh, I really like, you know, I like your shirt. I like your dress. That's a new hairdo. It's really beautiful on you. Like you're buttering the person up. Mm-Hmm. To get them to like you before you really ask for what you want. Person who's an aggressive pattern is going to smell that in a second, and they're going to think you're trying to manipulate me. I don't want to hear it. Like, what do you really want? So when you're talking to somebody who's caught in aggressive pattern, be succinct, get right to the point. Tell them what you want. It's okay that you want something they know. They can say yes, but they can also say no. They're not shy about that. But tell them what you want. And don't waste their time with excuses. They don't need justification. They don't need you to make a case for it and prove that God says they should give it to you. Or, you know, there's a moral case or anything like that. Their question is, what do you want and what's in it for me?

Todd Zemek (40:53):

If they're coming from that warrior stance, then having a preparedness for difference or the unknown or this, this to be rocky or for it to not work and then come back to renegotiate later. I think preparedness for that, that in those interactions that you, you shouldn't be expecting harmony. If we're lowering that expectation, come to those points of difference and then we can see what emerges

Steven Kessler (41:15):

And recognize that if they get distressed, they will shift towards anger. Each of the patterns has a default emotion. And by default emotion, I mean the emotion that begins to rise in the person whenever their system gets overloaded, it doesn't necessarily mean that that is the authentic or the appropriate feeling response in the moment. What it means is they've gone into overwhelm and this is the way they're overwhelm habitually looks. For a person who does leaving pattern, the default emotion is fear. They get a little distressed, they feel scared. They want to get out of there. More guilt for merging pattern, more shame for enduring pattern, anger for both aggressive and rigid patterns, different kinds of anger with aggressive pattern. It's kind of an explosive anger. It, it's like, no, I want what I want and I will have as big a tantrum as necessary to get it. Whereas with rigid pattern, it's more a righteous anger. It's like, well you should do this. You can kind of hear the, you know, the finger of accusation coming out and pointing at you <laugh> saying, well you should, there's this rule

Todd Zemek (42:39):

And clearly you've got it terribly wrong.

Steven Kessler (42:42):

A absolutely, and I'll prove you are wrong and I'll prove I'm right. And you have to do it this way because if we don't do it the right way, it's like the whole universe is going to fall apart somehow. And

Todd Zemek (42:54):

That's part of the origin for the, for the rigid pattern.

Steven Kessler (42:57):

That's part rigid pattern. Well, rigid patterns a little different from the other four in the, the other four. There's, there's a really identifiable wounding process in childhood in rigid pattern. The person doesn't feel wounded at the time that it's happening. They think they're being loved and, and taught because probably their parents do rigid pattern and their parents are teaching him, teaching them the right way to be, how to stand up straight, how to use the correct knife and fork and spoon, good manners, good grammar, comb your hair, clean clothes neat, you know, acc crease your, your pants are pressed with a neat crease in it. Your clothes are not dirty. They're, they're clean, they're the right clothes for the season and the right clothes for the occasion. They're appropriate. We're not doing anything flashy here. They're appropriate. And these are all the rules that you are supposed to follow to be a good person. So you get schooled in this whole sort of church of the one right way. What's missing is no one is paying attention to or valuing your own inner experience. They're not saying, well what do you feel in your heart, sweetheart? What does your heart want here? What does your body feel like you want? They're saying, well, this is what you should do. And you are unconsciously learning that you are your performance, you're learning to perform. Well,

Todd Zemek (44:30):

The, the classic that I see is around cleaning and routines, for example, in the kitchen. Yeah. Or where do we leave our shoes when we come into the house?

Steven Kessler (44:40):

Exactly.

Todd Zemek (44:41):

Yeah. And, and it is so wounding and so terrifying and it is just a, a crime against nature. It's, it's just the worst thing in the world when some of these little things haven't been seen. And, and in terms of that internal heart that you're talking about, the tragedy is often that the partner just sees that someone is just being, you know, a fastidious pain in the ass. That they're just overreacting about little things and they're getting sick of it. Right. They don't see anything in terms of the distress.

Steven Kessler (45:10):

And the part that the partner doesn't see, and the person caught in the pattern also doesn't see is that no one is attending to their heart. No one is saying, I want to do what would make you happy? How does it feel if I put my shoes here versus I put my shoes there. The person who's actually caught in rigid pattern is at first they're going to answer from, well, you should put your feel, your shoes there. So it feels better to me. But they haven't really referenced their body. They're referencing the rules. We talked earlier about people that one of the gifts of emerging pattern is good ability to reference other people, find out what they're feeling and what they're wanting. And with aggressive pattern, very strong ability to reference yourself with rigid pattern, strong ability to reference the rules and the forms and the structures and the ways you're supposed to do it.

(46:11):

Now that can vary a lot depending on the situation. If it's the rules of the Catholic church, that's one whole set of rules. If it's the rules of the free love community that your parents live in, in the woods in Oregon, that's a whole different straight set of rules. If it's the rules of the Libertarian party here in the United States, that's a completely different set of rules, which rules matters a lot. But the point is that instead of referencing yourself and what do you want or referencing the other person and what do they want your, you've been taught to reference this outside set of standards.

Todd Zemek (46:52):

I have to confess, reading, reading the book and, and reading that chapter in particular really helped me understand some of the people in my life. And when, when people have read the book, it's probably, in my experience anyway, has been the, the chapter where I've seen the most understanding o overnight. Okay. And the most creativity. So cool. Yeah. I definitely recommend that to people.

Steven Kessler (47:16):

Good.

Todd Zemek (47:16):

I'm glad. In terms of relationships and how patterns come together, you're talking about some of the common patterns in terms of how they attract each other. And of course every relationship is going to have, I guess a pattern made out of patterns. Yes. Interested in any commentary you've got there.

Steven Kessler (47:33):

Yes. Every relationship is going to include how the patterns that these two people go into in distress tend to interact. Now sometimes one person's way of soothing themself and trying to feel safer actually also helps the other person feel safer. So then things match up and they agree and they think like, oh, I was, I was getting distressed and then you did your thing and then I feel better. Thank you very much. I wanna spend more time with you. You help me regulate my own inner distress. That's what we often call a healthy relationship. It's like they're able to help each other reregulate their system. When they get dysregulated. The people, the couples who usually end up in my office for couples counseling are couples for whom what each one does to try to feel safer actually upsets the other one, makes them feel less safe.

(48:36):

So they've been having this fight for 20 years and they no longer even have any idea how it started or, or what it's about. And it doesn't really matter how it gets started. Some little thing happens, one of them gets a little bit distressed, goes a little into their safety strategy, does that safety strategy and that makes the other person feel scared. They go at least partway into their safety strategy and do that. That makes the first person feel even more scared and they go farther into safety strategy or pattern that causes the second person to go farther into it and the thing escalates and they can't find a way out. And they can't figure out like, why do we have this fight? It's not really about the content of the fight. You know, sooner or later they're going to realize it doesn't matter what the subject was.

(49:40):

It's always the same fight. And one of the great things I've seen from people learning this map of the personality patterns is that they begin to understand, oh, when I do that thing to help myself feel safer, it actually scares you and I didn't know it scares you because it doesn't scare me. Makes me feel better. But it actually does scare you and that doesn't mean I'm bad for doing it. And it doesn't mean you are bad for feeling scared. It just means this action has completely different meanings for the two of us. Like take leaving pattern one person leaves and that them feel safer. Like they're out of harm's way there, like away from the danger. It's like, oh good, I can calm down now, but the other person feels abandoned now abandoned means you left me as something's bad is happening for me because you left. It's not like I'm relieved that you left. That's not what we used the word abandoned for. We used the word abandoned for I didn't want you to leave and I feel bad that you left, but you did. That's the kind of combination that's going to be a problem.

Todd Zemek (50:59):

Yeah. We're talking about the, the lights coming on when people understand this, it's, yeah, it's such a turning point when there's that that pivot of oh my god, you're scared. Yeah. And someone can actually see that fear as they struggle to find the words or there's tears rolling down their face. Right. It's, it's such a turning point. Then the other person who had been combative or blaming or or had felt victimized their, their heart comes out of their chest and they're just so curious about what's going on inside that person. And I think, you know what, what you describe in these patterns provides a, a beautiful bridge for that very reliably.

Steven Kessler (51:38):

It helps people come back to each other and frequently in a couple's session they get triggered by each other really quickly and neither of them really has the skills needed. Beacuse part of learning this way of understanding people is developing your own skills to actually communicate with people caught in any of the patterns and shift the way you approach them to a way that they will feel safe with. So maybe the two people are actually getting into their fight in my office and instead of like trying to tell them about it, I'll say, okay, let's slow this down for a minute and I'll say to one person, let me show you something that might work. And then I turn to the other person and I shift into something that will help them feel safer. Because it's pretty obvious. Yeah. If they're really caught in pattern, which pattern is obvious and what's going to help them feel safer.

(52:39):

And I approach them that way and then they start to calm down and for first time maybe they feel seen, they feel heard, they start to open up and get vulnerable. And I'm able to lead them down to, okay, I know that you are like angry at your partner for doing X, Y, Z, but inside you what's under the anger. And then there's almost always something like, well, you know, I'm afraid you don't love me anymore, or I'm afraid you're going to leave me. Or I, I I'm, you know, there's some fear, there's some hurt, there's some sadness. And the partner is sitting there watching this and then they come out of it with a couple of experiences. One is, I didn't know you could do that. Mm. The second is, I want to know how to do that because I want to be able to connect like that. And the third is, I had no idea that you were so tender and vulnerable inside. I've never seen that.

(53:47):

There was one time I was working on a military base and I was working with a master sergeant and his wife mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and you know, they had whatever fight they had forever. And and I started doing this with the master sergeant and talking to him about all the ways he feels responsible to keep everybody in the family safe, just like his whole squadron or platoon or whatever he had and how responsibly he feels for everybody's safety and how much work it is and how important it is to him. That everybody is safe and nobody gets hurt, but they don't notice how hard he's working at this. And the, the man began to cry, the tears started to roll down his cheeks. Now he wasn't saying anything and he wasn't moving. It's just little tears rolling down his cheeks. And his wife said, I've been married to him for 20 years. I've never seen him cry before. But he had never felt like somebody could see

Todd Zemek (54:57):

Mm-Hmm. Him

Steven Kessler (54:59):

And this guy's really stuck in aggressive pattern mm-hmm. And he's working really hard. Mm-Hmm. But all the other people see is he's telling them what to do and commanding them and not listening to them because he's not listening to them. They don't see the motive behind his actions.

Todd Zemek (55:18):

Yeah. It's a, a beautiful example. Yeah. And I guess, I mean this is, this is the, you know, when we, we go to a funeral and when we look back at what was important, it's inevitably the quality of our connection. So it wasn't the content of, of our, of our work or the content of the fire. It was the quality of the connection and that we're not really able to do that unless we have some, some different lenses through which we can find each other.

Steven Kessler (55:49):

Yeah. And everybody is in there. There's a heart in there for everybody. Sometimes it's really covered up, sometimes it's really locked away and disowned, but it's there and it's locked away and disowned because of heartbreak. You know, babies aren't born with their hearts locked away. It's something we do when our heart has been broken.

Todd Zemek (56:17):

Hmm.

Steven Kessler (56:20):

And one of the things I love about this map of personality is it starts to give clues about, well, where to look for the heartbreak.

Todd Zemek (56:30):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> beautiful. And I guess in terms of, of intimacy, like I was saying, you're not attempting to be anybody's therapist as a, as a lover or someone that you're close to. But yeah, it, it, it does give you that opportunity to have a compassionate lens in terms of their humanity and that our, our wounding is an opportunity, I guess. Yeah. To, to find, first of

Steven Kessler (56:55):

All, to not take it personally, not think it's really about you. Secondly, to begin to understand what's going on with them and why they might be responding this way. And third, approach them, communicate with them in a way that works for them, not just in a way that would work for you. You already know the way it would work for you and you've probably tried that 55 times already. Let's shift into the, the approach, the language, the energetic that will work for them.

Todd Zemek (57:28):

The heart with which you a approach this work is amazing. Thank you for asking for that guidance in terms of where you fit in the world and what your contribution would be. I'm, I'm glad you had such clarity before we started the interview. You were giving me some news that you are, you're working on the recording the audio for, for this book? Yes.

Steven Kessler (57:51):

Yeah. I, I, the book has actually been out for four years and people keep asking me about like, why is there going to be an audio version and I, I am finally getting around to recording the audio version then editing it down and getting the files already. But I expect to have that out by the end of the year.

Be announcing that in my newsletter.

Todd Zemek (58:10):

Excellent. So people can find you through your website. So the five personalities.com

Steven Kessler (58:17):

The five personality patterns.com name is the title of the book. Yeah, that's the website.

Todd Zemek (58:24):

Fantastic.

Steven Kessler (58:25):

So too, there's a lot of information there about the patterns

Todd Zemek (58:28):

Fantastic.

Steven Kessler (58:28):

Some drawings of typical body shapes and all kinds of useful stuff.

Todd Zemek (58:33):

Yeah. Well look, I'm sure that this information's going to be enormously helpful for people who are in long-term relationships, are curious about understanding, getting closer to the people that they love and invaluable information for people who are dating, being able to understand cultures as they meet new people coming into their lives,

Steven Kessler (58:51):

Dating or married or have parents or have kids or have, you name

Coworkers or anybody you have to get along with

Todd Zemek (58:58):

 just the humans.

Steven Kessler (59:00):

It pretty much applies everywhere. Great. And thank you so much for inviting me, Todd. I'm really glad that you're doing this work and that you're interested in this and that you're helping spread the word on this. Cause I think it's really important and, you know, I'd like people all over the world to learn about this.

Todd Zemek (59:17):

Well look, I'm sure people have benefited greatly from today. As always recommend that they either, either get a copy of the book or, or have a listen now. And I'm, I'm sure they'll reach out to you if, if needs be. Hope so. That'd be great. Thank you so very much, Stephen. 

Steven Kessler

Thank you again Todd. Bye-Bye now. Take care.