This blog begins with a comment added to last week’s article:
“I read your blog yesterday, three times. At first, I thought there's more here, read it again, and thought there's some rage here, and then I read it and got it. You uncover a practice that has become so socially prevalent, even excusable, that we skate right past it... OMG, we're talking about deceit. Deceit marketed as a virtue. Is omission the grey side of lying? Most people don't think it through to the end, that it kills connection and value. And another strong point: the grief that comes when trust is gone. There is another problem with deceit. What if it is a blindspot? We have seen the shadow side of defense strategies enough to know that we are all blind in some areas. How do we teach someone to see what they don't want to see?”
Thank you, Amaranth, for providing your perspective and asking further profound questions. I appreciate your inquiry, "How do we teach someone to see what they don't want to see?" It's paradoxical. Can an omission of truth be entirely unknown?
As my last blog referred, if one knows they're omitting details, there's personal gain in withholding. So, to your point, Amaranth, how do we mirror the impact of purposeful exclusion? And how do we reflect a blindspot to one unaware of their censorship?
From an Enneagram perspective, to see a blindspot, one must undoubtedly operate within the healthy and perhaps average levels, but would someone operating at healthy levels intentionally or unintentionally deceive? For example, is the executive deliberately withholding critical data functioning healthily? And at what level is the person telling themselves the other isn't ready for the entire truth?
When clients blindly omit facts because they don't want to change, at what level are they functioning, and what is their unconscious gain?
If deceit by omission causes a rupture in a relationship's integrity, inviting grief at the crumbling foundation of what was once whole, does the deceiver experience grief? And what happens to the omitted information? Is it grieved?
Do the people who intentionally omit facts (deceive) for personal (or collective) advantage ignore those facts until they no longer exist?
What is the function of a blindspot? Is it to relieve guilt and personal responsibility?
Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.
