I abhor seeing people being badly treated. I also get angry about inequality. When I heard that company directors are getting huge pay rises I felt like spitting blood. What about all the poor people? Don’t they care? I get frustrated because I can’t do anything. I often write letters to my MP though. I get rid of some of my frustration that way.
Wood types will often join organizations which are aimed at making the world a better place. Rachel, for example, told us:
I’ve been a member of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace where meetings are full of people like myself who are protesting. We are always thinking of plans and ideas about how to improve the world. We feel strongly that if everybody took responsibility by not driving unnecessarily or by recycling their rubbish it would make the world a better place to live.
There are many ways that people can seek betterment for others. People can become MPs, local councillors, solicitors or barristers in order to fight for the rights for others. Others like Rachel may join organizations such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or Amnesty International or they may take up lobbying. These Wood types may spotlight miscarriages of justice, lobby for animal rights, march for world peace or lobby for many other areas of social change or the rights of others.
Many other Wood types will fight quietly for the rights of their colleagues and friends when necessary. This may be at work via their union or just by standing up to the boss who is being short sighted in dealing with her or his employees. Not all the people who protest and lobby are Wood types of course but there will be a fair percentage of this type pursuing their feelings of indignation in good causes. Here a colleague described a Wood type she knows:
I have a friend who always has an issue. He says, ‘You’ve got to give it a shout. If you don’t shout about it nothing gets done.’ He goes to all the meetings, stands for elections and does anything to get in to say something in protest. Issues can be legalize cannabis, new roads, close circuit TV, anything that stops people from having freedom. He even sings protest songs and is a good musician!
We can speculate about the first singers of protest songs in the 60s and wonder if many of them were Wood types. Many of Bob Dylan’s songs such as ‘Masters of War’ still ring loud in people’s ears. We can also look at many other well-known protesters such as Martin Luther King who started the civil rights movement in the US when he was appalled by the lack of rights for black people. Christabel Pankhurst, who we write about at the end of this chapter, fought tirelessly to gain women the right to vote and Elizabeth Fry worked to reform British prisons in the last century.
The next pattern is less up front than ‘seeking justice’.
We are all indirect at times and this is appropriate. When we are direct, we are aware of our own desires and are willing to ‘own’ these desires publicly. This enables us, when necessary, to ask for what we want. Some Wood types find this difficult. Often they are reacting to the past. They may have been prevented from getting what they wanted at an earlier stage of their lives. Subsequently they compensated by becoming indirect.
In order to understand this better we can go back to the child who is reaching for a toy and is told ‘No!’ Soon the child anticipates the ‘No’. She begins to check if the preventing parent is present. This is perhaps using natural caution. The caution later becomes internalized so that the child proceeds more and more indirectly. For example, the child may say to her parent, ‘My friend Billy (and by implication not me) likes to play with this toy.’ As time goes on the Wood type may stop owning their natural desires. They may still ask for things, but indirectly.
At times being indirect can be useful. We may know what we want but understand that it is best not to state this publicly. Sometimes, for example, it may be the best way to move forward. Challenging people head on is not always a good idea. Eleanor has to deal with some angry customers at the travel company where she works. She told us:
Sometimes people complain about their holidays and they’re almost wanting to pick a fight. I have to do my best to diffuse the situation to avoid a head-on confrontation. It can be difficult and I often have to suppress my own feelings to do it.
Another Wood type, who is a friend of ours, uses her chronic inability to be direct in a positive way. She is a hypnotherapist and has become very skilled at making indirect and useful suggestions which enable her clients to make positive changes in their lives.
Many Wood types can swing between being very direct and indirect. If we avoid being direct too much we may feel a need to take it out on other people. As Eleanor told us:
At work, if someone criticizes me I’ll avoid dealing with the situation at all costs. I’ll try and pretend that I haven’t noticed. It will affect me though and later on I know I often go on a ‘go slow’ with my work. I suppose it’s my way of paying them back.
Being indirect can also manifest in our sense of humour as Jacqueline admitted:
If I can’t be directly angry I can sometimes find myself making bitchy remarks. I’ve got a nasty cutting edge to my humour and I realize I’ve sometimes offended people deeply.
At the worst extreme we may not be able to be direct with ourselves. In this case we may end up losing touch with ourselves and what we want. Excessive indirectness can lead to an apparent absence of desires.
Not Planning or Wanting Anything
Sometimes the ability to assert ourselves in the world seems missing. Wood types like this often don’t have a strong notion of what they want.
In these circumstances the missing part is usually supplied from without. The Wood type may find someone to replace their capacity to set boundaries, create structures and define who they are. For example, joining a cult, enlisting in the army or perhaps marrying a dominating person may replace their self-determination. The cult, the army or the other person gives them a purpose, and makes many of their decisions for them. Colin, who we spoke to earlier in the chapter, could understand this:
I find the idea of being in the armed forces appealing and can relate to those who join. It’s the routine and the structure and knowing what’s expected of me. It’s knowing where I am with it.
Simon knows he finds external structure helpful and purposely brings it into his life:
I like structures imposed to some extent because then I have to do things. I know I can make things happen but I don’t do a lot to make them — it’s easier not to. I know I could easily drift and I don’t want to. I choose people who are well-organized to be around me. My last flatmate for example was very strong on boundaries and I value that and appreciate our different qualities.
At the extreme, people without internal structure may not know what they want. In this case they may be so adaptable and take on an outside structure so easily that they either play into the hands of others or cause others to feel frustrated. In the former case, the outsider has found a compliant and useful helper; in the latter, the outsider knows something is not quite right, but doesn’t know what it is. Paul told us:
Whatever happens is OK with me. I don’t need a big career or somewhere I’m going. I am just happy to be. I am not asking for anything.
When the pattern is extreme, a person has no life plan and their ‘Hun’, which we mentioned earlier, is not manifesting in the world. This position sounds attractive and can even masquerade as a form of spirituality — truly just Being with no compulsion to do anything in order to achieve results. It can also result in no work, limited possessions and minimal relationships which is not an easy position to maintain for long.
This ‘not apparently wanting anything’