Personality Priorities

Personality priorities I just got back from a Play Therapy conference.  Two days training with Terry Kottman, a former professor at the University of Iowa in the prolific writer and trainer in the field of Play Therapy.
I have seen Terry present before.  I may have even seen her five or six times.  I actually kind of know her, and we are, in fact, birthday buddies.  That is, we have the same birthday!
Terry is the kind of Play Therapist I wish I could be.  She is smart and funny and so knowledgeable.  She is the developer of Aderlerin Play Therapy.  I learned something from her every time I go to see her even though many of the things she presents on are repeats to me.
One of the things I love and use frequently is the idea of personality priorities.  Personality priorities is anAdlerian  concept or idea  that we all have a specific thing that our personalities strive to create.  Terry has assigned different animals to each priority.  Before I tell you which is which and how it works, think about this.  Which animal of these for do you feel most connected to or the most like?   I did not say the one you would most want to be.  There is a difference.  So of  these four, which do you feel that you are most like:
1.  An eagle
2.  A lion
3.  A chameleon
4. A turtle

Do you know which one?  Now I will tell you what the four personality priorities are.  We all tend to strive for one of these four things: comfort, control, superiority, or people pleasing.  Can you tell which animal is which?  Here's how it works.  Eagles strive for control and strength.  Lions strive for superiority.  Chameleons are people pleaser's, and turtle's strive for comfort.  Many people have one personality priority that is evident throughout their lives.  Many people have one priority and one secondary priority.  I am also convinced that priorities can change due to circumstances.
My personality priority is superiority.  Within superiority, there are actually two subtypes.  There is out- doing or being superior to other people.  We all know somebody who was always trying to one up us in some way or another!  But the other subtype, achieving, is trying to outdo your self into as many things as you possibly can!  This is my personality priority (superiority), and my subtype (achieving).
I have known that trying to achieve many things as possible has  a priority for a very long time.  In high school, I was definitely an achiever, and was probably trying to be an outdoer as well.  My goal in life was to have the most entries in the high school yearbook of anyone in my class.  I am proud to say that my name in the index of the yearbook has more lines than anyone else.  I sincerely hope that this is not the crowning achievement of my life!
I was well on my way to continue the trend of trying to achieve more and more things when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  What I wanted to achieve in my life, was to make a name for myself in the field of Play Therapy.  I became a registered Play Therapist in about 1994.  Becoming an RPT-S (registered play therapist at the supervisory level ), was a relatively new credential, so on my certificate, my number is something like 420.  That means that there were only about 400 people in the entire world who were registered as play therapists!
I really like to present and train so a major goal of mine was to  try to present as many places as possible and become a world-class, well known Play Therapy presenter.  Although I was diagnosed with MS in 1996, the symptoms and disabilities were not really noticeable until much later.  I had several exacerbations, or worsening of the symptoms, but primarily I could walk around without a cane and hide many of the other small, annoying issues such as weak fine motor skills, or becoming fatigued easily.  I presented in Iowa and Illinois at state Play Therapy conferences, and actually presented at the national conference in St. Louis in 2001 or 2002.  (I forget which).  But the symptoms were becoming more and more evident, at least to me, and I was becoming less and less able to do anything other than work and be a mom.  Of course, I was working a full-time job in maintaining a part-time private practice which in itself is kind of a lot to do!  But I was becoming less and less able to do anything extra.
When I was laid off from my job as a supervisor in community mental health, I was hoping to have the time and energy to do a lot of the things that would move my career forward.  I briefly looked into going back to school for a Ph.D. in clinical social work and even took the MAT-Miller Analogy Test.  The test is scored with percentiles rather than with an actual score.  I scored in the 98th percentile of people taking the test who wanted to go into clinical social work and in the 99th percentile overall.  I just had to tell you and brag a little bit!  However, even as I was exploring the possibility, I realize two things.  Number one, I didn't want to spend the money when it was getting so close to my son's graduation and entering into college himself.  But the other reason was because I really don't have the energy to study for long periods of time while continuing to work.
Although I later realized that getting a Ph.D. would only be a way for me to achieve something else, this was the first time I realized that I am no longer a spring chicken and  that the MS really does have an impact on my ability to do the things I'd like to do.  I also realized that I cannot maintain the level of energy I need in order to be able to present to large groups of people.  You need to be able to stand and move around a lot in order to be an effective lecturer or presenter.  That is just not in my capacity any longer.
One of the things that people who have superiority as their personality priority strives to avoid, is feeling meaningless.  I have known for a long time and I do not want my life to be meaningless. I am sure this is why I have always wanted to achieve something that will be remembered long after I am gone.  Terry Kottman will be remembered long after she is gone.  But I have had to learn to be content with the fact that my legacy will not be people remembering my name.  I am not leaving behind a book or some new Play Therapy technique that will revolutionize the world of play.  I am just going to continue to do my very small part by maintaining a private practice for as long as I am able.
What I have to remember, is that my legacy is not tied to my ego, this body, or this name.  And just because I am not leaving some sort of corporeal reminder of my existence, doesn't mean that my work and my legacy is not reverberating into the future.  I have to remember that doing good therapeutic work in and of itself is enough of a legacy and will hopefully reverberate by helping people to achieve greatness within their own lives.