5 Personality Types: Strength, Stress & Self Care with Carey Davidson

nina lorez collins
Worthy Staff

By Worthy Staff | Jun 11th, 2019

This week we are opening our 4-part series with Carey Davidson, founder of Tournesol Wellness, an integrative healing arts practice and learning center. In this episode, Carey takes us through the 5 personality archetypes, the gifts, and challenges they offer, and how each archetype can achieve optimal balance and resilience.

Listen to the full episode:

Carey Davidson founded Tournesol Wellness to help heal and strengthen people with all different types of ailments – including both the physical and emotional as well as the acute and ongoing. Modern medicine, while necessary and at times miraculous, is limited to treating a specific ailment or part of the body, not the person as a whole. Carey’s approach dives deeper into understanding your primary archetype and how you can achieve balance, strength, and resilience.

The 5 archetypes are based in ancient Chinese transformative medicine and can help us understand our emotional and physical ailments in the short and long term. Take quiz here.

Wood

This archetype is best described as assertive, decisive, trailblazing, always moving and cherishes freedom and autonomy. Wood’s biggest fear and source of stress is confinement and external limitations. When they become stressed they become inflexible and pushy. Physical ailments for this archetype are usually headaches, hypertension, and muscle twitches.

Balance & Self Care – This archetype is best balanced with earth and metal components. Taking from the earth archetype, they need to practice sharing with others and thinking about the needs of those around them. From the metal side, they should take the time to look into details. From the physical perspective, proper nutrition and mindful breathing are most important.

Fire

The fire archetype is passionate, sympathetic, radiant, and can draw out the best in others. They love contact, need to have excitement and crave affirmation that the people around them like what they have to give. Fire’s biggest fear is losing love or connection which can manifest panic and burnout. They will do anything to avoid sad feelings. Fire personalities will easily to repeat patterns, become bored, panicked, stressed and can be very dramatic. Physical symptoms usually include a loud cough, high fever, physical extremes.

Balance & Self-Care – This archetype is best balanced by the Water and Metal components. It is important to take notice of what is around you and practice objectivity. From the water side, take breaths, take time to reflect and learn. Moments to relax and think are key.

Earth

Protective and empathetic are leading characteristics of this archetype. They can bring calm to chaos and make great caregivers. They know how to give you what you need when you aren’t feeling good. They love sharing, seek harmony, need connections, and act as peacemakers. When earth archetypes become leaders, they are humanitarian and put those around them first. Sometimes, in extreme situations, they question the validity of their own needs. Their biggest fear is abandonment. When an earth archetype is stressed, they become worried and deeply ruminate on what they can do better for those around them. This can manifest physically with stomach issues, fatigue, and loss of sleep.

Balance & Self-Care – Water and Wood components are the best for balancing out the stresses of Earth. It is important to stay hydrated and get plenty of sleep. Practicing listening skills, presence, meditation, and movement are also important for ongoing resilience and enrichment.

Metal

This archetype notices and creates beauty, by paying attention to the smallest details. They are dignified and refined, always minding lessons from experience. Metal people make for moral leaders with a keen sense of right and wrong, good and bad. When stressed, they obsess over details and can become stuck on them and overly critical. The physical signs of stress for the Metal archetype can include constipation, eczema, ticks, etc.

Balance & Self-Care – Wood and Fire come into play when balancing out the metal archetype. They must practice emotional flexibility by not judging their own emotions. Making room for joy and optimism help to leave behind the cynicism and skepticism that can bring down this archetype.

Water

Wise and deeply insightful, make this archetype excellent listeners and problem solvers. They are able to think clearly by not getting too caught up in emotions or unimportant details but can still be imaginative. They crave knowledge, are always looking to learn, and make for wise leaders. Water archetypes often work alone and when stressed, they tend to fear that they will make the wrong decision and doubt their own knowledge. This can lead to stubbornness, depression, and isolation. The most common physical ailment of this archetype is back pain.

Balance & Self-Care – Water needs Earth and Fire to balance out. This archetype needs to be nourished by good healthful food as well as deep connections. They should try to introduce more fun in their lives, allow some gullibility and not question every positive thing that comes their way.

Our Takeaway

When you can be more self-aware and self regulate you can recover from major life transitions and traumas much faster and with more sustaining benefits. This allows for better relationships with your ex, your kids and whoever will be in the future that you build for yourself.

Episode Transcript

Jennifer: Welcome to Divorce & Other Things You Can Handle. A branded podcast by Worthy. I am Jennifer Butler and I’m your host. Do you ever wonder why certain things may stress you out but not the person next to you? Why certain forms of self-care like taking a bath or meditating may appeal to some but sound awful to others? Why you have the strengths that you have and how you can learn to optimize them? You may remember our guest today, Carey Davidson, founder of Tournesol Wellness, from an episode during season one titled Divorce and Your Personal Strengths. During that episode, Carey provided a roadmap for others to heal and to thrive using modern science, ancient Chinese medicine and a whole lot of love. Carey went through her approach and the different tools she uses to create an introduction to this way of thinking. We here at Worthy and all of you loved that episode so much and have wanted to hear more from Carey. So we decided to bring her back for a four part series starting today. We’re going to be taking a deep dive into how you can apply her approach in specific areas of your life. If you haven’t listened to that episode, it’s a great one to go back and check out. Today we’re going to be discussing the five personality types and how they relate specifically to your self-care, your stress and your strikes. In the second episode, we’ll deep dive into relationships, recognizing patterns, and the type of personality archetypes that work best together. In the third episode, we’re going to continue diving into relationships and explore the most triggering archetype combinations. So you don’t ever have to look back and wonder, how did I end up here ever again? In the last episode with Carey, we’ll explore how you can use this method and tools to become effective co-parents, allowing you to be the best parent for your child that you can be. I am thrilled to have these conversations with Carey to bring these conversations to you. So after we take a quick break, we will be back with Carey Davidson and our discussion on the five personality archetypes and how they relate specifically to your self-care, stressors and strengths.

Jennifer: Carey Davidson is the founder and CEO of Tournesol, the Holistic Health think tank collaborative in New York City. Carey established Tournesol to evaluate and design better systems for optimal human experience throughout their life cycle. Tournesol’s groundbreaking programs combined frontier science and proven wisdom to empower people and organizations with strategies that build resilience and wellbeing through self-knowledge, self-acceptance and mastery of individual gifts. Tournesol Wellness, the home and heartbeat of the institution is an Integrative Health Community Center where Carey practices cutting edge techniques that include Vibroacoustic Sound Therapy, also known as VAT, The Success Alchemy, individual and corporate transformation, Tournesol Ayurveda, mindful neurology, Tournesol Kids, not for profit and Vet Well, community based holistic health for veterans. You can find praise for Carey’s achievements in the PBS documentary on Fibro Acoustics and Parkinson’s, The Huffington Post, W Magazine, The New York Observer and NBC News. Thank you so much for being here with us today. I have been waiting, excited and ready for this interview. I’m so excited to have you back here.

Carey: Thank you Jen. I’m so excited to be back.

Jennifer: We get four episodes together. So I am just jumping for joy. So I know you joined us last year in season one for an episode and many of our listeners remember you because that episode is by far one of our most listened to I think. We at Worthy loved it, our listeners loved it. Many people know who you are, but for those who don’t, for those who are new or maybe have forgotten, if you could just share a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Carey: Sure. I’d love to. So I started Tournesol because I felt like our existing medical model left gaps in what you were talking about before, in this whole area of self-knowledge, self-awareness, growth, what do I need to feel better? Who am I in this world? Why do I keep getting into these destructive patterns in relationships or at work? I felt like there had to be an answer. So I created Tournesol to find those answers and give people actionable, achievable skills and tools to empower themselves to be more resilient in the face of those times of stress, have better relationships and have a more enriched life. So that’s why I’m here and that’s what I hope we can communicate to the Worthy listeners today, so they can feel better going through the stuff they’re going through in their lives now.

Jennifer: What I love so much about what you do is that it really combines many different methods. It’s not just one thing. It really brings together different tools, different ways for people to access this healthier or more empowered way of living.

Carey: Yeah. It’s a different mindset. I find that we go to a doctor, we go to a therapist, we get a diagnosis and we’re treating a diagnosis. But where we get stuck, and I think where we’ve gone a little bit off the path is that we’re not treating the human, we’re treating the checkboxes. That, oh, they’re not sleeping, they have irritable bowel and their elbow hurts. That’s what I wanted to reinject into the healing process. Is who are you, what do you need right now to feel better? So that’s why we’re here.

Jennifer: Yeah. That’s exactly why we’re here today because today we’re going to be really breaking down five personality archetypes, which really help to define who that human is sitting in front of you and how specifically their self-care, their stressors, their strengths are unique to them. I know you talked a lot about this on the episode last season, but let’s do a quick overview of those five personality types and just why this information is so valuable.

Carey: Yeah. I don’t work with anyone without first understanding their archetype, their spread or their balance of natures within their character, because it tells me who they are, what they need and how I can help them, how I can best show up for them. So, these five, they’re based in ancient Chinese medicine transformation. Personal, individual, social, emotional and, to some degree, spiritual transformation. It’s a methodology that helps you move through growth and change. Sometimes growth and change is massive like divorce and sometimes it’s just mildly annoying like the guy who haunted you on the way to work for no reason. But understanding these things about yourself will help you move through those moments with more grace, less stress. So the five correspond to nature and to the seasons. They are wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Each of the five, each of us has one primary and it guides the way we interact in relationships and internally with our own stress. But we have all five within us. So, I’m going to give you a little bit of information about each, but you probably going to recognize a lot of these different qualities within you and it’s true. In context, we have, we use these different skills and abilities, but there is one way that we get when we’re really stressed and that same on the other end of the spectrum is that strength component of that way, that gift that we have that we don’t even have to practice, we’re so darn good at it. So I’ll jump in. So wood people are assertive and decisive. Wood people, their biggest gift to the world is freedom. Their biggest fear is confinement. They seek challenge. They are always exploring and moving. They are motivating for themselves and for others. They’re trailblazers. They are bold leaders. What stresses, what is their biggest fear as confinement is telling them no, you can’t do that. When wood becomes stressed, they can become inflexible. They can become frustrated or angry. They believe that losing is bad. They can become pushy or argumentative, aggressive, impatient. The physical signs of stress for a wood person could be headaches, hypertension, muscle twitch. So that’s strength and stress of wood. Fire people are very passionate and, well, sympathetic and they’re radiant. They draw out the best in everyone. They are the eternal optimists. They love to play. They love contact. They need to have excitement in their life. They are inspiring charismatic leaders. They love to entertain and they love to know you liked what they entertained you with.

Jennifer: The feedback.

Carey: Yes, acknowledgement, eye contact, while their biggest fear is losing love or losing connection. When they feel disconnected, it manifests as panic, anxiety, burnout. They believe that being unhappy is bad. So they’ll do anything to avoid sad feelings in themselves or others. So they have a quick turnaround time in terms of recovery. You just send like a picture of a puppy on your phone and all of a sudden they’re no longer anxious.

Jennifer: Wow. That’s a gift.

Carey: It is a gift and a curse, in order to heal and to learn from mistakes and from challenges, you need to sit in your crap for a little bit.

Jennifer: Yeah. Very true.

Carey: You need to think about it, reflect on it, learn your lessons. But, fire man, fire repeats their stuff. So under stress they can become panicked, impulsive, bored, big drama over little things. They can get dramatic physical symptoms too. They can get a loud cough or all of a sudden a high fever. As explosively happy as they can be, they can be the same under stress.

Jennifer: Okay. What I just thought of was what we characterize in society as bipolar. Does that line up or align in any way with what could just be this fire personality?

Carey: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because there are a lot of things we diagnose in Western med where you can pinpoint like, oh, that’s really just fire under a lot of stress or that’s just wood not… feeling totally confined. So when you see it, it’s much gentler through this perspective. What this allows for is that you’re not fixed into a diagnosis of a problem, but you’re just not having your needs for safety net right now. So, you’re sliding down that spectrum of strength and stress into your stress distorted state. So you’ll find that when we start to experience and feel what we’re most afraid of, that’s when we get anxious, that’s when we get manic and that’s when we have anger come up for us. So when we started talking about how to recover from our stress dates, it’s super different for each of the five. But when we are in stress, that’s when you start to see the manic behaviors and the stuff that comes up under stress for each of the five.

Jennifer: Yeah. In just such a more empowering way, self-empowering way to look at this and to look at what we’d normally would just diagnose or medicate.

Carey: Exactly. Sometimes listen, thank God for modern medicine we have. We need these things and there are many miracles as a result. At the same time, there’s so much we can do for ourselves when we have self-awareness. I mean just understanding these things about ourselves usually provides a tremendous amount of relief and then motivation like you said, to be able to take care of ourselves a lot of the way.

Jennifer: Right. Exactly. Okay. So wood, fire, which one’s next?

Carey: Earth mamas. So, I know one earth person.

Jennifer: I know. I was going to say, we are, feel free to use mine. So there is a quiz that you can take, which we will tell you later how to access. I took it so Carey has my results. So feel free to use me in any way you’d like.

Carey: Okay. I’ll give you a quick and dirty earth overview. Earth people are protective and empathetic. They bring calm to chaos. They are care givers, care takers. They know how to give you what you need when you’re not feeling great. They just really… they care. They love sharing, they seek harmony, they need connection, they are a peacemaker. When earth people become leaders, they are humanitarian leaders. Their biggest fear, so if their biggest gift to the world is empathy, their biggest fear is abandonment. So you can see how these, each of these spectrums of strength and stress, our biggest gift to the world naturally keeps us from having to experience our biggest fear. So if you are this ultimate caregiver and unity creator, no one’s ever going to abandon you. They can’t. So you have this beautiful gift that protects your nature from feeling pain. When you feel separated from a support system, earth may become overwhelmed or worried. They ruminate. They think a lot about, “Argh, what’s going on?” It’s hard for them to fall asleep sometimes at night because when they lay down, it’s quiet and all of a sudden they’ve got all of their thoughts and worries. Did I take care of everyone? There’s guilt comes up. They tend to care for others more than they care for themselves. They believe sometimes that having needs is bad. They tend to get, when they’re stressed, in their stressed states, they can get worried or confused, overthink things, not have enough drive to make something happen and move something forward or move through their problem. There’s a chance they can become indecisive or disorganized. Sometimes earth people have a hard time with boundaries and it’s for the same reason that they think needs are bad. Or like, “How could I not take care of you? You asked me for something.” They feel great helping people. So imagine if I told you, “Sorry you can’t eat anymore.” That’s how an earth person feels when they don’t feel needed. So the physical signs of stress can tend to be insomnia, a hard time falling asleep because you’re ruminating and stomach issues, digestion issues. Yeah. So you were saying your highest is earth. Does this resonate with you at all?

Jennifer: Yeah. Like you said, you’re going to see different things coming up in each one and yes, a lot of it resonates with me for sure. My biggest fear is, for me, I’ve always characterized it as loss of connection. But when you said abandonment, I was like, “Oh, there it is. That’s deeper. That’s a deeper loss of connection. That hit on it for me. But I would say the only thing where I don’t line up is I don’t have trouble sleeping. I love sleeping.

Carey: That probably means you’re not in stress. So what happens are the challenging parts of our nature, our stressed states, they pop up when we’re not having our needs met. So imagine a time, let’s say you worked in an office where everyone was invited to go out to a birthday lunch for bill and they said, “Hey Jen, you stay back and cover the front desk.” That would probably break your heart a little bit.

Jennifer: Right. Absolutely. Then I would ruminate, I would overthink, in would analyze and I would totally get like… But for me, I would just want to go to sleep and maybe it’s because I meditate so consistently, but, even going through my divorce, if anything I think I overslept.

Carey: Yeah. Well to that then we’re going into like self-care. So early, when you meditate, actually do better with sleep.

Jennifer: Ah, so there you go.

Carey: But it’s a really big challenge for earth people to meditate. So kudos to you man.

Jennifer: Well it has taken a long time for me to really understand how valuable it is, and I am committed because I know how powerful it is.

Carey: Yeah. That’s awesome. So you want to jump into metal?

Jennifer: Yes, let’s do it. Metal.

Carey: Okay. So metal people, their biggest gift to the world is beauty, creating beauty, noticing beauty and same with perfection. They tend to be architects and designers. They just notice all these small details that many of the other types miss. They are dignified and refined. They evaluate, and they mind lessons like from life experiences. Quite the opposite of fire people. They just don’t want to feel the negative feeling. So they actually, they love learning and they love becoming a sage. They are great at organizing. When they become leaders, they become moral leaders. They have a keen sense of right and wrong, good and bad. They tend to get over stuck on details when they’re stressed. When they can’t deliver a standard of excellence, they may obsess about all the little details and become a little too serious. So you know the metaphor of forest for the trees, they’re like the little toenail on the little ant that’s on a leaf, that’s on a twig, that’s on a tree, that’s in the forest.

Jennifer: I love that.

Carey: They get really hyper focused in on details and their biggest fear is making a mistake or being wrong. So they learn by practicing. They, if you can imagine the saying, practice makes perfect, is something you might hear a metal person say. They don’t want to ever make mistakes. When they feel like they’re under stress, when their fears are realized, they become over critical, self-critical and critical of other’s, compulsive, disappointed in themselves and others, rigid in thinking and to, really far extent, they can become OCD. The physical things you might see; constipation, Eczema, little ticks. So that’s metal.

Jennifer: Okay. That leaves us with water.

Carey: Water. Okay. Water people are wise and deeply insightful. They’re amazing listeners. They make solving tough problems look really easy because they’re so quiet. They don’t get caught up in the emotions. They don’t get caught up in the feelings, the worry and the details and needing to do something super-fast like wood people do. Instead, they’re able to sink deeply underneath all the hullabaloo and see super clearly how to solve complex problems. Now, they like to do it alone though. So while earth is very social, loves to help other people and create community, water quite the opposite, lives in their imagination. Loves to think. You can’t do that with people talking to you. So yeah, they seek solitude. They love fantasy. When they become a leader, they are a wise leader. Under stress like when they’re struggling to find deeper meaning in life, they tend to fear making the wrong decision. So they crave knowledge. They’re constantly reading and learning. So they do all these things because they love it. But the same as each of the other types has, the spectrum, their ability to crave and gather knowledge and wisdom, keeps them away from ever having to be faced with making the wrong choice. So under stress they get down on themselves, they think they are bad, they become over withdrawn, absent minded, which is the opposite of wise. Apathetic, they don’t care, they get stubborn and they tend towards depression because they over isolate. So they deal with problems by being alone. They can get a sense of physical Malays or back pain. We can all have all of these physical symptoms. It just means sometimes these do correlate with the emotional and behavioral states.

Jennifer: Okay. So interesting. To me it’s almost like a puzzle. Just really understanding each piece of it and how that fits within your own life or my own life as I sit here and listen to you and just what I need to do in order to be at that side where I’m in my highest potential. Let’s take a quick break here and when we come back, I know we touched on this a little bit with earth on the self-care piece, but let’s talk about self-care because really knowing yourself and then knowing how to care for yourself in a specific way I think is probably the most powerful piece of this. So we’re going to take a quick break and we will be right back with more from Carey Davidson.

Jennifer: We’re back with Carey Davidson and we are talking about the five personality archetypes and specifically each one, what the stressors are, what the strengths are, and now we’re going to go into specific ways that each type can care for themselves so that they really can be living from a strengths space instead of a stressor space. So, let’s just talk about that self-care. We started talking about earth, so maybe let’s go there since I’m earth.

Carey: Let’s just take care of Jen.

Jennifer: Let’s take care of me in service of all of the listeners.

Carey: So, yeah, there are very specific ways that each type needs to prioritize their self-care to stay grounded. I sometimes like to think about it in two different ways. There’s emergency management like, “Oh God, I am right now, really super stressed out. What do I do?” Then there’s the long-term maintenance. There’s building a foundation so that when those moments where you feel like you need emergency management, when those moments happen, you’re more resilient to them. You notice you’re more resilient because, one, sometimes you can even predict they’re about to happen. Two, you don’t get quite as heavily triggered, so you don’t go quite as deep into your stress states. Three, you’re able to recover more quickly. You don’t let it really eat at you. So I want to talk a little bit about the building resilience skills. I like those, not that I like them better, I just think that if I can give you something that can teach a man to fish, take advantage. These are things that over time if you practice them, can really help you stay off those deep stress states.

Jennifer: I think that’s what we were touching on right before we jumped on this podcast. Because when I took this test years ago, I felt like my answers were so different yet I was still earth. But I think the shift has been in building my resiliency, my consciousness and having the tools to stay grounded as you said. So let’s definitely give that to anyone who’s listening.

Carey: Yeah, exactly. So, for earth, earth needs to really make sure they have strong water and wood skills in order to stay grounded and have that foundation to stand on. So water skills are at the body level, drinking enough water, number one, getting good sleep. So those are two things to really make sure that you’re doing when you’re an earth person. Then as you build those skills, you want to move up into listening skills, because earth can get so caught up in their mind and their worry that they’re not listening to what’s going on around them. You need to develop those skills in order to be present. Because maybe it’s not as bad as you think it is. So if you can quiet your mind enough to just listen to what’s going on inside of you and in the conversation around you, you have a better chance of coming out unscathed.

Jennifer: Yeah. I’ve learned to experience is I can feel myself and I call it dropping down. Getting out of my head and dropping into my body so I can actually listen to what’s happening in front of me.

Carey: Yeah. You’re awesome. I think you need to teach this Jen.

Jennifer: I love this stuff.

Carey: So, then you also do the highest level of water, which is meditation. Meditation doesn’t have to be sitting in Lotus position. There are so many different ways to meditate. Some people meditate when they paint, some people while they run, some people focus on a color, they have to listen to a meditation APP or a guidance or just music. It doesn’t matter really. It’s whatever works for you. But that’s the highest level and it sounds to me that you’ve really got your water balance in place, which is so, so helpful. Your second leg right, is going to be wood. So, wood at the body level is about movement. It’s about physically having some sort of activity during the day. So whether it is parking a little bit further from work and walking a little bit longer, or in the case of New York City, taking, getting off at a subway stop earlier, or if it’s building some sort of exercise movement practice into your day, that’s the physical component of wood. The cognitive component has to do with planning, has to do with… Because what happens with earth, earth gets stuck and they become unable to move forward. So that’s why physical movement helps and also mental movement. Like, “Hey, let me at least make a plan.” When you have a plan, you don’t feel like, I’m completely paralyzed in making a decision. So, the highest level is coaching and teaching other people that they have the freedom to be what they want to be. So it’s enhancing people’s lives by encouraging them to reach their potential.

Jennifer: That’s amazing. Just amazing. I mean, movement and I can tell you, if I don’t work out, I can tell my mood, my ability to process, my ability to be patient, all of it completely affected if I don’t spend time in movement of some form. I am a list making lists. Lists plans for the day, checking them off, it’s how I keep moving forward and I am a coach. My life is a dedication to teaching freedom and love. So look at that. I love it. I love it.

Carey: That’s good stuff. So, should we go, you want to go into wood?

Jennifer: Sure. Let’s go into wood.

Carey: So, wood people, they need earth and metal in order to stay grounded because wood people can get too stuck just like plowing ahead without pausing for a second to think about the other people in the room or making things right. Refining them. They’ll want to get a project out at four o’clock because they want to be the first through the door, but they don’t take, they don’t pause for a second and make sure there’s no typos. So basically they need to make sure that they’ve got earth physical component. Body component has to do with food. How is their nutrition? How’s their digestion? Are they eating enough? Are they eating properly throughout the day? Are they having long gaps between meals? So they need fuel, they need to eat. The second level is sharing and collaborating. Wood can sometimes not want to because it just takes too long. The highest component of earth is going to be empathy. It’s really thinking about the other people in the room, what do they need and to be able to provide it. So all of those things are going to force wood people to slow down, which is not what they like to do, but it will help them achieve balance and help them not go too far into their frustration and anger. Then you have metal. Metal at its core, at its body level is about the breath. So, check in. Are you breathing? Are you breathing into your belly? Are you just breathing into your shoulders? Wood people sometimes cannot focus on the breath and it’s the one thing that really regulates our mood so quickly. It’s like that spiritual Xanax in your pocket. Just breathe.

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. I went for an MRI a couple of days ago and that’s exactly what I did was this focus breathing. I could have stayed in there forever. I mean, if you’ve ever had an MRI, it can be a little, it can knock you off balance a little bit. But, breathing, breathing, breathing for sure.

Carey: Yeah. Then, second level has to do with practice or refinements. Getting it right. Again, it’s annoying for wood because it takes too long. But doing it more helps them remain balanced and have empathy for others and not get too stuck in its stress states. At their highest level it’s about gratitude and forgiveness. Forgiving themselves. Sometimes we don’t forgive ourselves.

Jennifer: Yeah. It can be the hardest person to forgive is ourselves at times.

Carey: Yeah. Then fire people. Fire need water and they need metal. So we’re back to sleeping, drinking, listening, pausing, resting, because fire people are prone to burnout. We crave stimulation. They just want to have fun all the time and then all of a sudden they crash. Fire people need that breath also because they will forget to breathe. Then, metal people need wood and fire to keep them balanced. Fire is fun, play, engagement and being, having emotional flexibility on the second level. Emotional flexibility is not judging your emotions. A lot of times you’ll find metal people will say, “Oh, I shouldn’t be feeling this.” That’s not right. Because they have that keen sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. So, fire is that they live in their emotions. So it’s like, bringing on that scale allows them to have a little bit more emotion, flexibility and trusting their emotions. At the highest then it’s joy and optimism. It’s believing that there is potential for good and happiness. Metal can get stuck in the past, stuck in their story. Then water needs earth and fire. So water needs to look at their food, their digestion, sharing, conversation, because they like to isolate. So they need to engage in the world a little bit and they need to sometimes also not be so serious. Bring on the fire, have a little fun, have a little connection, be a little gullible for a minute, because water people are so skeptical and fire people are so gullible. So when they meet in the middle, just letting someone compliment you and not needing to know why. Now if water can do that, they can bring a little bit of fire into their lives and have a less of a chance of going deep into their stress states.

Jennifer: This is awesome. I mean because it really provides just such simple ways. I’m not saying easy because like I said, even with learning how to meditate, for me it was, it took a while. It’s a simple thing but sometimes the hardest thing for me to do. But simple ways that you can begin to just really ground yourself and bring your stress levels down and stay in that power center.

Carey: Absolutely. You’re right. It’s not easy. These happen to be the most challenging aspects of life for each of the five. Which is why this is not what you do in an emergency. This is the stuff you got to do over time that builds the foundation for resilience.

Jennifer: Absolutely. So awesome. So, you’ve said this throughout but I’m going to ask it. What becomes possible when people learn this information, apply it to their lives in particular when they’re going through a transition like divorce?

Carey: Well I really wish I had access to this when I was going through it.

Jennifer: Me too.

Carey: There’s this sense of relief when you are more self-aware, when you are able to self-regulate and have empathy for what you’re going through, even your soon to be ex, your kids if they’re involved and anyone else who’s part of this big pot of who gets impacted by a divorce because you have less self-criticism, you have more care for your own needs, you have less confusion and wallowing in the why? Because you start to realize it doesn’t really help me and if I am stronger I’m going to be focusing more on the future me. Then you’re going to have to be able to do that. You just have better relationships. It seems like you understand, even though you can’t be married necessarily to your partner, you understand the perspective and can empathize with your perspectives. What you both brought to the relationship and are able to just… Recovery time is so much quicker and it doesn’t mean that you need to be together. Absolutely not. It just allows you to move on, to appreciate what you had and to grow more quickly and more fully and have that fully enriched life faster.

Jennifer: I love that. I think anyone who’s listening, the process of divorces, it’s a difficult transition but it does have the power to be a huge transformation and exactly what you’re saying, that transformation doesn’t have to be this long stock process. Using these tools. You can make that transformation happen quicker. So great. We have to end and I wish we didn’t because I feel like we could talk about this for hours. The great thing is that we get to have our next episode. Jump into talking about how all of these archetypes, how it applies to relationships, how our listeners can start recognizing patterns, and the type of personality archetypes that work best together. Which I think, gosh, when you start applying this to dating and choosing a partner and all of that, it’s like a superpower.

Carey: It really is. Oh my God. I love it.

Jennifer: It’s like, how to access your super powers and this is how you do it. So thank you so much for being here. I look forward to our next time together. How can our listeners follow up with you after today?

Carey: Sure. So my website is tournesol, T-O-U-R-N-E-S-O-Lwellness.com. You can contact me through my website. That’s probably the quickest way to get me.

Jennifer: Awesome. That quiz, where can they find that? If they want to take it?

Carey: Yeah. Ooh, that’s the best. Quiz is tournesol-assessment.com.

Jennifer: Perfect. Can kids take that too? They can, right?

Carey: Totally. We actually have a nonprofit for kids that’s got all of this stuff in little people language.

Jennifer: I love it.

Carey: Right? So that, if you’re interested for your kids, it’s t-kids.org.

Jennifer: Got it. Okay. Well thank you for being here, for everything, for the work you do and for the passion you have for it.

Carey: Thank you, Jen. This is fun.

Worthy Staff

Worthy Staff


The Worthy Blog is a place for inspiration, insight, and advice for all things surrounding life's greatest transitions - divorce, losing a loved one, retirement, and so much more. You can find us on our blog, Instagram, and Facebook.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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