Brené Brown Meets the Sorting Hat Chats

I’ve been thinking about Hogwarts Sortings again recently, for two reasons. One, a little while ago a co-worker clued me in on the Sorting Hat Chats quiz. And two, I’m re-reading Braving the Wilderness as part of my work with Mormon Women for Ethical Government, and one of our discussions centered around our core values.

So today we’re going to talk Hogwarts. Again.

All the Gryffindor

The Sorting Hat Chats quiz is a psychological journey because you have to give the quiz feedback before it gives you your results. And in taking the quiz, I realized that according to this system, I may not be a Ravenclaw secondary.

Before, I’d ruled out Gryffindor secondary because I don’t know that I’m charismatic or whatever, but after taking the quiz, I decided that I must be a Gryffindor secondary (just not the charismatic kind) because I try to develop skills that are useful and help me work toward my goals, not just to learn.

So I thought that must mean that I just have a really strong Ravenclaw secondary model (plus Hufflepuff primary and secondary models and maybe a Slytherin primary model from my parents).

All the Brené Brown

Then I identified my core values via Brené Brown’s system in Dare to Lead, or at least via blog posts about that book, which I haven’t read yet. Per this system, you want to group your values until you’re left with just two core values.

I picked spirituality and justice as my core two, but curiosity and courage were both on my short list. In truth, I’m not sure that I can fold courage and curiosity into spirituality and justice entirely, because I do value them outside of those values. However, I do try to utilize these values in the service of spirituality and justice.

All the Everything

This brings us back to Ravenclaw. Because in considering curiosity, I realized that I do collect facts and skills for their own sake. I do still want to learn everything. But I’m not the same person who saved her notes from every class so she could review them years later and make sure she still knew the material just because.

I’ve developed a better understanding of how limited my time is and the value of specialization. Saying no to things hurts a little, but I’m not burned, to use the Sorting Hat Chats terminology, because I also find joy in focusing my efforts on learning things that are useful to my goals. Even if the world were perfect, I would still want to develop new skills, and focus is a good way to do that — even in a perfect world with infinite time. I’ve just become more practical.

At this point, I express my confusion to the quiz, which asks whether lying or misrepresenting myself bothers me.

Yes, it does.

So I might be a Gryffindor, it says.

Now it asks me whether I ever act like a Ravenclaw at times when it’s not useful. If I ever study, prepare, or learn just because I want to.

And the answer to that is also yes.

So that leaves me with what I do when under great stress, thread, need, or desire. And I still don’t know. In every example I can think of, I’ve responded to stress with by trying to immediately and directly address the issue with the skills I’ve developed. And I struggle to not be direct or to address matters without my skills or tools.

And for me, curiosity and courage are pretty inextricably connected. Courage requires curiosity, and curiosity requires courage.

Maybe I’m a secondary house hat stall.

Or maybe I should just rely more on Brené Brown’s research-based findings than Tumblr’s fiction-inspired ones.

But I like exploring the system all the way through to I can see how useful it is in helping me identify and confront my true self. And it’s fun.

Thus would quoth a Ravenclaw. Or a Gryffindor. But I don’t know a Poe quote about griffons.

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