How the Enneagram Adds Dimensions to the Genogram (ft. the Bridgertons)

Your Family Tree Tapestry has Texture

Have you’ve ever looked at your family members and thought,

“How the hell are we even related?!”

If so, you’re not alone, and there’s a whole picture that show us how the pieces fit together.

Introducing the Genogram.

A genogram is like your family tree’s emotionally intelligent cousin that give us a whole lot more information than just the names of each member.

It gives us the structure, the who’s-who, the space between individuals, and the major plot points of our family stories across generations.

Here’s an example from the show FRIENDS, centered around Ross Geller (read the blog):

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At a glance, you can literally see generational patterns, roles, expectations, ripple effects of traumas, and emotional legacies.

The genogram also maps out not just people, but also patterns — conflict, closeness, trauma, cutoffs, alliances, enmeshments, and triangulations — the nature of the relationship between members of the family.

Because we’re also seeing the bird’s eye view at a glance, LACK of information is also information — for example, if there’s a ton about your mom’s side about the family but nothing about your dad’s side, this is not nothing.

Why the lack of details? Is it emotional cutoff or estrangement? Is it that your dad doesn’t have a connection with his family or that you don’t have a relationship with him?

What’s NOT present is just as informational as what is.

The Genogram reveals a ton already. But when you also throw in the Enneagram?

That’s when things get real juicy. It’s switching from black-and-white to full color, or from outline sketch to textured tapestry — so many more dimensions are evident at a glance, just by adding a few more letters.

Birth order and gender (a la genogram) matter, but they don’t guarantee certain experiences.

Each person’s own personality (a la Enneagram) play a HUGE role in how each actually interpret and react to various experiences.

This is especially evident for identical twins. (Think of Phoebe & Ursula from FRIENDS: everything is the same except for personality — and see how drastically contrasted their relationship patterns & life trajectories are!)

Personality is in the Enneagram’s wheelhouse, zhuzhing up the genogram without taking up much space on the page.

(Here are blogs about the 9 Enneagram types, 3 instincts, & 27 subtypes.)

Enter the Bridgertons: Family Roles, Public Reputations, & Internalized Responsibilities

In this blog, we’re diving into how the Enneagram reveals the emotional fabric of family dynamics — and what better example than the drama-laden, emotionally dynamic world of the Bridgertons, where we meet the picture-perfect family of 8 children, 1 widowed mama, 1 GINORMOUS estate, and WAY more expectations than anyone knows what to do with.

SPOILER ALERT: This blog covers content up to the beginning of Season 3 in the Netflix adaptation. You have been warned!

We’ll be zooming in on three characters in particular,

• Daphne (Enneagram 2, SX/SO)

• Anthony (Enneagram 1, SX/SO)

• Violet (Enneagram 2, SO/SX)

…exploring how each of them:

• Engage life in alignment with their Enneagram type

• Occupy specific roles in the family (context matters!!)

• Could benefit from some serious therapy to heal their relationships, especially with themselves.

Here’s the the Bridgerton Family Tree:

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In the eyes of the Ton, the Bridgertons are a loving family that screams unity, perfection, & class.

But behind the scenes?

Anxiety. Pressure. Comparison. Loneliness. Burnout. Grief. Resentment.

…and roles so entrenched that they’re practically titles in and of themselves:

• The Matriarch/Puppet Master (Violet)

• The Third Parent (Anthony)

• The Failure-to-Launch Backup (Benedict)

• The Carefree Kid (Colin)

• The Golden Child (Daphne)

• The Rebel/Black Sheep (Eloise)

• The Recluse (Francesca)

• The Twins/Babies (Gregory & Hyacinth)

Here’s what the Bridgerton’s genogram looks like, and how much more info it has than their family tree, especially in the space between members:

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No One’s Patterns Exist in a Vacuum

…but within a very specific social context. These roles (influenced by birth order, personality, gender roles/expectations, medical needs, trauma, etc.) reinforce each other — namely, they come as a set, fulfilling very specific emotional roles for the collective/family.

Hence, anytime there’s an addition or removal of one member (e.g., through birth, death, marriage, moves, or physical/mental health issues), the equilibrium is shaken up so that the roles may be redistributed according to who’s left. (If the Peacemaker in the family marries off and moves away, who’s going to fill that gap next?)

Each Bridgerton already had a personality leaning for certain family roles, but these roles became deeply established & entrenched especially after one major traumatic family event: the sudden death of Edmund Bridgerton, beloved husband, father, and 8th Viscount.

The Original Crisis that Solidified Family Roles

An idyllic father-son bonding time ended in a very traumatic, tragic, and disorienting shakeup for the whole family for years to come.

Watch the moment that knocked down the first domino:

Everyone in the Bridgerton family felt the gaping hole Edmund left behind.

But the tragic event’s impact is most evident in three key members who form the major family triangle:

• Daphne (Enneagram 2, SX/SO)

• Anthony (Enneagram 1, SX/SO)

• Violet (Enneagram 2, SO/SX)

Here’s the simplified genogram that reveals this triangle (green):

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Let’s set the scene & characters, shall we?

Daphne vs. Anthony:
Same Stimulus, Different Response

Birth order & gender experiences matter, but Enneagram personality (which we’re born with) matters even more in influencing how each interprets & responds to the same event.

Even if Anthony had been the second or third child, he would have still somehow become a pillar in the family because of his Enneagram type.

The direction a domino is set (NATURE) influences which way it’ll fall upon impact (NURTURE): same objective event, different subjective reactions.

Let’s first zoom in on the eldest daugther & son to see how this plays out, starting with Daphne (bc let’s be forreal — Daphne is likely to reach out to therapy long before Anthony does).

The Flawless Golden Child: Daphne
(Enneagram 2, Sexual/Social)

Poised, pretty, & practically perfect. “The Diamond of the Season” whom everyone sets as the golden standard — especially the next-in-line daughter Eloise, who considers herself a disappointment in Daphne’s shadow.

But unlike with Eloise (what we see is what we get), there’s much more happening behind the scenes with Daphne.

Behind Daphne’s halo? We find a spicy, masterful relationship engineer who skillfully shapeshifts into becoming the ultimate object of desire & envy (different spices to make herself appealing to different palates).

All Enneagram 2s (the Befriender) focus so much of their attention towards others (and away from their own inner world), intuitively sensing what makes people tick or turned on & deftly molding their relationships to their liking.

Compared to many other Enneagram types, Type Twos tend to be more romantic and idealistic, in pursuit of a love match (much like the one that Daphne’s parents enjoyed) as if that’s the #1 most important thing in life.

More specifically, Daphne is an Enneagram 2 SX/SO, meaning she has:

• a dominant Sexual (SX) instinct

• a secondary Social (SO) instinct

• a repressed Self-Preservation (SP) instinct

(Here’s more about the Enneagram instincts & subtypes.)

Here’s how this subtype shows up, compared to her mother Violet (also Enneagram 2, but different instinct sequence. More on Violet later!).

Dominant Sexual (SX) Instinct

As is the case for all Twos, Daphne's core need is to be loved, chosen, and indispensable. With her strong Sexual (SX) instinct in first place, her focus hones in on one meaningful, intimate, INTENSE connection (Hello, Simon!).

2 SXs are known to be the Queen (vs. 2 SO — the Empress, 2 SP — the Princess) who use their physical beauty, body language, and emotional dynamism to find and attract (*cough — seduce) their partner of choice.

Here’s an example of Daphne utilizing her wiles and to get the freakin’ Prince to KNEEL (Also to passive aggressively get back at Simon):

Among all the Bridgerton children, Anthony & Daphne share a particularly close bond, partly because of their positions as the Eldest son & daughter, but also because they both have a dominant Sexual instinct, which is focused on intense, 1:1 attachment with special individuals — partners, best friends, parents, kids, etc. (The SX isn’t always about sex. “Special” is the key word.)

A & D just GET each other, no words necessary. This is also why both of them form 2 corners of the triangle, their mother Violet being the third.

(Triangles (or triangulation) are the go-to relationship dynamic for those who have a loud SX instinct. More to come on this later.)

Second Social (SO) Instinct

In addition to being very vivacious & energetically dynamic, Daphne’s Social instinct prompts her to uphold a specific image, not just in the eyes of that one special person, but also in the collective: the Diamond of the Season for the Ton and the Perfect Daughter/Golden Child for her family.

Similar to the eldest son Anthony (Enneagram 1 SX/SO), Daphne is very aware of her position in the family as the eldest daughter and crown jewel of the Bridgerton household, seeking a suitable marriage match in order to:

• Alleviate the pressure on her dear brother Anthony’s shoulders

• Please her Mama

• Set a good example for her younger siblings

• Secure her family’s position in society

(Ultimately, the winning factor for her marriage is the SX value of love & romance, not particularly the SO value of duty & responsibility — that Simon is a Duke is a happy bonus, but not really the point.)

Like her mother Violet (2 SO/SX), Daphne is also a master image manager and relationship architect (i.e., meddling), but the latter isn’t as prevalent and extensive as it is for her Social-dominant mother.

Repressed Self-Preservation (SP) Instinct

Unlike Edwina Sharma (Enneagram 2 SP/SX), who takes on a very cutesy, childlike posture and is overly generous with flattery (Princess vs. Queen), Daphne is more spicy and ready to bite back at those (special) individuals who look down on her or consider her fragile (i.e., Anthony & Simon).

Her fiery Type 2 Pride + the lack of Self-Preservation guardrails leads Daphne to even LITERALLY jump into a duel (yes, with guns!!) meant to preserve her honor (because dumbass Anthony & Simon thinks she’s a helpless damsel in distress and that they’re each the valiant hero 🙄🤬).

Enneagram 2 Identity Crisis: Who Am I Now?

At the end of Season 1, Daphne becomes the family’s “success story,” the one who captures the Queen & the Ton’s attention, gets married first (to a freakin’ DUKE!), makes her Mama proud, and follows the rules…(mostly).

Even though she successfully snagged herself a titled husband by marrying Simon (4 SX/SP) in a very dramatic & emotionally turbulent way (typical for Enneagram 2 & 4 relationships), in Season 2, Daphne is confronted with a brand new problem never faced before:

• Now that she accomplished her family role, who is she now?

• Who is she when she’s no longer needed or in the spotlight in society?

• Now that she “won/conquered” Simon already and he’s focused on his business, who is she in his eyes?

Daphne built her whole identity around being desired. Wanted. Cherished. All for the sake of attaining love.

Turns out, being a wife or mother or a shiny success story doesn’t actually guarantee the feeling of love or intimacy. Though she always had this hole inside her, it’s more obvious now that she’s accomplished her Enneagram type-informed life mission.

After getting married & having a child (the first grandchild), Daphne switched gears away from the SX/1:1 focus and towards the SO/collective focus by trying to make herself indispensable in OTHER people’s lives.

Following in her mother 2 SO/SX Violet’s footsteps, Daphne injected herself into her dear brother Anthony’s love life, vetting Edwina for him (even though he never asked either of them for help) and trying to get him to pay attention to his REPRESSED AF feelings for Kate.

Mission accomplished? Yes. Anthony also gets hitched to the love of his life, making his Mama & sister’s hearts purr with delight.

…But NOW WHAT? What happens with Daphne now that Anthony too is wed? What’s her place now? Just go down the list of all the siblings that she’s not that close with? Or go back home and lean into motherhood, pining for Simon to return home from his business ventures?

Who is Daphne REALLY? *Cue existential identity struggle.

At the end of this blog, we’ll go into what Daphne might reach out to a therapist for. (Click here if you wanna fast forward to that section.)

But enough about the eldest daughter. Now’s time to zoom in on Anthony, the oldest son, the next Viscount, and the head of the Bridgerton household.

The Self-Abandoning Parentified Child: Anthony
(Enneagram 1, Sexual/Social)

When Edmund died, his mother completely collapsed under her grief, inadvertently dumping the entire weight of the whole household onto Anthony’s shoulders.

In the span of minutes, Anthony's status changed into the roles of:

• The 9th Viscount

• The head of the household

• Emotional Orphan

• Doubly Parentified Child

(How many 18-year-olds know how to handle taxes, let alone an entire estate, or lead an entire family?)

In Enneagram 1 fashion, Anthony didn’t even push back against this mantle but completely assumed responsibility on behalf of the whole family, obsessing about doing things “properly” while emotionally white-knuckling his way through his own grief and trauma.

His inner dialogue went probably like this:

Who has time for feelings? It doesn’t matter what I want. I have shit to take care of…especially because everyone else is a mess and/or completely unreliable.

(Do you hear the resentment?)

Dutiful, self-denying, workaholic, rigid, grumpy as hell…and terrified of messing it all up.

It wasn’t just because Anthony is the oldest son that he became the pillar of the family — even if he were second or third in the birth order, he would have likely ended up taking on WAY more responsibility than his share, because that’s built into the Enneagram 1 personality makeup: doing the rightful, responsible thing.

Had he been a firstborn son of another type (like Enneagram 4 or 7 — types that tend to avoid responsibility), the entire Bridgerton story would have turned out VERY differently.

(Think of eldest Featherington Prudence, whose father also suddenly died and whose family was in a more financially precarious situation, but her inclination was to do the LEAST amount of work possible and had zero problem letting other people take responsibility. She’s obviously not Type 1.)

Dominant Sexual (SX) Instinct

Like Daphne, Anthony has a dominant instinct that makes him very intense, passionate, and impulsive especially in one-on-one dynamics. This is most obvious in his relationship with mother Violet, favorite sister Daphne, and his (begrudgingly admitted) love interest Kate (Enneagram 8 SO/SX).

Unlike for Type 2s (whose type & SX instinct are in alignment), Type 1 goes the OPPOSITE direction as the SX instinct, making 1 SX into a countertype: the Type One that looks the least like Type Ones, compared to 1 SP & 1 SO.

More so than typical Type 1s, Anthony can exhibit 7ish and 4ish tendencies more readily, for better (his feelings are less repressed) and worse (his impulsive reactive tendencies spill over more).

Anthony is still (mostly) rigidly in control, but his passion and fire erupts more readily — what he thinks is to his detriment, but ultimately might be for his highest and best interest. (Thank goodness he married Kate!)

On the shadow side, the Improver energy of Type 1 gets directed OUTWARDS towards other people more than on himself, leading him to put pressure on others and and also more hypocritical than 1 SP & 1 SO would. (Daphne totally calls him out on this after she catches him & Kate in their almost-kiss.)

Secondary Social (SO) Instinct

Built into both Type One and the Social instinct are the central themes of roles, responsibilities, position, status, and influence.

Whereas Anthony’s dominant SX instinct dampens some One-ness, his secondary SO instinct reinforces it. As such, Anthony had a fairly easy time occupying the responsibility vacuum left behind by both of his parents upon his father’s death.

Social-dominant Ones are the “cool”, level-headed Ones who also become the Perfect Role Model for others to follow suit (think Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter), so Anthony tries hard to be the good older brother, the Viscount, and the head of the household, out of a fear of tarnishing the Bridgerton name and disappointing his late father.

But (as was Daphne’s case) the SX instinct still wins out over the SO instinct in his whirlwind of a love/hate romance with spinster Kate, overriding his duty-based intentions to marry her sister Edwina (the second Diamond of the Season).

Repressed Self-Preservation (SP) Instinct

Anthony’s fiery dominant SX instincts also occasionally hijack his Type One intentions because his guardrail, practical Self-Pres instinct is nowhere to be seen: his illicit hot/cold affair with Siena, being late to Daphne’s debuting first ball of the season (way to go, big brother!), and the reckless duel with Simon (that led to her sister literally getting caught in the middle).

Even though Type Ones are known for the Ready-Aim-Fire stance, Anthony occasionally accidentally FIRES first, and cleans up later. Hence, even though he’s very much a Type 1, his chaotic tendencies of swinging between extremes makes him seem very Enneagram Four-ish. (Great for TV drama!)

Enneagram 1 Emotional & Relationship Crisis:
When is it time for MY Wants & Needs?

Anthony’s resistance to admitting (let alone attending to) his wants & needs leads to him overinvolve himself in his others’ affairs — especially the firstborn daughter Daphne but also the second-in-line Benedict, regularly reminding them of their duties to support the family and set a good example for the younger siblings — while also getting resentful.

This also leads Anthony to clash with his 2 SO/SX mother Violet (who shares the same goal of marrying off the children, but for wildly different reasons — less duty, more romance — and different approaches — a more behind-the-scenes orchestration & emotional nurturing than criticism & orders).

Even though Violet finally reassumed her role in the family as Matriarch and in society as Dowager Viscountess, her emotional collapse & absence left indelible marks on the children, especially her firstborn.

Resentment simmers beneath Anthony’s stern, responsible front, especially towards his mother who both emotionally abandoned & saddled him with the dual parental role — not only is he the Big Brother & “Father”, but he’s also very “maternal” & emotionally involved.

Cold & distant is not a term to describe how Anthony shows up for ALL of his siblings, even the youngest brother Gregory despite the 16-year-age gap.

Watch Anthony’s warmth & tenderness for Gregory (in contrast to Gregory’s relationship with Violet throughout the Seasons — overlooked unless scolded for his playful pranks):

Anthony steps in, because Violet stepped back. (Another triangle!!)

This emotional backdrop of taking care of others’ at the expense of his own is what Kate Sharma steps into.

As a fellow oldest sibling + orphan + family pillar, she is the first/only person who deeply GETS him.

Part of the reason why Anthony’s passions stir out of control when she enters the scene is because her some of her Enneagram 8 SO/SX patterns of wildly defying social roles & expectations, not playing by the rules, defining her own path, and having her own one-up power stance to see him eye-to-eye (as EQUALS) shakes him out of his default overresponsible, Martyr + Savior + Protector stance. (That he doesn’t know what to do with her is good for him, even though he (love) hates it.)

For the first time in his life, someone really SEES Anthony’s grief & pain behind his strong, judgy exterior (think his panic attack triggered by Kate’s bee sting).

Anthony’s frozen trauma begin thawing, creating a messy slurry of feelings that he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with.

That he finally relents to love in marrying Kate isn’t the end of his redemption story. His healing journey continues long after they’re married and have their child.

There are a ton of things that might bring Anthony into therapy — keep reading! (Click here if you wanna jump to that section.)

Enough about the main characters of Seasons 1 & 2 (Whew!).

Now let’s focus on the third leg of the family triangle — Mama Bridgerton.

The Master Relationship Engineer: Violet
(Enneagram 2, Social/Sexual)

Even though Violet is not a main character (yet 🤞 — let’s hope she gets her own spinoff story!), she plays a MAJOR role behind-the-scenes.

Without a focus on her, we can’t fully understand Anthony or Daphne, as she is the one who singlehandedly reinforces both her eldest son & daughters’ Enneagram patterns.

Violet's grief after Edmund's death wasn’t just about loss — it was about an entire identity collapse. Her role as a wife vanished overnight.

After the initial grief shutdown (relationship losses for Enneagram 2s cut differently), she doubled down and threw herself entirely into her children’s lives, especially matchmaking. Why?

Because Social 2s derive worth from being indispensable to a group — in this case, her family and society at large. This is a much louder theme than for Daphne (2 SX/SO), who directs more energy towards 1:1 relationships.

Violet is warm and loving, but she also often blurs boundaries by injecting herself into her kids’ personal lives to feel connected with them (but then feeling hurt, bewildered, or at a loss when they push back — What to do with Eloise or Francesca?).

Her love seems generous (it’s clear she does care for her children), but it’s also a form of control and an expression of her own ego workings — about her centrality in the lives of those she loves.

Sometimes her well-meaning efforts to help leads her to inadvertently overriding her children’s experiences — most evident in the frustrations that Anthony, Daphne, Eloise, and Francesca feel & express to her.

Violet can’t fix her own grief, so she micromanages her children’s lives by engineering relationship opportunities behind the scenes with her partner-in-crime Lady Danbury (Enneagram 8 SO/SP), while still nudging them to seek romantic love above all else. (Mixed messages, much?)

Her overcompensating overinvolvement in her children’s lives puts her in a subtle power struggle with Anthony (vying for the head of household role), dragging the eldest daughter Daphne in as the battlefield and prize.

This puts all three members into a triangle deadlock in Season 1 — Daphne is triangulated into Anthony & Violet’s relationship with each other.

(In Season 2, Anthony becomes the target of Violet & Daphne’s attention, because Daphne simultaneously fulfilled her role in Violet’s eyes and initiated her own identity crisis by getting married.)

The Bridgerton Family Triangle:
Anthony, Daphne, & Violet

Here’s what the relationship between the three looks like in genogram form (the green triangle):

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Triangulation is a unhealthy but very common relationship dynamic when Party A & Party B don’t deal with each other directly and instead loop/drag in a third Party C to be the peacemaker, distraction, and/or prize. Party C serves as the pressure valve build up by A & B.

Usually the triangulated party ends up feeling controlled, burned out, and frustrated (because they’re objectified by the other two). Daphne eventually snapped back at both her mother & brother for meddling in her romantic life, feeling seen for just what she does, not for who she is/what she wants.

Had Edmund still been alive, he would likely have been the third Party between Anthony & Violet (purple triangle), since the relationship between the latter two even before his death was nowhere near as close/solid as each of their relationships with Edmund.

Triangles don’t form only from trauma or conflict — sometimes it’s just relative. The triangulated party is usually the path of least resistance.

If there were conflict between Anthony & Violet, they might have each attempted to get Edmund involved by lamenting to him rather than directly to the other party. If Edmund was emotionally mature, he would extricate himself from the triangle (detriangulate himself) and encourage them to hash things out with each other directly. But I guess we will never know…

Triangulation is a favorite dynamic especially for Enneagram 2s, but also for the Sexual instinct, as it’s the main instinct of rivalry and competition for a common prize (*cough prey).

Of these three characters’ Enneagram type & instinct setup, we have 2 Twos and 3 loud SX instincts:

• Anthony — Type 1 SX/SO

• Daphne — Type 2 SX/SO

• Violet — Type 2 SO/SX

After Daphne gets married to Simon (Enneagram 4SX/SP — that’s a whole ‘nother story of relationship drama…Double SX-dominant types + Type 2/4 combo!) at the end of Season 1, Anthony becomes the new focal point of attention in Season 2. The triangle continues, now with Daphne being the meddling one in Anthony’s love affairs.

When Anthony too finds his love match and he goes off on his honeymoon (taking off his head-of-household + parental + Viscount + older brother hats), this triangle loses steam.

Anthony’s attention is (entirely) elsewhere towards a new party D (Kate) and he (finally) gives himself permission to focus on fulfilling his own wants & needs.

Without this triangle to consume her time & energy, what is Violet Bridgerton to do next? Eloise hasn’t shown the faintest interest in finding a love match…so it must be Benedict (who’s very slippery) or Colin (who seems so confident that he might not need help?)…right?

With Anthony on his honeymoon & Daphne off to her duchy with her husband and child, Violet needs a third corner of the triangle so that she doesn’t have to think about herself & her own needs (*cue Enneagram 2 nausea 🤢).

Fortunately (?), her trusty bestie Lady Danbury (Enneagram 8 SO/SP) also has all the time in the world with no drama to keep herself entertained and no new chess pieces to maneuver.

And so another triangle is formed in Season 3…with Francesca (Enneagram 5 SX/SP), the latest Diamond of the Season….and Violet’s latest project.

The Enneagram: The Cage That Used to Protect Us that Now Keep Us Stuck

At its core, the Enneagram points to nine different themes that serve as speed-dial reactions to life’s challenges.

Each type’s patterns are coping strategies & defense mechanisms that USED to be helpful when we were actually vulnerable and without many resources and opportunities.

But as we grow up & gain more abilities, our autopilot patterns don’t always upgrade accordingly, especially when there’s trauma.

We don’t realize that we’re STUCK in one of nine patterns until our handy go-to tools just don’t work anymore, but actually start CREATING problems.

How Enneagram Patterns USED to Help

With our beloved Bridgerton trio, this is how their Enneagram types & subtypes used to help them feel secure in the wake of Edmund’s death:

• Anthony (Enneagram 1 SX/SO) — Being right, strong, competent, responsible, and in self-control gave him a sense of purpose & orientation in the midst of crisis & chaos from loss. Directing that Improver energy outwards (SX/SO) “protected” him from directing it towards himself (SP), because he might have completely shut down & collapsed alongside his unraveling mother when his family really did need someone to take charge.

• Daphne (Enneagram 2 SX/SO) — Being attractive, beautiful, pleasing, and magnetic gave her a toolbox of soft power, molding her image (and therefore her relationships) so that she can simultaneously fulfill her duty as the eldest daughter, take care of her mother & siblings, and also enjoy a romantic & emotionally fulfilling relationship like her parents did — all to avoid ever feeling unloved or alone.

• Violet (Enneagram 2 SO/SX) — Being emotionally attuned and able to discern & navigate behind-the-scenes social dynamics gave her ways of engineering/fostering relationships so that she’ll always have a place in their lives and have something to fill her broken widow heart. As an only child who yearned for connections while growing up with an emotionally cold & critical mother (Lady Ledger), Violet always dreamed having a large & actively interconnected family, with herself at the center.

How Enneagram Patterns now lead to Hurt

Unfortunately, these very entrenched patterns are the very things that prevent us from getting our true needs met.

• Anthony — Having sworn off his own wants & needs, he became more bitter, resentful, and rigid in controlling others. His inability to relax made him more judgmental of others, creating further chasms in his relationships and actually sabotaging his ability to provide for & protec the family. Because he was so (overly) responsible, his next siblings in line Benedict & Colin were able to spread their wings freely to pursue their interests without worry. They got a chance to indulge in their own desires freely, leaving Anthony feeling further alone and trapped the eldest son role & head of household responsibilities.

• Daphne — Once she accomplished her mission of getting married, Daphne lost her spotlight society as well as her identity as the Golden Child. Having also “locked” Simon into marriage, there wasn’t someone whose attention to attract anymore, meaning her soft power toolbox was becoming less and less relevant each day. Her attempt to make herself indispensable again by involving herself in Anthony’s love drama and creating a new triangle with her husband & child only bought her so much time until she was back to her identity crisis of “Who am I?”.

• Violet — Though she still has a number of children to marry off to buy herself time from also dealing with the Type 2 identity crisis, Violet was deeply shaken up to lose the Viscountess title to Anthony’s wife Kate. What happens now? Where do I even physically live? Will I still be invited to society’s balls without a title or any more children to marry off? What will I do with myself when my children no longer need me?

The Next Generation: Tectonic Shifts in Roles & Relationships

With new marriages (& new babies!), the family equilibrium has been completely shaken up — the Bridgerton family will never be the same again, and it’s time for role reconstruction.

The original triangle between Daphne, Anthony, & Violet has dissolved, and it’s TBD as to how these roles will shift or be redistributed within the now three nuclear families:

• The Bridgertons: Anthony, Kate, baby

• The Bridgertons: Violet, Benedict, Colin, … , Hyacinth

• The Bassetts: Daphne, Simon, Augie

The genograms for Before (Season 1 & 2) & After (start of Season 3):

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Before (Seasons 1 & 2): A triangle between Anthony, Violet, & Daphne, with Daphne as the main focus of Season 1 and Anthony the target of Season 2. The other children are more in the backdrop.

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After (start of Season 3): Anthony & Daphne on the periphery, Francesca the main focus of Violet & Lady Danbury’s attention. Violet has generally been more focused on her daughters and less involved in the lives of her other sons — Benedict & Colin. The youngest — Gregory & Hyacinth — are also rarely the focus of her attention.

As Anthony & Daphne fade more into the background of the extended Bridgerton family as they direct their attention & energy towards their new nuclear family with their partner & child, forming new triangles.

Here are Anthony & Daphne’s genograms with their partners & child:

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Start of Season 2: Daphne (Enneagram 2 SX/SO) with Simon (4 SX/SP) who has a turbulent triangle in his own family of origin (red) with his cruel father and Lady Danbury — who steps in as his godmother after his mother dies in childbirth).

As is common for double SX-dominant couples and also Enneagram 2 & 4 combos, Daphne’s relationship with Simon is very emotionally intense and wild. Since Simon also has some childhood attachment trauma and previously vowed to never have children, it’s TBD how his relationship with his own child August (and by extension his connection with Daphne both as a partner & coparent) will be.

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Start of Season 3: Anthony (Enneagram 1 SX/SO) & Kate (8 SO/SX) have a very vibrant, thriving relationship that’s based on several factors: both have common experiences being the responsible, firstborn pillar of the family, have very strong one-up personalities (good equal power dynamic), and similar instinct stacking (both SP-repressed).

Anthony has a lot of complex trauma wounds to heal, but his relationship with Kate and their soon-to-be born child might be very healing as he learns to rest, play, and rely on others again.

Btw, not all triangles are bad — usually new parents naturally form one with their firstborn or only child. The issue isn’t that there’s a triangle, but that sometimes there’s a rigidity & lack of flexibility when new members enter the scene or when two parties insist on not working out their issues directly and overrely on the third party as a go-between.

With Anthony & Daphne (the two corners of the original triangle) fade away, Violet forms a new triangle (pink) with Lady Danbury, both double-teaming on matchmaking for Francesca.

(Try as she might, Violet has been unsuccessful in locking down Eloise as her new project.)

WOOHOO, Congrats!! You finally made it to the final stretch:

 

Time to Heal, Adjust, & Grow:
The Bridgertons in Therapy

Let’s pretend for a second that the Bridgertons lived in present day, and that they were self-aware enough to realize that they got some deep inner work to do.

Here are the kinds of things each of them might reach out to a therapist for:

Daphne (Enneagram 2 SX/SO)

Relationship Crisis:

• Loneliness, difficulty with solitude: Why does Simon work so much? Does he love me?

• Push-pull & hot/cold dynamic: Why won’t he just tell me how he feels?? He keeps avoiding me…Does he love me?

• Overinvolvement in others’ lives, managing others’ relationships: Why isn’t he involved more in Augie’s life? Doesn’t he love Augie?

• Resentment about tasks: Why isn’t he helping more with Augie?

• Relationship Anxiety: Will my family love me even when I’m not the Diamond?

• Resentment about connection: Why do I have to always be the one visiting them??

• Emotional dependence: Why am I so needy? Why can’t I just be okay being by myself?

Identity Crisis:

• Who am I if I’m not the Golden Child or in the spotlight?

• Who am I outside of my relationships?

• I should be happy now that I have the relationships I want. Why do I keep feeling this way?

Anthony (Enneagram 1 Sx/SO)

Emotional Crisis:

• Panic attacks, especially around bees

• Dissociation — being checked out

• Workaholic tendencies: working more than resting/playing, feeling guilty for not being productive

• Irritability, annoyance, impatience, resentment

• Moodiness, especially around the anniversary of Father’s death

Relationship Crisis:

• Unfamiliarity with new power dynamic of being with an equal (Kate): She’s very self-sufficient and capable…I’m not sure how I’m supposed to interact with her or make decisions together…

• Counterdependency: Difficulty letting other people care for him eceiving care

• Codependency: Taking care of others’ needs that they can/should take care of themselves

• Learning that control ≠ love, vulnerability ≠ weak

• Repairing his relationship with his mother

• Being equals with his siblings, who don’t need him the same way

Violet (Enneagram 2 SO/SX)

Emotional Crisis

• The house feels so empty…Will my children visit me?

• Grief: I miss Edmund…

• Loneliness: I miss having a partner. Who will love me for me?

Relationship Crisis:

• Where do I belong in society now that I’m no longer Viscountess? Will I be forgotten?

• Power dynamic shift: How do I handle my daughter-in-law being the decision maker in the house?

• Relationship shift: How do I interact with my all-grown children now? I don’t know what to talk about rather than their kids or relationships…What’s okay and not okay for me to do?

• Desire: What do I do with my blooming garden?

• Boundaries: Why don’t my children want my advice on how to be a parent? Why can’t I see my grandchildren more?

Identity/Existential Crisis:

• Impending Empty Nest Syndrome:

  • Who am I now that everyone else doesn’t need me and is living their own lives?

  • What do I do with all this time?

• Second Act:

  • What will the rest of my life look like?

  • Who do I want to be?

  • Who do I want to be with?

Seeing the Bigger Family Picture in 4D — Past, Present, & Future

Here’s the recap on what we explored in this blog:

• Genograms show us the structure of the family: the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and HOW.

  • Significant events — traumas, immigration, addictions, etc.

  • Family roles & dynamics — triangulations, boundary issues, emotional cutoffs, etc.

  • Generational patterns — titles, socioeconomic/class issues, gender roles & expectations, etc.

  • The genogram is a cross section of the family at a specific point in time, and will change as time passes with births, deaths, marriages, estrangements, etc.

• The Enneagram shows us the texture of the family fabric: the WHY each person does what they do.

  • Central themes or values — intimacy, identity, responsibility, freedom, harmony, etc.

  • Defense mechanisms, go-to reactionary patterns that used to help but lead to self-sabotage later

  • Difficulty with certain roles & responsibilities, individuation or setting boundaries, etc.

  • Stuck points & areas of healing/growth

You’ll get a ton of mileage from using a genogram to better understand how each person in your family has come to be where y’all are today (past ‘til present).

Add to the mix the Enneagram, and you get an insiders’ look into powerful yet invisible forces within each person (that drive us to do all kinds of crazy things) so that you can:

• Deepen your understanding & empathy for yourself & others

• Map out your next growth steps so you can break generational curses and create new generational blessings

None of us live in a vacuum. Part of the reason why it’s sometimes so hard to change is because our relationship context remains the same.

You gotta change individual issues individually, and systemic issues systemically.

The genogram shows you the systemic context. The Enneagram shows you your specific individual work.

Start Mapping Your Outer & Inner Worlds

Your patterns didn’t start with you — and they don’t have to end with you either. Learn more about your social context (genogram) and/or your inner motivational engine (Enneagram)!

Genogram

Enneagram

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"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

How Brainspotting can Strengthen Your Relationships

Healing Unresolved Emotions can Improve Relationships

Human connections are the heart of our lives — offering some of our greatest insights, intimacy, growth, and joy.

But they can also be sources of our deepest pain, confusion, and conflict, especially when past wounds, unresolved emotions, or trauma subtly leak out out from our subterranean subconscious parts, warping the way we interpret new situations and respond to our loved ones.

Especially for people who feel deeply — Empaths, Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs), and those with strong emotional intuitions like Enneagram Twos and Enneagram Fours — these relationship dynamics can be even more intense and all-consuming.

Fortunately, our amazing bodies come with inherent ways of healing itself. One such approach that has actually been created as a therapy approach is called Brainspotting, a trauma therapy approach that emerged from EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing).

Read more about what Brainspotting is or how Brainspotting works, so we can get to the juicy stuff about relationships here!

When Past Relationship Trauma Wounds Spill Over into the Present

Most people who reach out to me for therapy do so less to work on past traumas (especially from childhood), but because a CURRENT relationship is in crisis:

• They can’t shake off the feeling that their current partner is cheating on them like their exes did, even though the partner has been nothing but present, truthful, and supportive.

• They have intense reactions when their 2-year-old throws food onto the floor, and they’re so so frustrated but also don’t want to blow up on their kid for doing what 2-year-olds do

• They feel constantly overlooked at work, but also don’t have the confidence to actually speak up for themselves for fear of criticism or judgment

• They have a hard time opening up to others because they’re waiting for the shoe to drop and be abandoned by others or assume that every gift comes with strings attached

The likelihood that these reactions are based on old relationships and experiences are very very VERY high.

The pickle is when people KNOW they have old trauma to work with because they read all the books and even did therapy before, but they still have no idea how to actually move on or deal with their feelings (like Whack-a-Mole).

Even if you intellectually "know" something isn’t a threat anymore, your nervous system may still react as if it is.

This leads to emotional triggers in relationships. A partner’s raised voice, a delayed text, or a perceived rejection might set off old buried memories or emotions you’re not consciously aware of.

You may lash out, shut down, over-apologize, or spiral into anxiety — not because of what’s happening in the present moment, but because of the ghosts of unprocessed past experiences that are still reverberating in your nervous system.

Namely, your body brain can’t tell the difference between the past and present.

Brainspotting Heals Old Wounds and Clears Outdated Messages about Life & Love

For better or for worse, when intense feelings “leak out” (i.e., we get triggered), we have a window of opportunity to excavate those deeply buried memories (think of the colored core memory orbs in the movie Inside Out) that we don’t have conscious awareness of.

Brainspotting Therapy helps access and clear out those echoes by giving the brain space to process what it couldn’t before. It bypasses the analytical, thinking brain (top-brain) and goes straight to the root — the mammal/emotional mid-brain and lizard/reflexive root brain.

Brainspotting helps us locate those buried orbs, release the emotional charge, reconfigure those memories, and reorganize where those newly processed memories are stored.

By the end of the movie Inside Out, those intense, simplistic single-colored orbs (preprocessed memories) become more nuanced and complex multi-colored orbs (processed, integrated memories) that are much more useful in helping us navigate new experiences with greater wisdom and emotional balance.

It’s hard to describe Brainspotting because it can be such a body-based, nonverbal, primal experience, but here’s a blog that explains how Brainspotting actually works.

…or sometimes it’s easier to just try it for yourself. Actually, if you’re an Enneagram 4 or Highly Sensitive Person, you might already accidentally be doing Brainspotting yourself out of just sheer intuition.

How Brainspotting Helps Relationships

So how does healing old painful experiences actually translate into better, healthier, deeper relationships?

1. Healing Attachment Wounds

Most relationship struggles are rooted in early attachment patterns. If your caregivers were inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, overly controlling, or unpredictable, you may develop anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment styles.

These styles often play out in adult relationships—creating cycles of clinginess, withdrawal, fear of abandonment, difficulty with trust, or a strong need to "fix" others.

The Enneagram — a personality framework that I also specialize in — speaks to 9 different ways of seeing and responding to life experiences, including how we relate to other people. The Enneagram speaks to WHY we do what we do — our core needs, fears, and interpretations of life.

Think of the Enneagram revealing those painful muscle knots that put your whole body out of alignment and created other issues, and Brainspotting being the deep tissue massage to “work out” those knots so that you can gain full access to your whole body again.

Brainspotting does this “massage” by:

• Uncovering and processing childhood attachment wounds from our deeper brains

• Recalibrating our nervous systems to feel safe and steady again

• Reorienting our views on life and relationships

• Helping us bring our healing wins into daily experiences, so that you can actually access the hard won peace and courage

When you resolve your old ghosts of past wounds, you’re able to be present, see life, yourself, and others clearly for what they are, and to respond accordingly with all of your internal resources and strengths.

Instead of being bogged down by familiar fears, you’d have more clarity and boldness to fully show up in all areas of your life, including your relationships with loved ones!

2. Reducing Emotional Reactivity

Whether you like it or not, relationships are emotional mirrors. We’re constantly being triggered by others, often in ways that seem disproportionate.

• A simple disagreement can feel like a betrayal.

• A missed call can ignite panic or shame.

These reactions are signals that unprocessed emotions are driving the bus and that we need to resolve them sooner than later, lest they make hard things WORSE or even create MORE problems.

Because Brainspotting allows deep emotional processing without needing to "talk it all out", it helps:

• Reduce intensity and frequency of emotional triggers

• Soften trauma responses like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn

• Increase emotional regulation and self-awareness

(Actually, did you know that you can do Brainspotting without ever saying a single word? The therapist doesn’t even need to know what exactly you’re processing, so it’s great for those mortifying memories that you feel deep shame around!)

What would happen if you were to buy yourself even 1-2 more seconds to slow your reactive roll? It might not seem like much, but even those few seconds might be the guardrails preventing you from sending that vitriolic email to your partner or boss.

What would it be like for you to feel like you’re in SELF-CONTROL, not OTHERS-CONTROLLED or OTHERS-CONTROLLING? How would your life be different if you led with calm wisdom, not chaotic panic?

3. Clearing OUTDATED, Unconscious Beliefs About Love, Worth, & Belonging

A lot of people I work with carry deep-seated beliefs like:

• "I’m TOO MUCH."

• "I’ll be abandoned if I express what I need."

• "Love has to be EARNED."

• "Conflict means rejection."

These beliefs aren’t just mental — they actually live in the body in the form of emotional reactivity. Brainspotting brings these belief/feeling capsules up to the surface so we can dispel their power.

Doing this creates an opportunity for you to bring in more realistic and healthier beliefs, such as:

• "I can be fully myself and still be loved."

• "My needs matter, independently of whether others can meet them."

• "I don’t have to fix others to be worthy."

These internal shifts radically change how you can show up in your relationships. Even switching from an extremist, all-or-nothing perspective to a more nuanced one can do WONDERS in helping you navigate through different situations in your personal and professional relationships.

4. Improving Communication and Intimacy

When you're not overwhelmed by unresolved emotion or unconscious fear, you're more able to:

• Speak your truth without wilting in shame or aggressively blaming

• Hear others without getting defensive or flooded

• Be vulnerable without shutting down

• Set boundaries without guilt (this is a tough one, but you can do it!)

Not only does Brainspotting help you resolve painful experiences, but it can also help you access positive internal resources like peace, courage, and wisdom.

Because of this, Brainspotting strengthens your internal capacity to stay present and steady during difficult conversations or emotional moments, which expands your horizons as to what’s possible in your relationships: deeper intimacy, clarity, and mutual understanding — all without sacrificing yourself.

5. Reconnecting With Your Authentic Self

At its core, Brainspotting (and the Enneagram) isn’t just about healing trauma; it’s about coming home to yourself — your TRUE self.

When you clear out all the mental cobwebs and emotional clutter, you're able to reconnect with your inherent compassion, creativity, and wisdom.

This authentic self is the foundation of all healthy relationships, because you can’t have a relationship between two fragmented people.

Relationship math isn’t 1/4 + 3/4 = 1, but 1 + 1 = 1.

A WHOLE self with another WHOLE self creates a WHOLE relationship.

When both parties are free to be yourselves without the need to perform, people-please, or self-abandon, you can create vibrant, sustainable relationships that are resilient and immune to things like burnout or resentment.

In this way, Brainspotting supports not just relationship repair — but relationship revitalization. You’re no longer relating from old patterns, but from a place of wholeness, with endless possibilities of fulfilling experiences that help both of you feel seen, known, and loved — FULLY.

Why Brainspotting Works So Well for Highly Sensitive People, Empaths, and Enneagram 2s & 4s.

For sensitive folks, traditional talk therapy can sometimes feel overwhelming, too surface-level, or too embarrassing (“Ahhhh — I don’t want someone else to see me like this!! What will the therapist think of me?”).

Another trap is that sometimes sensitive people mistake introspection with processing or resolution. You may understand your patterns intellectually but still feel stuck emotionally. Just because you have a LOT of feelings doesn’t mean you’re actually processing them!

Brainspotting honors your depth, while also making room for your WHOLE brain — thinking, feeling, and being. It doesn’t ask you to explain or rationalize your pain. Instead, it invites you to feel whatever comes up, notice it in your body, and release it in a safe, contained way.

It meets you where you live—in the emotional, sensory, intuitive spaces of the body and soul. So many of my clients who also have a very rich imaginary or spiritual inner world can easily weave them into their Brainspotting session!

There’s no one right way of doing Brainspotting, so the pressure’s off — give yourself permission to do feelings the way that works best for you & your sensitivity without getting lost in the depths! As the person sitting in the boat, the Brainspotting therapist can help pull you out when it’s time.

How to Start Brainspotting

If you're curious about trying Brainspotting to improve your relationships, here’s how to begin:

• Find a Brainspotting practitioner in your state: Look for someone with training in trauma-informed care and relationship dynamics. If you’re in California, here are some fabulous Brainspotting therapists!

• Clarify your intention: You don’t need to have it all figured out — just bring a specific emotional issue or pattern you’d like to work on. (If even that’s unclear, you can even say something like, “I don’t know why, but I just feel…’OFF’. Like there’s a fog around my head.” You’ll be surprised what Brainspotting can work with!

• Stay open: Let your body lead. You may cry, yawn, feel sensations, or just be still. All responses are valid, and none of it needs to make sense (remember, we’re not using the analytical top-brain, but the dream-like emotional and lizard brains!).

• Practice integration: After sessions, give yourself time to rest, reflect, and journal if needed. The work continues unfolding even after you leave the session, so if you have some more involved dreams afterwards, no problem — let your body continue to metabolize.

Brainspotting to Repair Your Relationship with Yourself First, then with Others

At its core, Brainspotting helps you heal the parts of yourself that were hurt in relationship and went into hiding (in Internal Family Systems, we call these the “Exiles”)— so you can thrive in connection with others.

By accessing the body’s wisdom, clearing out emotional blocks, and soothing your nervous system, Brainspotting helps you become more present, resilient, and open-hearted. You don’t have to stay stuck in old patterns or reactive cycles. Healing is totally possible.

That scary moment or relationship doesn’t have to hold you back anymore — instead, you can use your hard earned wisdom as a way to create the kind of relationship that has enough room for you and your needs, too.

With that healing comes a powerful ripple effect: deeper intimacy, healthier boundaries, more honest communication—and a profound return to love, both for yourself and for others.

Ready to Help Your Heart Heal?

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

Grab this free guide that shows you how to grow beyond the patterns that keep you stuck!

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

Loading...

Woo hoo!!

Check your inbox for your free gift guide,

"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

How "The Mask" is the Perfect Metaphor for the Enneagram

Seeing the Enneagram Archetypes on Screen

Stories help us see important truths in life, especially when it’s about sensitive or tricky topics like our own personality and defense mechanisms.

There are a number of movies I love using to explain what the Enneagram is, how it works, and why it matters for our own healing & growth.

This blog will be exploring how the Jim Carrey classic “The Mask” (1994) is a phenomenal illustration about how:

• we all wear masks (the outward-facing aspects of ourselves) to deal with life

• forget who we truly are along the way, and

• need to find our way back to our true selves.

The Mask and the Enneagram: What Jim Carrey's Classic Teaches Us About Personality

In this zany movie that has no shortage of exaggerations, we see Jim Carrey’s character, Stanley Ipkiss, the quintessential Enneagram 9 who is the perfect example of how our True Self (AKA our essence) tries to navigate through life’s experiences, but falls asleep to himself by putting on a whole other Enneagram 3-like persona (literally meaning, “the mask”) when he finds it too painful to show up as his real self.

The rest of the movie illustrates what happens when our rejected, repressed inner parts take over — useful in the beginning, but disastrous in the long run.

By the way, all the nine Enneagram types are archetypes of the universal human experience. Even if you yourself are neither Type 9 or Type 3, since Type 9 represents the aspect of all of us who falls asleep to our true selves, and Type 3 represents all the ways we live according to how we think we SHOULD be in the world, you can still find your own story reflected here. Just swap out the details of what your themes and patterns are.

Before the Mask: Our True Selves (Essence)

Jim Carrey’s character, Stanley Ipkiss, is the ultimate “nice guy.” He’s sweet, accommodating, and deeply uncomfortable with asserting himself.

He avoids rocking the boat and risking conflict or tension, tries to keep everyone (else) happy, and dreams of a more exciting life—but rarely takes action for himself. Instead, he resigns himself to just taking things as they come — being overly content or seeking comfort or complacency.

“Remember? Nice guys finish last.”

Stanley downplays himself both in front of obstacles (avoiding conflict) and opportunities (not asserting himself) in ways it makes the audience cringe on his behalf.

(AGHH! If only you would JUST. FREAKIN. SAY. SOMETHING!!)

(If you felt this frustration watching these scenes, this is probably you taking on what Stanley disowned and outsourced. He underly advocates for himself, and unintentionally summons someone else (i.e., YOU) to overly take on that responsibility and get upset on his behalf. This is how projection works. Neat, huh? I digress.)

Stanley reflects how Enneagram 9s (AKA The Peacemaker, Harmonizer) generally operate.

In their sloth slumber of falling asleep to their true selves, Type nines:

• Avoid conflict at all costs

• Have trouble asserting their needs or opinions or just putting themselves out there

• Often feel overlooked, unimportant, or ignored (yet feel squeamish about doing or saying anything about it)

• Escape into fantasy, comfort, or routines to avoid discomfort (narcotization is their primary psychological defense mechanism)

• Repress anger until it bubbles over through passive aggression, builds up until it explodes, or disappears entirely (supposedly)

Stanley doesn’t speak up at work, gets walked all over, consistently misses his shot to connect, and struggles to be known on a deeper level.

But inside? There's a storm of unexpressed feelings, desires, and longings just waiting to erupt.

How do these repressed parts show up? Immediately after his junk of a rental car (top) breaks down on the bridge and he smashes his hand (rage outburst) or in his dreams (bottom):

How he lives sees himself and is seen: drab, broken, unwanted, boring, loser

What his repressed longings want: to be successful, suave, powerful, charismatic

The Mask: A Symbol of Repressed or Disowned Parts of Ourselves

After an infuriating incident with the car, Stanley comes across this magical mask, which unbeknownst to him we later find to be a creation of Loki — the God of Mischief — notorious for his shapeshifting abilities.

When Stanley returns home, he tosses the mask aside and switches the TV channel to an interview of a psychiatrist author of the book “The Masks We Wear”, where he says:

“We all wear masks, metaphorically speaking.”

“We suppress the id, our darkest desires…”

“…and adopt a more socially acceptable image.”

In other words, these masks help us portray ourselves differently on the outside to be accepted by others and to succeed in life.

Putting on the Mask: Taking on a New Persona

Sick and tired of being a life-long loser, Stanley puts on the magical mask, and his world turns upside down (what he thinks is rightside up).

“It’s like it brings your innermost desires to life.”

What are Stanley’s innermost desires? To be a powerful, uninhibited, unfiltered, yet wildly charismatic being, who can alter himself and his surroundings into whatever is wanted or needed in each moment.

“Somebody stop me!”

As the Mask, Stanley says what he wants, takes what he wants, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He becomes the exaggerated, uninhibited version of himself — in the same way that Enneagram 3s are the complete “opposite” of Enneagram 9s.

This is exactly what the Enneagram is about.

It’s like our true face is too sensitive to the outside world — it’s too intense, too scary, too much. So we put on a mask to help us get by.

Everyone has a “mask”— a false identity, a coping strategy developed to protect the self from fear, shame, or vulnerability.

Every Enneagram type is a specific mask — a specific false identity that comes with their respective coping strategies and defense mechanisms. These are what’s going on behind-the-scenes for each type:

The Masks of the Nine Enneagram Types

Enneagram Ones (the Improver): “How can I be perfect?”

• Themes: good/bad, right/wrong, all/nothing

• Protect from the risk of uncertainty & feeling out of control

Enneagram Twos (the Befriender): “How can I be lovable?”

• Themes: intimacy, connection, closeness

• Protect from the risk of being rejected for who they truly are

Enneagram Threes (the Performer): “How can I be seen as successful?”

• Themes: success, admiration, productivity, spotlight

• Protect from the risk of truly being a “loser”

Enneagram Fours (the Individualist): “How can I be memorable?”

• Themes: uniqueness, distinction, difference

• Protect from the risk of being ordinary (thus abandoned)

Enneagram Fives (the Observer): “How can I be knowledgable?”

• Themes: knowledge, expertise, competency

• Protect from the risk of being overwhelmed or not self-sufficient

Enneagram Sixes (the Loyalist): “How can I be safe?”

• Themes: safety/danger, security, trust/mistrust

• Protect from risk, period.

Enneagram Sevens (the Enthusiast): “How can I be free?”

• Themes: experience, sensationalism, opportunity, and play

• Protect from the risk of being trapped, especially in pain

Enneagram Eights (the Challenger): “How can I be invulnerable?”

• Themes: power, will, and change

• Protect from the risk of being vulnerable or influenced by others

Enneagram Nines (the Harmonizer): “How can I be invulnerable?”

• Themes: peace, unity, oneness, comfort

• Protect from the risk of being a Self/agent of change

When Things Go Sideways: Fusing with Our Mask

If only these masks really gave us what we truly want!

It’s not like The Mask is turning Stanley into someone else. It’s revealing parts of Stanley that were already there — always there — just deeply buried, out of his conscious awareness because it was too painful to lead life with those parts.

The Masked Version isn’t true integration (a reconciliation of various parts). Instead, it’s overcompensation. Instead of internal harmony, Stanley is still split and polarized on the inside, making him reactive (exaggerated) on the outside.

When we wear these masks long enough, our face fuses with the mask to the point where we forget that the mask is not our actual face. We only value ourselves for part of who we are because we don’t remember that there’s a whole lot more to us than what we (and others) can see.

Though these defense mechanisms and coping strategies WERE useful when we were ACTUALLY vulnerable and without many resources, there comes a point where they start CAUSING problems.

“But it’s wrecking my life.”

These masks were appropriate backup options to have when we really didn’t have alternative ways of taking care of ourselves.

But what happens when we technically OUTGROW our need for defense mechanisms but we/our masks don’t quite get the memo?

All our coping skills know how to do is to cope — to problem solve according to what they THINK is the problem.

And if there’s no problem, it summons one from thin air. Namely, it CREATES problems that it knows how to solve, because what else is it supposed to do?

Stanley felt like he was on top of the world, the object of everyone’s desires, accomplishing things he never dreamed of doing with such ease…

…until he realized that most of the admiration and affection he was receiving was for this persona that he’s so split off from. But none of these are truly “him” — rather, they’re distorted expressions of hidden desires, shadow traits, and unmet needs.

Namely, he’s only known and valued for only PART of himself, not ALL of himself.

Even when his love interest Tina (Cameron Diaz) really is drawn to the non-masked self, Stanley can’t quite tell that she loves him, since he continues to reject and minimize himself.

At some point in his story, Stanley realizes that his mask is GETTING IN THE WAY for him to get what he really wants — to be known and connected and to have a place in this world for who he really is.

The pain far outweighs the gain, so he’s ready to finally confront the real issue: integrating the internal split parts. In order for him to truly be fulfilled, he needs to take the risk and do the scary thing: take off the mask, reveal his true self, and own what’s rightfully his instead of repressing them.

“When he [The Mask] is gone, all that’s left is me [my true self].”

Taking Off Our Mask: Integrating with Our Shadows and Repressed Parts

The issue isn’t that we have masks on. It’s that we’ve fused to our masks that we’ve forgotten who we really are underneath it.

Our Enneagram types and the identities and coping strategies aren’t bad — it’s just that they were designed with the specific purpose of taking care of us when we were actually vulnerable.

Growth and healing work doesn’t involve getting rid of the mask, but recognizing that:

1. There are more masks than just our type — 8 whole other ones!

2. None of these masks are supposed to replace who we really are

3. These masks come in handy — as long as we can wisely discern what each situation calls for so we can put on (and take off) these masks on command, without ever forgetting ourselves.

The goal isn’t to reject or throw away undesirable aspects of ourselves to grasp for what we perceive to be the exact opposite. That just swings us to the opposite extreme, which isn’t sustainable either.

The goal isn't to swing wildly from repression to explosion, or from invisibility to domination.

The goal is to INTEGRATE — to gather the various parts and dimensions of ourselves and to make it whole.

It’s not that Stanley was a Type 9 who then became a Type 3. He always has been MORE THAN both Type 9 and Type 3:

• When he was in 9-ness (pre-Mask) of self-effacing placation, his 3-ish patterns of self-assertive dynamism were already there — just buried.

• When he was in 3-ness (with the Mask) of dynamic self-promotion, his 9-ish patterns didn’t disappear — it still hung out out beneath the surface.

• When he took off the Mask (and kept it off), it wasn’t like he just reverted back into being 9-ish. Instead, by the end, Stanley embodies steady confidence — a harmonizing blend of 9-ish and 3-ish traits that looks qualitatively different than either type.

By the end, we see Stanley knowing and trusting his true self, his true power, and his true place in the world. He says what he needs to say, but doesn’t need to exaggerate or conceal. He takes up his rightful space because he knows he’s important without having to be all-important.

The power, admiration, and magnetism he was looking for outside himself through the Mask turns out to have been within himself this entire time: he just needed to embody it to see it for himself.

After Stanley takes off the Mask, all that’s left is him…and that’s all he needs to be.

WARNING — When You Refuse Your True Self and Choose the Mask

The villain Dorian Tyrell is an example of what happens when we DON’T integrate power and think that the mask is GOOD and our true self is BAD.

In Tyrell’s case, the Mask completely took over, and he overidentified with his coping strategies and disconnected from his authentic self.

(In this case, I would guess he’s either a very unhealthy Enneagram 8 or Type 4SX, but any other type could just as easily become the villain.)

Just because Tyrell’s mask is taken away from him in the end doesn’t mean he’s actually free of its influence — if the opportunity presented himself, he would likely opt to put back on (and keep on) this powerful alter ego.

He hasn’t (yet) had the change of heart, which only comes AFTER one realizes that what the Mask offers is just a shallow counterfeit of what one actually needs (like intimacy).

Tina used to be in a relationship with Tyrell but was turned off by his insecurities — it wasn’t that she rejected him per se but his sensitive/kind side was so deeply engulfed by this invulnerable exterior that there was no way for her to make it through and no one for her to actually connect with.

Had Tyrell connected with and led with his inner tenderness, he wouldn’t have objectified and repelled Tina. The very things he wanted — power, recognition, and/or connection — are stripped away from him, not by external factors, but by his own choosing the Mask over his true self.

You are MORE than Your Enneagram Type/Mask

It’s usually in the wake of mask-induced problems (i.e., existential crises) that people have that change of heart/rock bottom experience and reach out for therapy. People’s go-to patterns just don’t work the way they used to, and yet they don’t know what else to do.

It’s in the process of taking a deep, hard look at the parts of us that we often ignore (our shadows and other repressed needs) and actually integrating them back into ourselves that we (re)emerge as our truest selves (our essence).

A lot of people think that their Enneagram type/mask is ALL of who they are. Some even celebrate and reinforce that. However, it’s likely that the louder our Type’s patterns, the more fused and trapped we are to our own masks. We think we’re free, even though we’re actually enslaved.

When we’ve really done our inner work, our types/masks lose their effect — even though we have the capacity to make decisions in these familiar ways, we’re not defined to them.

It’s a common sign that when someone has really done a lot of internal work, it’s harder to discern what Enneagram type they are.

When we reconcile aspects of ourselves BEYOND our Enneagram type, we become more whole, grounded, resilient, free, and fulfilled.

If you find yourself being frustrated or exhausted from trying to figure out life, the issue might NOT be that you don’t know how to fix this problem.

The true issue might be that what you THOUGHT was the solution is actually CREATING problems to begin with.

Which Mask Do You Have? Ready to Release It?

The Enneagram isn’t just about recognizing our type — it’s about noticing the mask we wear to survive, and asking:

“Is this really me? Or is this just who I THINK I need to be to feel safe, loved, or powerful?”

Of the nine Enneagram types, which ones sound most like how you engage life? How is that mask working out for you?

If you don’t know your type, check out this blog!

If you’re sick and tired of your autopilot patterns and are wanting to grow BEYOND your type, here are two options:

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Don't know your Enneagram type?

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"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

Enneagram Types & Therapy

(Scroll down to see the transcript or to get the All Access Pass!)

I was a panelist at the EnneaSummit 2024 for the Enneagram Practitioner Panel.

In this panel, we share our experiences and observations about what different Enneagram types think they need in therapy, what they actually need, and some important growth steps so they can grow beyond their type.

Panelists:

• Whitney Russell Stabile, MS, LPC-S, CEDS-C (Type 1)

• Eden Hyder, LPC, LCMHC-QS (Type 2)

• Leslie Bley, LPC-S (Type 6)

• Joanne Kim, LMFT (Type 4)

Get the EnneaSummit All Access Pass so that you can see the 30+ other talks, including with Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Curt Thompson!

Transcript

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I have four panelists with me, all of whom are professional therapists. We have some amazing panels today, as you can see on the schedule. We have a heart types panel, a gut types panel, a head types panel, a parents panel, but this particular panel is for creating some space to talk about mental health.

With some mental health professionals about their observations about each Enneagram type in therapy. So this panel is going to be perfect, for any Enneagram enthusiast looking to get insights or patterns about how their type approaches mental health, and maybe what some of the barriers might be to, you know, healing and growth, but this panel is also going to be perfect for therapists who use the Enneagram or are thinking about using the Enneagram more in their practice.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to our panelists. Um, we have, uh, Whitney Russell Stabile. Can you just wave so we can, and we have Eden Heider and then Leslie Bley and then Joanne Kim. And Eden is on the heart types panel along with Joanne. So you can go over to the heart size panel and hear a little bit more of their story.

But before we jump into our observations, I'd love for you guys just to give a little brief bio of yourself so we can get to know you. Whitney, would you mind going first? Sure.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): So I'm Whitney and I'm married to Joel Stabile and we have four wonderful kids. We're a blended family. So it's a yours, mine and ours situation.

So there's lots of lovely logistics that go along with that. Um, I've been a therapist since 2009 and, um, I'm a licensed professional counselor supervisor. I'm a certified eating disorder specialist consultant. I'm also EMDR trained, and I own a group practice called Brave Haven Counseling in Richardson, Texas.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Amazing. And you are type one, correct?

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Yes, that is right. And you made the type one go first. Like I didn't get to learn what to expect from what everybody else said.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I know you're prepared. So, Eden, would you introduce yourself?

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yes, I am Eden Heider. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, formerly lived in Texas and partnered with Whitney in the past, um, which has been really fun.

I have a practice with my husband, Michael Heider, who's also a therapist. He's an Enneagram 9. I'm an Enneagram 2. And, the practice is called Inside Out Collaborative. Also have some creative projects that I've dabbled in over the years. One is a podcast called Inside Out Podcast, which focuses on attachment and providing kind of psychoeducational material on attachment and how to integrate that into our concepts of ourselves and our relationships.

And that's kind of where my specialty is as well as an eating disorders and, anxiety and depression.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Great Eden. Thank you.

And we have Leslie Bley who have interviewed on a past summit. And so it's good to have you back. Leslie, would you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): I live in Austin, Texas. I have been a therapist for about 20 years. I'm an LPC and supervisor here and I am married to an Enneagram nine. I'm an Enneagram six and my husband and I have twin boys that are 13. So it is a lot of unique smells and sounds and sites in my house, but it's a lot of fun.

And then part of my practice is working with groups. I run a group for women throughout the year called Compassionate Community Therapy, and it's modeled after attachment and motion regulation, story work. And then I also run groups for therapists called Business Vitality, and it's to help support therapists who are often feeling super alone in their own formation and in their business sense.

And I come from a business background, but a therapist heart. And so I try to mix those in these support and business, you know, style groups. And then I also try to do regular Enneagram for counselors, uh, trainings and webinars since there's not a whole lot out there giving tons of real straightforward.

You know, credible ways to integrate this into our world. So that's me.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thank you, Leslie. And not, but last but not least, Joanne Kim, would you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So I am an Enneagram and brain spotting therapist in the Silicon Valley. So in the San Francisco Bay area, and I, in classic or fashion where I get bored very easily, I have three businesses that now I think about on, like, I probably should have just stuck with the one, um, but, I love what I do, in my therapy practice.

A lot of my clients are nines, ones, twos, and fours. So most of the right side of the enneagram, because my people tend to struggle with a lot of anxiety, guilt, and shame. Partially because they have an allergic reaction to anger. So one of my hats is as an Enneagram therapist. So my other hats are around creating a, an online school for feelings, because there's a lot of things that I cover with my clients where they're like, I really wish I'd learned this in school.

And I'm like, got it. I will make one. So, um, that is my joy. It keeps me up at night. Just cause it's a lot of work, but, it's something that I feel like I've been brought on this planet to do so. I am a self preservation for, married to a social one. With my work wife who is a sexual tooth. And so I got both of my aerotypes covered and w definitely grow and stretch each other in all the interesting ways possible So happy to be here and happy to share things related to mental health and how the Enneagram helps inform our path forward.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Wonderful. Thank you so much, Joanne. Okay. So here's what we're going to do. We are going to go around the Enneagram starting with type one, and I want to spend about five to seven minutes or so on each Enneagram type, talking about maybe one or two observations that you all have, not all of you have to share about each type because we have to put some boundaries and limitations on our time.

It's hard enough to do, to talk about the Enneagram with one person for, for an hour, but it's, it's going to be a little challenging, but I think we're going to. We're going to be able to uncover some great stuff today. So let's start with type one and we can just, just jump in. And really, again, what we're trying to do is just to share some observations so that we can help people maybe recognize some patterns in their own type, and also to help some therapists who are interested in using the Enneagram in their practice to know what to expect if somebody wants to do the Enneagram and, and what to look out for.

So super excited about this, this conversation. So, anyone can jump in now. What about type ones? What do you, what are you seeing in your practice?

Perfection in Progress: How Enneagram Ones Navigate Trust and the Long Journey of Therapy

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): I'll say that sometimes type ones are looking for the perfect therapist, so they often struggle with just kind of the imperfection and journey of therapy.

Once they, it takes them a while to really trust a therapist because that inner critic and all of the, the deep shame that they have, like it's going to be a while before they're really vulnerable with that deep stuff. And then once they have established that bit, it's really hard to leave that therapist.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): So you are saying that Leslie too, when they don't terminate, they just want to continue on in therapy for a really long time? Is that what you're saying?

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): Yeah, or just not want to even consider transitioning maybe to a different modality. Maybe it's time to work on something from a different angle, but that trust is established and it just doesn't feel easy or good to leave.

And that's been my experience with multiple Enneagram Ones.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Yeah, I like thinking about Ones as the improvers, because often they're like called the perfectionists and reformers, and I think that applies to some Ones, but the spirit of the term improver I think captures like the intentions of those who are Ones, and Often other people experience them as being like critical or judgmental, but it's really from this like sense of being connected with this ideal of like the perfect world or how the world ought to be.

And so it can be really lonely for a lot of ones who have that sense because other people don't see it. And so I think one of the things that often get missed with ones is that sadness from. Not being seen in one's experiences, being on this like mission to like help the planet be better. And then also being misunderstood and rejected by other people.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Do you guys see any particular mental health challenges or disorders? I know a few of you specialize in eating disorders and things like that. Do you see any patterns there with type 1s?

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Do you guys see any particular mental health challenges or disorders? I know a few of you specialize in eating disorders and things like that. Do you see any patterns there with type 1s?

Type 1s tend to be more on the like, Restrictive behaviors and or over exercising everyone. I tell people like when they slip over into seven, there might be some binging there, but then they'll come back to one and then be mad at themselves for all the things that they did at seven.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That makes sense.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): That;s control.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, there's a, there's a, a need for that. Yeah. That structure, which I think that the passion for justice, which comes from that really sweet space, almost that, that connection to that ideal that you were talking about Joanne, that need for control and structure.

And I think the eating disorder can really. As well as maybe other mental health systems can offer like a respite from the world, which feels out of control or from their emotions, which feel out of control at times.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): I'd say like, anxiety and depression has a certain flavor for ones in that. I mean, I think for ones like depression doesn't look how we typically think of depression like being in one's feels and like, just like, you know, whining and complaining, but it's more of like the existentially type, like in being more resigned, being resigned, like, I don't get to have my wants and needs because like I have to always be on and be responsible.

And so it's kind of one's own individuality, personal wants and needs kind of take the back seat if it's like available at all. And so there's this, I mean, I think that's partially why there's so much resentment buildup, but it's not necessarily just resentment because other people aren't willing to show up for them.

Once I've actually eliminate that option for other people by stepping into those roles themselves first, but to step away from that feels really scary because then it's out of control and out of their agency. It's kind of a cycle that they get into.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Ones usually do look super functional and a lot of the mental health stuff that they're going through like even with OCD or depression, anxiety, eating disorders are usually still very functional, which I think is one of the reasons why it's hard for them to see that there that there's a problem.

Like, my therapist tells me I'm a long sufferer. Like, it takes me a long time. To actually like acknowledge that there's a problem because I can be so functional.

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): And isn't that kind of the power of anger as your core emotion to like keep You feeling active. It's very energizing. Right. Doesn't feel depressed.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Alright, let's move on to type 2. I'm curious about Eden's experience.

Boundaries & Burdens: Navigating Shame & Stability in Enneagram Twos

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah.

Oh man. Yeah. When I see type 2's, I think I see it's because there's so much relational instability um, or distress distress And it's the relationship or the relational instability that brings them in, which is often interpreted as their own failure. They've, they're failing in the relationship. And so they're coming in, um, and I think that can translate to a lot of resentment.

Sometimes it can go into a lot of shame, a lot of shame. And I think kind of what you said, Joanne, like telling a one, like. What if you tried to not improve? What if you tried to actually get worse, get worse? Right. In a way, I'm telling it to is what if you tried to set boundaries, it feels, you know, counterintuitive to a two that's struggling with their relationship because that feels like you're creating more conflict.

You're creating more distress. And that is really anxiety-provoking.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): For, I tell two is like, we have to set boundaries. But then the second part is you have to reinforce the boundary and you also have to manage your own feelings about reinforcing the boundary because there is that fear of the disruption in the relationship, but also the shame and guilt that they feel after they set the boundary.

Usually tends to allow them to not reinforce the boundary later. It’s like, they'll say, no, I'm not going to do that. And then they feel so much shame and guilt about saying no. And then they're like, okay, I'll do it. Yeah, there's 2 parts to the boundary battle.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): So boundary work is just gonna be a big deal when, when twos in, in therapy.

And I'm next door as a three to the twos. And I, I, I resonate with, with that as well, like setting a boundary with kids or in parenting or anything. And then feeling like the bad guy for, for doing that and then having to wrestle with that. So I, uh, yeah, that's really insightful.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Usually have to give a disclaimer to like two clients who are coming in for therapy.

I'm like, well, I have to kind of assess where they are 'cause. If someone is like, really fused with the type 2 structure, then it's like, well, relationship is everything and so they come in for therapy. As long as their relationship, there's some stuff going on, but then once they resolve those relationships, they're like, well, I'm done.

Right? So they just like, leave, but there are a lot of people who come in and they're like, I don't know why I keep getting in the cycle where, like, I'm putting in so much work. Yeah, in these connections and like, why won't they love me type of thing. And so with those people, I'm like, I'm just going to give you a heads up.

You're going to come in thinking that the main thing is related to relationships. And what is actually going to happen is we're going to work on your connection with yourself just to give them a heads up. Cause not everyone wants that. And so then they can like move on to the next best spot. It's like, people who do know about the enneagram have an easier time sitting with that idea and that they keep like, getting themselves into the cycle.

They can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That’s really helpful, Joanne. That it's sort of therapy's sort of a conditional on a relationship. You might think, well, I need help because this relationship's out of whack. I need help on that. And then I'll leave. And you're like, no, stay, stay.

We need to work on, on you. That's good. Yeah.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): But I think if people are in that place, like as therapists, I'm like, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. If anything else comes up in the future, let me know, just kind of leave the door open because I think twos are also more attentive to the relationship between them and the therapist and so like, I, I try to be more mindful about not imposing an agenda that might get them to like, make sure that I'm okay. Or I like them. So I kind of leave things a bit more open ended and it's like, yeah, whatever you're bringing in, like, let's work on that. And if they seem like, you know, I don't know if there's some, something more to this, then I might bring things up more directly. Um, because even knowing what's going on behind the scenes for twos might feel really painful because it feels so embarrassing compared to like fours who like, want you to tell them like all the. Deep dark. It's like, they're usually like, I want you to tell me that I'm not okay with them. I need to take it more lightly.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I think Michael Sheehan pointed out that in my interview with him, that a lot of times twos are so nice. They're asking him lots of questions. He's like, no, we need to ask you, I need to ask you the questions.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. I have twos that will, they just, They, they need those, like, first couple minutes of like, checking in with me almost.

And, and we've discussed that and, and made that kind of a part of our contract just to kind of ease them into the process. And I do think twos can struggle. With therapy, especially if they haven't been in therapy before, they may need know that they need help and know that they need to be there sitting in the room, but be very uncomfortable with the focus being on them and not really know what to do without data coming from the other person.

About how they're doing, what they need, how they should be in the room with the therapist.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): It's that whole dependency situation. A two really defines themselves based on what the feedback they're getting from the person that they're sitting there in relationship with currently, and if they're not getting any of that, they don't know what to do. You know It's that whole dependency situation. A two really defines themselves based on what the feedback they're getting from the person that they're sitting there in relationship with currently, and if they're not getting any of that, they don't know what to do. You know, so they're really like, when we are challenging them and saying, listen, you're the one that we're going to focus on. You're the one that all the attention is going to be on. They don't know what to do with that. It's like kind of a little disorienting for them to be the focus and to not be getting that feedback about.

You're doing a good job or I really like you or, you know, like we're, we're vibing, you know, as the kids, the kids, yeah, the last thing that I'll say just very specifically as an eating disorder therapist. I have never had a two in my office that hasn't believed this belief that I'm about to say. They believe that the way their body looks is either going to keep somebody in relationship with them or separate and disrupt a relationship.

And so, Then managing how their body looks through, like, exercise or diet or whatever is like, really important because that is threatening to whether they will have the relationship, whether people will love them or not and I have never sat in a in a session with the two that didn't believe that.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Do you know if that's the case for different genders? TBD. I'll get back with you.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's really good. Okay, let's talk about type threes.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): I don't find a whole lot of threes in my practice because they're often looking for coaches. Unless they're dragged into couples therapy and even then kind of things kind of flame out because. Yeah. The either the shape shifting nature of the three and trying to like look good in front of the therapist or they're like, this is not moving fast enough.

Like, let's go or feelings are too slow. Like, why are we bogging down the process? And so I, I, when I've worked with threes, I like, I feel like there's like a very small window in the beginning where I need to say a very concise version of why the Enneagram is important. And how their type 3 pattern fits.

So that I can, like, map out the sequence. And that we're right here, so this section in the middle might feel like a waste of time. But this is actually the fastest way to get there. And because of that window closes, then I'm like, I don't know if they'll just leave and they don't know if it was actually useful.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): I had every single 1 of those bullet points listed. So I agree. I do think that 3s can, whether they're coming, you know, is 1 thing, but I think they can be a little bit of a flight risk. It's like they've, they've worked just enough to find a little bit of relief. And then they, they're gone cause that patient is real that they have a, they really struggle with that.

The only other thing that I would say is like, if you've been working with the 3 and they've revealed some behaviors to you that aren't, you know, like, super pretty behaviors that they are really struggling with, they're probably not going to bring them up again. And so like, you have to be the one that kind of intentionally checks in with them about that.

Clients who struggle with porn or addiction or, you know, any other things, cheating. And so I have to be the one that's like, Hey, how are you doing with that? Cause they're not going to bring it up again.

Beyond Achievement: Uncovering the True Self of Enneagram Threes Through Relationships & Vulnerability

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. The threes that I've had in, in my office one day, Therapy can become another subcategory of their performance of their like, I want to accomplish something here.

And so they can show up as very on task and as very like, Oh, you did. Wow. You've accomplished all these things. You've done all these things, or, wow, you've done so much work, and a lot of, I've got a lot of circling back with them that I do and actually, what I've found really interesting with my three clients is family therapy or some type of family or couples where you're seeing them in the relationship where, where oftentimes they're not feeling as competent or there is right.

Something that's happened. And that's been, that's been probably the most revealing, you know, of seeing what's, what's there in a three and then also where I've seen so much healing as well.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): So good. Type four. I'm just kidding. I'm a type, I'm a type of three. I just want to say this is really good. And I hope the three is listening. If there's any are receiving this because it's so, it's so valuable. What, I've done counseling once. And it's so hard and just signing up for it, going to the office and just feel this so attached to feeling like a failure.

Like, I must be doing something wrong to be in this office getting help. And I also think that, yeah, we can, if we're doing it alone, we can sort of be a chameleon and present our best self and be the best kind of client for you. Where when I do premarital counseling and I'm doing some, some. Pre marital counseling, with a couple of different, a few different couples right now.

And it's really helpful to see them with another person in the room because you can see the reactions, how they communicate. So I really, I like that Eden. I think that's really helpful to know is you can get to know the three a little bit better when you're. So good. Type four. I'm just kidding. 'm a type, I'm a type of three. I just want to say this is really good. And I hope the three is listening. If there's any are receiving this because it's so valuable. What I've done counseling once. And it's so hard and just, just signing up for it, going to the office and just feel this so attached to feeling like a failure.

Like, I must be doing something wrong to be in this office getting help. And I also think that, yeah, we can, if we're doing it alone, we can sort of be a chameleon and present our best self and be the best kind of client for you. Where when I do premarital counseling and I'm doing some, some. Pre marital counseling, with a couple of different, a few different couples right now.

And it's really helpful to see them with another person in the room because you can see the reactions, how they communicate. So I really, I like that Eden. I think that's really helpful to know is you can get to know the three a little bit better when you're.

Dealing with them, because a lot of times that friction will be in their relationships because they'll be working so hard and that's what it will be that their spouse or their kids will feel neglected.

They're burnt out all those things and as a self press 3 kind of like a 1 kind of like a self press for like, we can be very like masochistic, very like. Just grinding, grinding, grinding, and no one knows that anything's wrong under the surface.

So it takes a lot for me to actually show if there's something wrong.

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): When something you just said, Tyler, with The threes I've gotten to work with and I've, I've had a handful that have just come, you know, to improve. Two things. One is generally when there's like a pretty decent sized stressor to that happens during our relationship, that therapy totally jettisons into something different.

Really starts to get to the heart of things, but almost like with a seven, you, sometimes there needs to be kind of a catalyst, whether it's someone else in the room or a marriage that falls apart or a relationship or a job that falls apart that was really on their milestone benchmark list, that they really begin to do the actual feeling work that is more balancing for them.

And the other thing is there's so much, and this is heart triad, there's, They want to achieve in work and in relationships. There's such a tension I see with threes of succeeding in marriage and family and succeeding in jobs and that sort of work life balance, tension that they have to find at some point.

And I think that's been really neat to watch. They have such big, you have such big hearts, not just trying to climb the ladder, you know, at your job. You also want to be the best dad or the best. Or, you know, I appreciate that tension for threes.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Great thoughts, Leslie. Yeah. I think that's just helpful to, for threes to help us normalize getting help, counseling, that just part of the process of life that you're not a failure, or doing something wrong.

It's, it's normal. That's really helpful to have that people remind us of that.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So in the Bible for therapists, the DSM that highlights all these mental health disorders, whatever, in the personality disorder section, there's basically a go to personality disorder for all of the nine types, except for type three.

And I think that's partially because the United States is a very three ish 3 ish, 8 ish culture, and there's a lot of image orientation, things like that. And so. And I'm also, you know, in the Silicon Valley, which is I think very geared towards threes, like the social context really matters in that if a three has shapeshifted into being the successful persona, according to their immediate context, they're not going to be able to see that their personality patterns themselves are an issue.

That's why everyone else usually complains about the three instead of the person realizing it for themselves. And so there are certain professions like, anyone who has a public, platform or a pulpit who thinks that they're doing really well, not knowing that that's actually reinforcing their ego structure.

And so I think it's important for different organizations like communities, churches, whatever, to recognize that. It is a magnet for certain personalities. And that when they shine, that's actually their ego talking. It's not really who they are. And that's part of the reason why it's so hard for the threes to actually get help because they don't know that they're struggling.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah, I totally agree with that, Joanne. And I wish I could elaborate on that, but, for the sake of time, we'll keep moving here, but I think you said enough really helpful things for, for threes. Okay. Let's, let's move to type fours. What do you want to say about type four?

Joanne, do you want to jump in as a type, as our type four?

Therapy as a Playground: Challenging Enneagram Fours' Ego Trap and Shifting from Introspection to Action

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): I mean, in fours fashion, I'm going to say something controversial. So, disclaimer, I think therapy, psychotherapy itself is a fours playground. Because therapy is designed in helping people focus on their internal world and their thoughts and feelings and their past and their trauma and all that kind of stuff.

And to like, you know, really do all this intersectional work that fours know how to do for free. They can do it on their own time. And so I think the trap for fours is that they seek therapy and like end up becoming the therapist's favorite client because the therapist doesn't need to do much work because the four clients already there doing the things that a therapy client is supposed to do.

And I think there's kind of this feedback loop that happens where the four client doesn't necessarily get healthier. Because their ego pattern is just playing itself out in therapy. And so it's important for therapists to know that is the bias that's baked into the profession of therapy, kind of like how coaching can be very like three ish, eight ish, and that my style as a therapist has changed over time to be more coaching like, because what a lot of for clients need is not more focusing on feelings and dredging up all the gunk.

But to get their asses in gear and to like, say, Hey, these things you think is not available to you. And that's why you're struggling so much, partially because you've identified with being a suffering person. But what if you actually have good things readily available to you already? It's not out there somewhere and maybe the only thing that's needed is for you to actually like, Map out the concrete steps and break it down into smaller pieces and actually follow through with those steps in the type one ish Aero type way not a lot of fours are up for that And so in that sense, I think it takes some discernment on the therapist part to recognize like what's the nature of client?

I'm working with here. If there are four are they here to reinforce their identity as a suffering person? Or do they recognize the trap that they're caught in and they want something different? Because if, if that's the case, we need to not do therapy as well. It's traditionally been, we actually need to do more action orientation and more body work.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): So, brilliant Joanne. Thank you for sharing that. Cause I know there's a lot of, uh, fours watching. I can see a lot of fours getting excited about this summit and a lot of therapists are fours, they're just brilliant at this, so what you shared the kind of the caution there, or the kind of pattern to look out for is just extremely beneficial.

The conversation. So I'm so glad to have you here to share that.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): So, brilliant Joanne. Thank you for sharing that. Cause I know there's a lot of fours watching. I can see a lot of fours getting excited about this summit and a lot of therapists are fours, they're just brilliant at, at this, so what you shared the kind of the caution there, or the kind of pattern to look out for is just extremely beneficial.

The conversation. So I'm so glad to have you here to share that.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Yeah, I, I agree with all of that. Like, I think that my job. Working with four is to help them like organize their thoughts and emotions because they can just sit there and swirl And go down deep into them and my job and i'm good at it because i'm a one and that's what I do It's like these go here these go here these go here and now we're gonna now we need to make a plan. You know like holding them accountable to the action um, because I think they The other piece and you touched on this, but like they over identify with their feelings so much like sometimes they really fear any kind of healing.

So it's like, hey, what if we aren't this depressed person anymore? Or what if we aren't like, Really riddled in the shame what then, you know, they don't know who they would be because they over identify with those feelings so much that it can, like, even just imagining a place where they don't experience that is really hard and familiar.

And the other thought was, they, whether they have it or not, they can present as looking like they have ADHD. And attentive type because they can get so distracted by all the shiny objects. And because they are repressed doing, they don't get a lot done and they struggle with like motivation to do ordinary tasks.

And that's what I see a lot. And my clients is. It's like, whether they actually do have ADHD or not, sometimes I just treat them as if they do. And it usually works.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): This is, this is so good. Do you guys find that force? Do they, do you feel like they're so introspective that they don't need therapy?

Or do they kind of, once they get into therapy, like type ones, they kind of stay in therapy for a long time? What, what have you guys observed?

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Introspection is not self awareness. If they keep recycling the same thing over and over again. Yep. They're more self focused She's so part of it. You're a little

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): echo chamber.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Yeah. Yeah, and so focusing on relationships, I think is an important way in To the self, to the fours work, because other people are in the floor fours slash zone. So there's a lot of this like push and pull dynamic or like pursuer withdrawer dynamic where like, kind of depending on what type of the other people are, if it's, let's say a group context, like work or community, family, church, whatever, it's like, Being the black sheep, the whistleblower, the rebel, like exile, whatever.

There's kind of like a social role piece to the four. And then if it's more of like a one on one relationship, it's like, like magnets, like that switch back and forth. If the person's closed, they get bored and they want the drama and the intensity because they're intensity junkies. And so they're like, I don't want, I don't want to be around you.

Or like, I don't deserve to be around you. And then when the person's far away, I was like, Oh, I missed you so much. That whole thing. So I think because relationships are more concrete than existential, you know, deep purpose, meaning oriented topics where, you know, force can have ideas of the people they're in relationships with and there's the actual people involved.

So sometimes like inviting in their partner or their family member might be helpful so the therapist can see, Oh, like. I had this whole idea. Of this person based on how the four describe them. And now I see this person as they actually are. And there's a world of a difference.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's good. Introspection is not self awareness.

That is really a good statement.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Fours will get offended by that though. I'll just give you a heads up.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Well, before we go to fives, I, I just want to say, I do appreciate all the fours watching and the, those who are therapists, you know, you look at guys like Dr. Kurt Thompson and other fours who are just leading voices.

Cause they, it's just, they get the internal world there when they're healthy. They're just, Prophetic in our culture, uh, and really helpful, especially right now, since post COVID, since there's just a boom of people that are needing help and coming to you guys. So we, yeah, I, I really appreciate the fours and I want them to hear that before we, before we transition to fives.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Very short. Self preservation fours are the fours that don't look like fours. They look like all the other types. Depending on their mood. And the main piece for them is that they're the ones who suffer silently solo and they get mistyped a lot and sometimes get turned off by the Enneagram because of that.

And so for self pressed fours, they need, their growth path involves Practicing more of the traditional four ish behaviors, like complaining more often in real time to more people, which feels like pulling teeth, but it's absolutely necessary for them to recognize just how much they're struggling outside of this idea of, I need to be a strong person who can withstand a lot of things.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): It's good, Joanne. Thank you. All right, let's transition to fives. What do you guys have for fives?

I don't see many fives unless they're brought in for a marital. So I'm, I'm curious. About the rest of you and your experience with fives.

Breaking Down Barriers: Navigating the Emotional Guard of Enneagram Fives in Relationships

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): I would agree with that. Leslie, when I, when I see fives coming in, it's with a partner, often, and it's when I, when I think about attachment styles, I think about that avoidant attachment style.

So you've probably got an avoidant attached person, the partner that's fucked any room five, and then you've got them paired. Maybe with an anxious style and they activate each other and they're coming in to kind of work on that.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): And man, just the one triggering the other triggering the other. Yeah.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah. I've noticed you just doing Ingram work, not as a therapist. It's really hard to get them to open up because of the privacy. They have such good boundaries and they don't want me talking about the Enneagram a lot of times because it feels like I'm getting to their reading their mail, jumping over the fence, getting into the castle and can very, very uncomfortable.

And so that's interesting to hear you guys kind of say that you've experienced a little bit of that in therapy as well, that it's kind of hard to get, get over the wall or those privacy fences.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Yeah. My experience with fives. I've, I've seen a couple and you won't get the full picture until you've been working with them for like a year and then they'll drop this bomb on you and they're like, Oh my God, everything makes sense.

Now it's like this really pertinent piece of information. And then you finally get the full picture and then you're like, all right, now we can do some work.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Oh, my goodness.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): It's fascinating. It's fascinating. It happened to me with one of my fives I was working with recently. I was like, why have we never talked about this?

And she's like, you know. She never asked. She knows the Enneagram too. So we kind of had a good laugh about it.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Besides like relationship issues, professionally fives can struggle a lot. Because they spend so much time in their head and don't take a whole lot of action being actually repressed, like they can mull over something in for forever and then make a decision kind of more reluctantly because there's like a deadline or like stuff like that.

And so they might extend a whole lot more mental energy than the task actually requires. So that's been a struggle that I've. seen quite often and um, either teammates at work or spouses get super frustrated because like there's this delay effect.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Leslie, I think you were going to share something in. And then I also want to hear from you guys if there's any like general anxiety disorder or if there's any other disorders that you see with fives.

I would be curious to know what you see.

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): Well, I was just going to say, similar to Joanne sharing about, um, the space and the time need. I see a lot of fives that need the encouragement to be allowed to answer questions off the cuff, which is very uncomfortable for a lot of fives. They would prefer to speak accurately and accuracy takes time and reflection and information. And so being allowed to say, you can change your answer down the road. We're not holding you to this. I would just love to hear what you are. able to track or notice and you can circle back anytime it's okay to not quite get it, but there's this, there's just a tension around speaking off the cuff for a lot of fives and therapy is so in the moment so often.

And I think that I've seen that barrier.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah. One thing I've noticed with my own mother is a type five is maybe this is Like the, like share with the ones, they, they're looking for the perfect therapist like I know for my mom, my mother is a five and a wonderful five. There's only like a particular kind of person that she'll go to.

And so maybe is it a little bit like that too? Does it maybe fives have a hard time of going to a therapist that they view as maybe competent or, You know, I don't know if you've seen that, but I was just thinking about that off the top of my head.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): I wonder if there's a conflict between what they want and what they need when they're looking for a therapist.

What they, what they're wanting is someone who's right, as intellectual as they are, can kind of recite things to them, can lay it out very, um, rationally and logically, but maybe what they need is someone who can sit there and hold space and invite the emotion, invite the questions, invite uncertainty, and let that be a safe place for them to feel that.

But I think there's a conflict there.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): If there's any further thoughts, you can jump in. Otherwise let's move to type six.

Embracing the Pendulum: How Naming Duality Brings Freedom and Clarity to Enneagram Sixes

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): This is my number. I can jump in and say something since I'm a six and I've done a lot of therapy, on both sides of the chair. I really think being allowed to name, and this is how the Enneagram changed my life and it felt again, like kind of somebody had put Jumped into my backyard and had been stalking me and all that exposure was, was challenging.

But to name these dualistic experiences of having some love hate for things, having some fear and courage for things, having this extreme dependent times and extreme independent times, almost showing up like disorganized attachment, if you're familiar with kind of the sort of bifurcation of, of both anxious and avoidant styles.

And there's just a lot that feels kind of like this internal turmoil. And until a lot of sixes get any, Enneagram language, they can just feel kind of crazy. Anything from paranoid to, bipolar to, I mean, just to have somebody name this internal phobic to counter phobic continuum in a way that's safe and feeling seen and loved in that and where the gifting is in that, I think, is is huge for sixes.

And it's been really important for my own freedom, my own work to not feel like I am two different people, even though I can experience these extreme differences and this back and forth. That's really good. Leslie.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Yeah, Leslie, I'm married to a six, so I wish I would have heard that 18 years ago to know that I was marrying a, a bundle of opposites who could, you know, swing on a pendulum and.

And to just show compassion and have empathy for that and come alongside them and not, not freak out about it.

I wonder if one thing that gets outsourced by sixes is power and authority, disconnecting from their own power and authority, projecting it outwards, and then someone else takes on that power and authority.

And then the six, depending on the subtype, have different ways of interacting with the projected person. So having this sometimes conflictual relationship with authority figures or like completely fusing and aligning with them and that because of that the growth path for six is involved Recognizing that a lot of their mental activity or their anxiety or whatever comes from them having disconnected from their own power their work is to Bring that back, take ownership, make a decision, be decisive, and then own the outcomes of their decision knowing that they can make new decisions along the way so that they don't need to make this huge big decision up front that might set them off on a forever path and having more boldness and courage to face reality.

Each moment for what it is.

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): I mean, just saying to sixes, what do you want in this situation? What are you thinking? What are you hoping for? What's been working for you? What's not been working for you? Anything that they can name on their own. Cause we're, we're a both and. We are a flight risk cause we get suspicious that you're seeing something wrong with us.

And we are over relying on authorities. And so there's kind of this, um, challenge there. We don't want to over rely on a therapist authority. We need to develop that gut centered self attachment. But then we also don't, we can be a flight risk if we feel unsafe or we perceive something is unsafe in the relationship.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): The one thing that I'll say about working with sixes is that, you know, they, because they're thinking dominant and thinking repressed. They are really good at rationalizing a lot of their fears and all of their worst case scenarios and They do really value their ability to kind of scan the horizon And so like a therapist does have to be very gentle and they're challenging of those like thinking patterns because A six identifies with them very strongly.

And so if you're like, hey, that's not totally real, or that's not totally a great way of thinking, that, that can be really challenging for the therapeutic relationship. So you have to be really gentle in how you challenge some of their anxieties and some of their fears.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I think to Leslie's point, and then what, what you shared.

Whitney, that's just me talking, not as a therapist, cause I'm not one, but just from experience of having, you know, maybe being married to a six and then also having a counterphobic six son, there's lots of conversations about authority, and I'm not sure if that plays out in therapy with, with sixes of like, maybe, you know, kind of directing your attention towards some of those issues in their life and helping them work through issues of authority, like being, uh, overly trusting of authority.

Like I know my wife is very trusting of me. It makes me makes me wonder sometimes like I think she's she's leaning on me too much or trust me too much. Like she's fighting for me like an eight. And I'm like, I don't know if I deserve that. And or she should be doing that. She's just so like loyal, you know, to me.

And then my son is just, you know, rebel kind of as a counterphobic six, just rebels against all authority, even, and he's like a master rationalize, rationalize, or you know, he finds ways to get out of being under my authority.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): It also sounds like your son has a seven wing. He's able to figure out how to get out from under your authority pretty easily or quickly.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I don't know. I mean, it feels like he acts as it's both pretty well. Anything else, uh, observations on sixes? Oh, go ahead, Eden.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. I was just going to say, as you said, authority, I really thought of the word safety. And I think that is, that is what authority and like that's the testing of authority and the counter is a counter phobic, right?

That pushes against the is really wanting to know that they're safe, that they're going to be safe right. In these, in these relationships in life. And, and when I when I'm working with sixes, I think that's part of the work that I do. Even like, Hey, what's what makes you feel safe in this room?

Right? Like kind of building up that internal sense and intuitive sense of safety and power, Joanne, like that there's, they can hold that sense or what gives them that sense on their own apart from. These outsourced source of power

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): lines, like moving away from polarization and more integration that they can be steady and exposed to risk all at the same time, that one does not negate the other, but it's more like knowing how to rest in that in between

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): and build up the tolerance for feeling unsafe sometimes, because.

Yeah, it is not a safe. This is not a safe world in a lot of ways. It's not guaranteed, right? And so building the eat and I love your, like, what is safe for you? How do we create that? But then at the same time, building the tolerance around not always feeling safe, but feeling connected and embodied, like Joanne was saying, that's so important.

Then the more you, the more sixes trust their gut, the more they can weather unsafe times, unsafe or truly unsafe experiences.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): This has been great guys, talking about issues, authority, safety, like you mentioned, Eden, helping them to feel safe. No, you know, a lot of sixes struggle with, with anxiety.

And so helping them with that and helping to give them compassion for outworking of their strength of protecting of seeing what could go wrong in order to protect Their loved ones. And so that they feel like they're hardwired with vigilance, uh, for a positive reason to, to protect. And you can see why they would get anxious.

That vigilance is starting to get out of hand a little bit, but just to be a source of. Bring a sense of reassurance and comfort to them to help them to realize that they're not the problem, that this is, there's not something wrong with them, is, is incredibly helpful. Okay, should we, let's move to type sevens.

Navigating the Painful Paradox: Understanding Enneagram Sevens and Their Unique Relationship with Hardship

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): That hard is harder for sevens. That is my internal mantra. And I believe it and I feel for them in it.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Does anybody want to build off of that? Hard is harder? What you mean by that, Leslie? Or or anything you want to, else you want to share?

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): I mean, what I mean by that is the tolerance for suffering, if it hasn't been, been built and it gets built in different ways, and often it gets built in ways you didn't sign up for, but the tolerance for pain, the tolerance for hard things for, taking responsibility for themselves, for moving away from satisfaction and demand from.

moving away from more is more. It just seems to me that their capacity and tolerance around suffering is just very challenging for them. Very, if it doesn't, if it can't kind of be moved forward quickly or bypassed with, information or something, it's, it's just so hard. To weather, a lot of the pain of just suffering of various kinds.

So to me, I really do feel for them that the hard feels a lot harder, um, than maybe some of us might approach hard. And

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): I would almost say it's like, they're not even experiencing the suffering. So it's almost like they're not, they haven't like built a tolerance. There's so much compartmentalization of the suffering.

I'm married to a seven, so I, I can talk all day about what goes on with the seven. In my experience, sevens do have a lot of addiction. There's a lot of suicidal ideation, sometimes even suicidal attempts, can have a lot of anxiety, but a lot of anger at the same time. As a therapist, you will need to catch their reframing at like every turn.

Because you'll say something and challenge them and then they'll bring something else up to kind of negate what you said. And it's very rational and logical, but you gotta, you gotta catch them in it. Cause like you were saying, Tyler, like about your son, which was what was making me think that, you know, that seven wing, like they're so good.

At arguing and coming up with all different kinds of reasons about why something will work or, you know, whatever their, whatever their side of the argument is, they're so sophisticated and so quick at being able to come up with arguments for their side. And that is one of the reasons why it's really hard for them to be for them to change.

And even to be motivated to change and like, they do have to have some internal motivation or it's not going to happen. Like external motivators don't really do it. You know, I'm often telling my clients or even my clients who have 7 children, you know, like. You can try to give them all the consequences you want, like, life ultimately is going to be what teaches them those lessons, those like, unchangeable situations that they can't just negotiate themselves out of, those are the things that are going to be motivating to them, and Finally give them some kind of internal motivation for change.

They can have a lot of difficulty making life decisions. They can have difficulty caring for themselves. And I honestly think because they are, you know, that they're repressed and feeling, and they have no. intuitive line or access to feeling and emotions like emotion education and awareness is a non negotiable treatment goal.

Like, sometimes they will say that they know what emotions are, but like, do they actually experience them and emote them and talk about them with their loved ones? Like that takes so much work for a seven to be able to do and it takes a lot of patience for them as well.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Those are good thoughts, Whitney.

So what, when do, when does a seven show up in your guys office? What's, what's happened? Can you speak to that? Is it an addiction?

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Sometimes I think it's like the people in their lives that are like, we can't do this anymore. Like you have got to do something, you know, a lot of times sevens will Work their way into a relationship where the other people are changing so that they don't have to change other people are kind of picking up the slack or enabling their behaviors in a lot of ways and so a lot of times it is like the people in their lives are like listen we're not going to do that anymore and having to hold that firm firm boundary with them. That's when I see them or addiction

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): for sure.

I like thinking about sevens and the context of the idealist triangle along with ones and fours, like the three legged stool. We need all three legs to be even. It kind of like also overlaps with like the internal family system model of like the ones being the grownup, the fours being the teenagers and the sevens being the kids, but we have all of them, regardless of our type.

And when we overly rely on one leg of the stool and we underutilize the other ones, then things are just going to fall apart at some point. And so the piece that I think sevens outsource to other people, suffering responsibilities, type four, type one. And so like somebody else in their life probably occupies those positions, even if they're not ones and fours, like, there's a lot of sevens on relationships with very responsible people and they get, they get resentful.

So, you know, drag the seven into calls therapy or whatnot. But up until then, part partners or family members are the ones who are just putting in so much. And that is that external motivation like they're getting sevens are getting all this pressure from the outside because they themselves don't want to do it.

It's not personally important to them. They just need to wait out storm of the other person's complaints and eventually the person's going to give up and they're just going to do it themselves until the relationship gets so strained that the person who's been kind of nagging or whatever. It's like, I ain't doing this anymore.

I'm out. And then all of a sudden, the seventh, so I was like, well, where'd you go? And then they have all these bills to pay and like things that they completely neglected. So I think, I think a lot of times the way to get a seventh attention is that rock bottom experience, either through addictions or divorce or whatever.

They lose their job, where they don't have any more options literally available to them. And if the seven happens to make their way into therapy and they're open because they have no other options and life has already fallen apart, I like using the metaphor of the human body made of flesh and bone. If you have no structure in the human body and the, you know, it's just a bag of skin and organs on the floor, that person's not living.

In the same way that a person who's all bones and no flesh is not living either. So, structure, order, organization, responsibility, the things that the seven resists actually bring about the very life force that makes life as beautiful as it is. So, if sevens are seeking freedom, to thinking that freedom equals no limits, then they're going to paint themselves into a corner where they're completely restricted.

The opposite of which is if they actually choose limits and self limits, self imposed limits, which is basically taking responsibility. Then they have all these options available. So I think like there's some part of like maybe mentally or intellectually, like mapping that out for them saying like, I know you want freedom.

I want that for you too. Let's not get into a power struggle between the service and the client, but how can you actually give real freedom for yourself? Yeah. By voluntarily opting into some of these responsibilities. I think the power struggle piece is pretty big with sevens because they're very good at weaseling their way out of it.

And so I think it's important for therapists to not get it caught up in that either By becoming the next nagging person. So having a more neutral like more passive. Sure.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): It's good Joanne some really deep and profound thoughts there as we move to type X, we have to keep moving here and we have two more types, but I'll just make a note that.

You know, my, for, if you're, if you have a friend or family member or partner, that's assertive type, like a three, seven, or eight, or maybe a five, who doesn't want to open up. It's okay to, to, to call them out and say, Hey, I'm not okay with this anymore. This behavior, we need to go and get help. I, you know, I didn't want to get help in my marriage was struggling.

You know, maybe a four or five years in the marriage, but my wife has a six had the enough courage to say, to come out and say, this is not okay. You're working too much. You're always listening to hundreds of podcasts, filling your mind, like there's no space for me. There's a, this is a problem and she was, she will, she was able to do that as a six for nines, you know, and other times it might be harder to, to say that so we're just giving old permission here to, to come at the threes like me or the sevens or eights, if you're in married to an assertive type, or no assertive type, and it's just.

It's harder because they have more power, more energy and, but to have permission to call them out and say, Hey, we need to get some help. We'll keep you from getting stuck and so have the courage to, to get them into, to the counseling office. Okay. With that said, let's move now to the eights. What do you guys want to share about the eights?

What do you guys see?

Embracing the Power: Navigating the Intimidation and Progress Anxiety of Working with Enneagram Eights

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): I love working with eights. Um, I didn't think I would because as a six, I can be intimidated by powerful frames, frameworks, words, energy, dominant energy, that kind of thing. But I, I really enjoy working with eights, but something Joanne said, I see it, you said around threes and I think it's similar with being able to describe, this is kind of what the counseling process is.

This is what you may be frustrated by, but just know that you can get through that. We're going to get to this kind of outcome. I feel like aides in my caseload are the most likely to wonder if we're making enough progress or if they have enough of a sense of our, are we doing the things we should be doing with our time or there's just a lot of that evaluative presence around outcomes, progress.

And so I think like you said, outlining some of the ups and downs of this a linear experience can be helpful to validate for them, but it isn't going to be, maybe that linear and so, um, to normalize that early. And empathize with that early.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Leslie, I love what you said about like, when it's coming to the room and the dominant energy, I know immediately when an eight comes to the room, because you, I feel that wave of intimidation.

Right. And you're like, okay, here we are. Right. Like, gotcha. Right. Like and, and then being able to, I think in my attachment work as a therapist, I understand that as this is. Take this as this is how people outside of this room can experience this individual. And this is an experience that they have, and they, and they have that experience of people reacting against this intimidation.

And that may be part of why they're coming into the room.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's good Eden.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): In my experience working with eights, their future orientation is often what is giving them so much trouble, like within in relationships or even with themselves. Like they have a hard time like stopping. And pausing and attending to like their own physical pain or their own emotional pain because they're doing dominant they can like shut all that off and just like get the job done and move on to the next thing so that anything like any pain is often cannot be attended to.

And so. Having them slow down is really important and the thing that I see sometimes is like, we'll talk about a problem or an issue, especially an emotional one or something that's causing some kind of relational conflict. And then the next session, we don't talk about it again. And I'm like, Hey, we gotta go back around to that thing.

I know you've already moved on to, like, the next problem or the next issue, but like, this is, this is a big deal. We need to. We need to keep giving this attention, um, and they sometimes don't like that, but it is that, that future orientation. She's like, okay, well, that's done. And now I'm moving on. And now I'm going to get on with the next thing.

I also see them struggle a lot at work and like, it's the same struggle with authority, but there's this, I think, very different because they often don't see an authority figure that's worth following. And I think that's or that's doing the job that they think should be done. And so just that like conflict they see so much with their bosses or like their organization at large, doing the things that they don't agree with can often cause a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, um, a lot of just dissatisfaction.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah, that's a good observation, Whitney. That you might be talking with an eight about, yeah, work dynamics, bosses, authority figures. That's really helpful. And going back to what you said, Eden, about the privilege of working up close with an eight and seeing some of their emotions and softer side that other people don't get to see that that was really sweet, the eights are, are so great when you can get up close, with them.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): My other son's a type eight. So yeah. You got a lot of energy in that house.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah. I have a counterphobic six son and an eighth son and I'm a heart type. So I'm just like, just, yeah, yeah. Are you thankful for me? Do you love me? Why are you, why are you mad at me? That's how my, that's how my conversations go.

I realized I'm very high maintenance when it comes to. Meeting, like, love and affirmation back when, yeah, that's good.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): I think the action orientation of type eight forward movement for focus, not a whole lot of patience for the nitty gritty details that are like high level visionaries. Like, I just want this, let's get there.

Like what's in the way of why are you causing troubles? Like it's not complaining move. So in terms of like communication style with eights, I think this is a case for across all types when we're interacting with someone of a certain type, the more we double down in our own type, the more intense their patterns get.

On the other hand, if we move closer to them and act like they act generally, then that minimizes the polarization. So talking to an, a, you know, open chest, direct eye contact, like own your own power and engage them directly and get straight to the point. Don't explain a whole lot. Don't apologize. It's like, just.

Say the thing that needs to be said, say the action item, I think that would smooth out a lot of relationships just like off of that. Not all eights are angry all the time. I think that's a misconception. I think they're very big presence, very energetic, very intense. I think that maybe conflict, engagement, colliding with the eight is a form of intimacy.

So when other people pull away and they withdraw the aid, it's like, where'd you go? It comes after them. And then other people like, avoid the aid even further and that's a whole cycle. So, I think it's I think because opposites attract. Those who are in relationship with aids probably need to like, gear up and then actually own their power and strength.

And then the eight doesn't have to be as strong because someone else is doing it. Like even with like leadership, like eights don't sense that anyone else is like a good enough leader that they occupy the space. They don't themselves want to be the leader. And so I think in relationship context, that's a lot of where the eights patterns show up because relationships are in the blind spot of the eight.

And so I don't know if eights would readily. Here, like, in order for you to improve your relationships, therefore, you need to do X, Y, Z, because I don't know if they have the patience for that. But like speaking to them, like, if you want to make a bigger impact in your wife, then you have to know how to work with people.

And that is why it's important to work on relationships. It's kind of like coming in through the back door.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Well put Joanne. Okay. Let's, we got to move on to type Nate nines, uh, our last type. So let's, let's do it. Let's finish the, finish the circle here. What do you guys have for type nines?

Waking Up from Numb: Exploring the Hidden Struggles and Somatic Symptoms of Enneagram Nines

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): I'll jump in.

First off, my husband's a nine and the nines that I've interacted with in my office as well, there's such a loss of self that there's They they have no idea what they want or they want everything because everything sounds plausible right, and so there's there's kind of aimlessness. Maybe that's there.

I would also say that some nines may never even make it into the therapy office because their mental health symptoms become psychosomatic become enter their body instead of. Their, their mental health, it goes into a different category. So they're going to develop physical symptoms versus emotional symptoms.

I have nines that come in with like heart palpitations that develop or with digestive issues, and they're going to seek out support around that before they even come to a therapist, because that's the issue, not the emotions that have built up in their body.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's great, Eden. Yeah. That makes total sense.

Not even being a therapist, knowing that nine suppress their anger, deny their anger, but it's got to go somewhere. And so you're saying it shows up in the body. That's that's really insightful.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Yeah, they kind of want to avoid anything uncomfortable like uncomfortable emotions physical sensations Anything in relationships, it's uncomfortable.

They really will try to just not be present for it I had a client who gave me some really good analogies for nines and she was like It's like we play possum like something uncomfortable comes up and we're like, oh, bye They just kind of check out and they numb themselves so much. And so I think for nines, a lot of my work is just like honoring the feelings that they have instead of numbing the feelings they can be so hard to get to do any kind of like action oriented therapy work or like creating any kind of change.

So a lot of motivational interviewing. Again, you know, sometimes I have a lot of nines that show some like ADHD type symptoms. So there's a lot of kind of working through some of that. A good thing that I think it was, I think it was Joe Stabile. Suzanne's husband said one time that interesting relationship between nines and ones and anger and sadness, like when a nine is sad, they're actually angry.

And when a one is angry, they're actually sad. And so like nines do kind of tend towards more like depression or sadness. But when you really get down to it, they're probably actually really angry about something. And they've just never attended to that anger or like the boundaries that were violated or them not getting their needs met.

And so they're sad about it, but they're actually really angry. It's just so interesting to be. Kind of delving into that with them and a lot of the, like, kind of what Eden was saying, but also that more 10 tending towards depression do see quite a bit of suicidal ideation with nines as well.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Wow. That that's.

Very powerful, Whitney, the feelings having come out in sadness, I can see that with some nines to talking a lot about painful experiences in the past and continuing, continuing to talk about them and bring them up over and over again, being sort of sad about it, but it just, this, a loop that never stops.

So that, that's really helpful.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Yeah. And it's like their orientation to the past is how they define themselves. And so it's hard for them to just process through everything in the past so that they can move forward. They get really stuck. Like you were talking about.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): And great plug for ones too, to realize for yourself when you're angry, to realize that you're really sad so we can have more compassion on our ones.

That's. I've been hearing some things about nines I've never heard before. This is very, there's very helpful for me. Any last thoughts on type nines?

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): I will just say that I've been encouraging nines to do group therapy. The individual relationship can be really intense for nines cause they don't always want to do that deeper process work or they don't want to go to the anger, which they have to in order to process pain, but group work can feel a little bit like more collaborative and it can also feel like they have some shared space and it's not so intense. On them, and that maybe they can kind of build some camaraderie, with other people. And I've just seen some really big shifts when I've sent clients that are nines to do group work alongside our individual work.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): Yeah, to piggyback off of that, I mentioned earlier that like therapy itself is a very four ish space, and the four is known as the individualist, and I think that's the opposite for nines. In like blending in and merging with something else to not be a self like usually people think of like sloth as lack of activity there's a lot of action focus.

So I think for nines, it's a disconnection from self like falling asleep to oneself Disconnecting from self agency. So I think of nines like a card neutral gear or as type three. That line is like being the gas pedal and the type six being the brake pedal. You need all three to have a functioning car.

And so inaction is itself an action. And often nine to like say in relationships where I work, find themselves being more kind of reactionary to what others around them do. Not knowing that are the reason why the pressure is applied to them is because they've disconnected from their own initiative Engine, and so I've heard that like the most powerful type in all the Enneagram types is actually type 9, not type 8, not type 1, not the more like assertively known types, but when a 9 taps into their internal world like you better get out of the way. There's no stopping them. So I think a lot of body work is pretty good for better for worse.

I think nines tend to be conduits for energy. Absorbing other people's stuff or absorbing nature's energy and I think in that sense body movement Might be a good way to metabolize some of the uncomfortable experiences more than like top therapy or mental or emotional work.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah, tacking on to that, Joanne, I will point my nines to, um, spending time in nature, going to a park, sticking their feet in the earth, you know, having some way of connecting with that animal therapy, right?

Pets can be a powerful resource for nines and then body work too, those are, because there isn't, there's no perspective there to merge to, right? It feels safe in a way. Yeah.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): And cause they spend so much of their time being hypervigilant and like assessing other people and perceiving and observing everyone else kind of looking out for conflict.

Like that goes right along with what you were saying, Eden, like if they can tune into their body or nature or animals, like they don't have to be hypervigilant. Be protecting themselves.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): And the hypervigilance is very draining, very draining.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Whitney, I'd heard Suzanne say on, maybe it was in a conversation with me, I can't remember now, I think we were going around and talking about different correlations she had seen with mental health and she'd said like nines, she saw a lot of nines with ADD.

Which is now falls under the ADHD umbrella. And so the non, is it the non attentive kind of ADHD? Is that how you say it? So that's just something to be, to be aware of, uh, when you're working with nines, if you're a therapist. Or like that combined type. To you know, you mentioned Whitney, they can play possum, which is really good, a good illustration.

And just like sixes kind of swing in the pendulum of phobic to counter phobic. Do you guys experience nines is sometimes swing on the pendulum from like playing possum to then making dramatic moves. Do you see any of that that's causing any issues to be aware of? Leslie, you're nodding your head. Can you speak to that?

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): Yeah, I think from session to session, I can see the inertia principle, like whether it's they've been in low energy and so there's tons of low energy in the session or they're in that inertia and there's lots of energy. And I, I think 9th, you know, both. They're one wing and just who they are, there's a lot of idealism.

And so sometimes I say this about nines, I don't know if I'm right, but it's like they can envision things in from a three space, but they can't carry them out. And so I'll see like big endeavors or big words without the work, but like big words about what's going to happen, what they're going to do, what they're going to tackle.

But I know they don't have the energy to match that. But we need to kind of titrate down to something that is doable so they can actually feel self esteem.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's good. That's helpful. I see some other people nodding, so I must agree with you, Leslie.

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Yeah, I usually at the end of every session with the nine, we have concrete goals that they're supposed to achieve between that session and the next one.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's so good. Whitney and I have, I have a type nine. Book club right now. And one guy just emailed me today saying that he had, he had read through it, but now being in a group with other nines, he's getting so much more out of it because they're challenging each other and spurring one another on.

And so I, I like what you guys said about maybe the group work, or even just being with you, being in a room with somebody else that can hold them accountable, set goals, like you just said, Whitney. That can be incredibly helpful for a nine. So if you're nine, just know that you don't have to do it, uh, by yourself or try to do, do it alone.

So yeah, that's really good. Okay, we're out of time. Please share where we can find you guys online, uh, any resources you want to point us to. Uh, let's, let's start with you, Whitney. I would love for people to continue to learn from you like, like I've learned from you today. So where can we find you?

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): Yeah, so my group practice is Bravehaven Counseling. We're in Richardson, Texas. Um, you can find our website. www.bravehavencounseling.com. And then on Instagram, our Instagram handle is @bravehavencounseling and my individual Instagram is @whitneylpc.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Awesome. And all the links you've already given me.

So I'll put them down in the show notes. So people can easily click on those. So you don't have to take any notes right now. Thank you, Whitney. What about you, Eden? Where can we find you?

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. So I'm counsel out of Charlotte, North Carolina, but I serve Texas and North Carolina when it comes to therapy work with individuals and couples and that practice is insideout collaborative.com. And then I also do attachment coaching with couples and individuals, outside of those States as well. So that there's a little bit about that at insideoutcollaborative.com, but also edenheider.com and my Instagram is @edenheider. And that podcast that has more attachment focused, material is Inside Out Podcast.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Awesome. Thanks, Eden. Leslie, remind us where we can find you again.

Leslie Bley (Enneagram 6): Yeah, just Leslie Bley Counseling. I have a team of therapists under me here in Austin. I'm also licensed in Missouri, so Texas and Missouri residents. If you're a therapist, you can find resources like Enneagram for Counselors and the Counselor Vitality Groups that are all on that same website.

And then I'm also enneagramconsultant.com for more professional use of the Enneagram with teams and companies that want that kind of lens for understanding their staff.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Great. Thank you, Leslie. And thanks for all the, yeah, the work that you've been doing and creating community for other counselors and therapists, that's, that's been really beneficial, and Joanne, where can we find you?

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So, with my Enneagram therapist hat on, I'm in California in the Silicon Valley, and I have a freebie guide, The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types. because each of the types have different ways of dealing with the emotions, MAD, SAD, GLAD, SCARED, and NUMB. I'm also a feelings translator on the side, and that's beyond the state of California as well.

And I built a school about feelings, and in a way that's not just for heart types. Uh, so that people of whatever types can recognize that emotions have a central spot in helping us be more well rounded. They have a logic of their own and there are some action items that go along with them. So, and you can find me at intelligentemotions.com or on Instagram @intelligentemotions.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Fascinating, a feelings translator, that's, that's incredible. And like feelings resource. That's why I appreciate having all of you on the, your different anywhere, you're going to have times, you're all have different strengths. And I just want to thank you for, for joining me.

I know it's really hard. You're all professionals. You have clients. It's hard to find a time to get us all together, but we did it. And I'm so thankful for you. And I know those watching are thankful as well to have learned from you. I know I learned from something, something from each of you guys that I didn't know.

Before, and so this was really helpful to me and I know it's helpful to the Enneagram enthusiasts out there, the therapists out there. So thank you so much for just carving out this space to be a blessing to so many people. And a reminder to those watching, make sure to go back and check out all the other panels today.

The heart types, the head types, so many great panels to listen to today to really get a feel for all the Enneagram types when it comes to their own. Personal mental health stories. So make sure to go and check those out today. And if you don't have time to watch all the panels today, you can get the all access past, which will give you lifetime access to all the panels and all the sessions and all the transcripts, for this whole, any summit.

So if that's interests you, make sure to go check out that, but so much for joining us today. Before you head over to the next interview, the next panel, remember to do two things, like seek support. And share compassion because you are not alone.

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

Enneagram Heart Types Panel: Type 2, 3, and 4

(Scroll down to see the transcript or to get the All Access Pass!)

I was a panelist at the EnneaSummit 2024 for the Enneagram Practitioner Panel.

In this video, we share our experiences and observations about what different Enneagram types think they need in therapy, what they actually need, and some important growth steps so they can grow beyond their type.

Panelists:

• Eden Hyder (Type 2)

• Stephanie Cross (Type 2)

• Jordin James (Type 3)

• Amanda Nagy (Type 3)

• Joanne Kim (Type 4)

• Boonie Sripom (Type 4)

Get the EnneaSummit All Access Pass so that you can see the 30+ other talks, including with Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Curt Thompson!

Transcript

Real-Life Stories of Growth

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Welcome to the Heart Types Panel here on the Enneagram and Mental Health Summit. I have six panelists with me, two type twos, two type threes, and two type fours. And the goal of this panel is to supplement the 25 main sessions here on the summit with real life stories. And these brave individuals and coaches with me are a blessing to us because they all are going to share a little bit of their story about their own mental health journey and talk about it through the lens of their Enneagram type.

And so I have here with me, here are the six panelists. I'll start with the type twos. We have Eden. She is a licensed therapist, mom, and psychology teacher out of Charlotte, North Carolina. She is an expert in attachment and works with couples and individuals as a relationship coach across the country.

Eden also specializes in treating eating disorders in teens and adults. Currently she is, she has a thunderstorm, in her city. The next two is Stephanie Cross. She lives in Lexington, North Carolina with her husband. She has worked as a writer and editor for the last 10 years.

When she's not working, go find her at the gym, traveling, exploring outdoors and hanging out in coffee shops and working on her newest interest, writing a young adult fantasy novel. Okay. We got the threes up. We have Jordin James. She is a trauma kid who has learned how to feel genuinely happy and safe in the world again.

Her home base is Portland, Oregon, but she works and lives all over the world. She has a coach who helps narcissistic abuse survivors feel safe and happy in relationships. Amanda Nagy is a certified Enneagram coach, psychology instructor, and health coach. She has three years of experience in coaching, 17 years teaching high school and college students, and 13 years of school counseling.

Amanda is a Texas native, but has lived in Idaho for the last 22 years. And last up, we have our type fours. We have a Boonie Sripom. She is a personal development coach for sensitive and creative individuals, especially geeks and gamers. She also offers worksheet workshops and consults on supporting neurodivergent learners to therapists, educational organizations, and parents.

And she lives in California. And then we have Joanne Kim. Lastly, she is an Enneagram and brain spotting therapist in Silicon Valley. And she helps people discover and grow beyond their emotional reactive patterns, massage out their painful, emotional knots that keep them stuck and transform their biggest feelings into their greatest superpower.

Okay. Thank you so much y'all for being with me. I just want to applaud your courageous hearts and wanting to share a little bit of your story so that we can all learn and know that we're not alone. So I just want to thank you right off the bat for joining us today. So without further ado, let's kick things off, with Stephanie.

So would you spend a few minutes, Stephanie, sharing what your diagnosis is or your mental health battle The mental health battle you faced and just a little bit about your story.

Stephanie Cross (Enneagram 2): Sure. I'm Stephanie and I am a two. I have struggled with mental health my entire life. First starting with depression and anxiety because I was bullied.

Then growing into, grief over the last year. I lost my brother who was like my happy place, happy person and like biggest offender and protector growing up. So, that sent my two heart into a bit of a tailspin, a little bit of like maybe even an identity crisis there for a little while. And it was so hard as a helper type to be the one who needed help all of this.

And I had no idea how to ask for that, no idea how to ask for what I needed. And it was also a huge struggle to have patience with people who didn't show up the way that I would have and to see that like, man, I didn't always do things the best way, other friends who were grieving and so it's been a huge learning process, a learning curve, um, and obviously like the diagnoses of depression, anxiety, and PTSD, like really play into that as well.

So, that's kind of where I am on my journey. It might be a little bit hard to talk about, but I'm going to try to do my best with that. It's still somewhat fresh. Um, we'll hit the year anniversary, August 25th. So still pretty, pretty new and learning to navigate all of that. But, um, yeah, so I would say as a two feeling very hopeless, I was probably the most difficult thing for sure.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thanks, Steph. what have you been doing to, just cope, make it, make it through? Like, what kind of support have you had? Can you just talk a little bit more about that?

Stephanie Cross (Enneagram 2): Yes. So, one thing I will say is like, we didn't have a huge, like, church community were involved in our church usually, but we were in a transitional period.

We're both kind of starting over in different areas of our lives. So, my husband and I, the biggest thing for us was having a huge family base of support here. We had one person, one precious person that showed up every week for a month with food. And others that would come by and say, Hey, have you been out to see the sunshine today?

Like, that's probably a good idea and would come and pick me up and say, let's go hike. Let's go for a wal, let's go get coffee. Tell me about your brother. Tell me some stories. So I think that's been really one of the most helpful things is the, you know, as a writer, like I believe in the healing power of stories and of telling your story.

So having people come in and ask like, Hey, what are some of your favorite stories about your brother? Like whether they know him or not. And that's been super helpful. That's been a really great way for me to cope. And I also write letters to him. So when I see something that reminds me of him, or if I have a really hard day, or even if our family experiences something new that I know he would have just loved, I will write it down like I'm talking to him and that's been really helpful as far as coping.

I also unfortunately have a couple of friends who lost siblings this year and so we have our own sort of weird sibling grief club and it's like the worst membership ever but I'm really thankful for them, thankful for their openness and empathy. There are also a lot of great grief communities on Instagram and Facebook that I have been a part of that have been really helpful in that journey.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thanks Steph for just being vulnerable about just going through loss. I know that's really hard. Sure. And I know it for twos, you know, for twos, nines and sevens, being a part of the positive outlook group, there's a propensity to try to stay positive, through, grief through loss, going through a conflict, try to look on the sunny side.

Have you felt that as a two and then how have you reconciled that with like healthy grieving?

.Stephanie Cross (Enneagram 2): Yeah. So, I don't know. I think everything just kind of got obliterated. Like, when I got that phone call, it was like, I don't even know who I am right now. I don't know how to feel. So, I don't know that I even really responded, like, in the typical way that a two would.

I guess I did it first, and my husband had to pull me aside and very gently say, like, Hey, I just need you to know, their grief is not your grief. You don't have to feel for everybody else. Like, everybody feels the grief differently. Your parents are going to feel it. And you're going to feel that too, because you don't like to see them hurt, but you have got to take space to feel it for yourself.

But I think for the most part, I, I was very numb and very, I kind of reacted in the opposite way, and really shut down a little bit more. And, then kind of reacted in extremes like later on, but initially right after it was more of a like silent introspective kind of thing.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah. And I know for most twos are very active in helping others and they're moving, they're always drawing toward being drawn towards others.

But, and, and I know you, as a friend, you've been one of my editors. I've been really appreciative of you. And you've communicated to me that you've sort of scaled back your work. And so I just find that very healthy. So tell us a little bit about, how you set boundaries to create more space to, to grieve and go through the season, and not overdo it and not try to just work more.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Stephanie Cross (Enneagram 2): Yeah, sure. Sure. So, yeah, I could have had like, the desire to dive more into work. And I think there is a little bit of that temptation because you don't, when the feelings are so overwhelming, you just don't want to deal with them at all. And I only took two weeks off right after my brother died.

And I honestly think I should have taken a little bit more, but thankfully - again, because I have a wonderful husband, he was like, Hey, I've got us covered. You take the space that you need. If you only want to work five hours a week, fine, we will figure it out. So, I ended up reaching out to clients that I had, you know, current workloads with and just saying, Hey, I'm so sorry I understand if you need somebody else, I can't get this done in this amount of time. And thankfully I had really wonderful clients who were like, absolutely anything you need, we want to work with you. So we'll hang around and just do whatever on your schedule, but as far as just setting boundaries with that, I had to, I had to play around with it a little bit and figure out what I could actually handle.

And I ended up settling somewhere around like four or five hours a day. And I thought that, you know, by this time this year, maybe I would be taking on a little bit more. And I do have days where I do an eight hour day, but it's actually not. It's just not something I'm ready to dive back into. I've learned that I needed to take some space for myself to have gym time and time outdoors every single day.

That's just helpful in general, but especially when you're grieving, it gives me a little bit of uninterrupted time to think, and to really process what I've been feeling. So I'm very grateful for the ability to, like, take a step back and just know that it's, it's all going to be fine.

From Darkness to Light: Jordin's Journey of Healing and Resilience Through the Lens of an Enneagram 3

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thank you so much, Steph.

We're going to transition to Jordin and her story now, but I just want to let you know if there's anything you, you forgot or things you wanted to share, but, just didn't get a chance to so far we'll circle back and you can share at the end, but, uh, thank you for inviting us.

And to sit with you and your couch right there to hear your story. And I'm just proud of you for some of the steps you've taken to, as a two to set boundaries, um, and to take care of yourself in the midst of loss, I'm just really proud of you. Thank you. Let's, switch to Jordin.

Jordin James (Enneagram 3): Yes, thanks, Tyler. Hey, everybody. I am Jordin James. So yeah, mental health has been a real hole that I have had to crawl myself out of starting at the very beginning. My childhood, like many people's childhood was really weird. It was riddled with narcissistic abuse, emotional incest, and a lot of alcoholism.

I didn't know that it was weird until like actually looking back and being like, Oh, you didn't have to worry about inviting friends over because your dad was like, passed out on the couch. Like, oh, I guess that was a little bit weird. And so it's actually really, helps looking back to be like, oh, no wonder I was so sad.

Like, no wonder I was so depressed. No wonder I turned to self harming and suicidality early on when I felt like there was no, there was absolutely no support. Actually it's made my threeness, my Enneagram type threeness make a lot more sense because I remember having the thought back when I was, I don't know, a kindergartner of like, okay, when I go over to my dad's house this weekend, like, I'm not going to make him mad.

Like I am going to be so good. I'm going to do all the right things. I'm going to impress him. And so, so like that chameleoning that threes do was like a life or death kind of technique for me growing up from really early on. And I felt safest when I performed well. Like by far, like if I didn't perform well, my dad raised me to be like this big basketball star, which is another part of my three trauma of always needing to be impressive, but if I didn't play well, I felt like legitimately unsafe, but if I played well, I was safe.

And so like performance was, is not only like an ego thing for me. And I think for most threes, it's also like a fundamental, like safety of existing. And so, growing up, especially in high school, I put a lot of pressure on myself that turned into self harm and suicidality and depression. And, luckily, I don't know what it is.

It's just like this inherent resilience that I have that I just kept going and trying to heal. And, but what I realized is my own three tendencies trying to heal themselves. So like, I would try hard to figure out you know, what's wrong. I would try hard to get to the bottom of, of my pain. I would, you know, so I can root it out and figure it out.

I would try hard to like do all the right things to like be somebody that's healed now. And I was really just like trying to heal my trauma with my trauma and what, like eventually I realized that like my healing, like I don't actually heal myself. Like there is this force of love, there's a lot of different words that you can use for that love, there's a lot of different kinds of love, but there's this force of love that actually wants to do all the healing work for me.

I just have to let it, I just have to like feel my feelings and let love meet me in those feelings and like understanding why I'm feeling my feelings is not a substitute for actually feeling them. Which was really, really hard for my threeness, and it still is, to not just, like, try to do literally anything else other than feel my feelings.

And the other thing that I noticed as being a three and trying to heal my trauma was that threes have this tendency, I for sure do, have this tendency of, like, trying to heal everything in a vacuum. Like I'm going to go behind the curtain and I'm going to like, work really hard and improve myself really hard.

And then I'm going to like, go out and live my life. And then I'll go out and, and show up. And like, I had this, this fantasy that I can heal every, all, I could do all the vulnerable work in private, and then I could come out and like impress everybody. You know, I'll come out when I'm more impressive. And, and much to my dismay, I think it's a flaw in the universe, but.

Healing actually happens when I just interface with life exactly as I am. And like, I let people see me before I feel ready to be seen. And when I let love see me exactly as I am right now and all my mess. And eventually, like, when I, when I started doing that, when I started just going out there and failing, I learned that even in the deepest, like, most barfy pits of failure, that love is still there.

Love is still there. And so, like, failure doesn't actually equal this unsafe, complete abandonment of love. But I couldn't have understood that if I just kept trying to heal without actually, uh, living my life. So, I got really good at healing and I got really good at helping other people do the same thing.

Cause it's just like a, just a different orientation and then love does it all for you. So that's what I've been doing for the past five years now is helping other people, let more love in and let love do the open heart surgery for them.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Beautiful Jordin. I didn't want to cut you off, but I really resonated that as a fellow three. I wrote down, I don't heal myself. That is huge. And the three is listening. We need to hear that over and over again. We can't heal ourselves. That's been a constant theme throughout the summit as I continue to interview people is I don't have a lot of threes and that show up in my office, for whatever reason, threes do.

Think that we can heal ourselves and that we don't need somebody else, but we have to show up and I love, you said, like, meet with love, like have an encounter with love. That's beyond ourself from within ourselves. And I also wrote down, I'll come out, I'll come out of the hole when I'm like more impressive.

And like coming from like ministry world, there was a lot of unhealthy, like Superman Cape stories. Like people would share their story, but it would sound like, and it was very like three, like, like, you know, I was in the trenches of drug addiction and then I, you know, made this change and now I'm back on my feet and I'm a spiritual leader and I'm doing all these things.

And it's like, well, okay. Take the cape off. And just like, let's have some store. Let's research some stories on stage where people were, we're still in the thick of it where we haven't cleaned ourselves up. We haven't seen the results yet. We're just in it. That's really, really hard for us.

Jordin James (Enneagram 3): Yes. Yeah. I, I realized that healing actually happens when our vulnerability and love meet.

And like, in order for that to actually happen, that means I have to be vulnerable. It means I have to like, let people know that I'm also human and messy. And that's really hard as a three. That's like shaking in my boots kind of hard.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah. Well, that's why this is so powerful to hear your story as a three, because you're, you're giving it like an unvarnished, no Instagram filter kind of version of your story.

And I just really appreciate that. I'm sure a lot of threes I really read are just, Benefiting from like me from hearing your story. So thank you so much, Jordin, and if you forgot anything, you can circle back and, and share here, at the end too.

Okay. Let's transition now to Boonie.

If you could unmute yourself and jump in and share a little bit of your story, we'd love to hear from you.

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): Oh, gosh, I've just so immersed in other people's vulnerabilities. Let me regroup a little bit.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I love that you're not just thinking in your head. Okay. What am I going to say next?

What am I going to say next? But you're immersed with this, our stories. That's I love that.

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): Fun fact to share with other fours who are considered the special snowflakes. I did dye my hair the day before for this to stand out a little bit. Gotta, gotta be special. Gotta be unique.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I noticed it. It's great. Thank you for noticing.

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): So, I, let's see. I guess the conditions or diagnoses I will talk about are codependent traits, working through personal depression of the four and autism. So I guess I will be perhaps a unique, a double unique flavor of four because of the neurodivergence, but I'm assuming a lot of us are not.

Have some sensitivity traits differences. Anyways, I'm guessing all of us do. It's all a spectrum. And so, let's see, how do I shape this? I know when you reached out, you were talking about this one video that I made. And so I think I'll lean into it that way, where If you look at that video, it was made I think six to eight years ago and my energy, my demeanor, my wholeness was so different from how I am now and I think that's what you were mentioning Jordin earlier about being present in your vulnerability.

I think as a four, we thrive off of being the vulnerable mess, and just being a muck. And that's the only attention that we could ever believe that we deserve. Being seen as and so I doubled down on that identity and presented information as a wounded, highly sensitive, vulnerable person where people would come and try and save me or protect me and feel like, oh, poor you, like, no, I get it.

It's like, I totally understand how you feel, at the same time, because of that, it limited who I was. for a long time. I was able to, here's the gift and the strength of a four, we're able to tap into this raw feeling of how other people are experiencing pain, grief, loss, questioning who they are. And that's for us an ability to tap into the essence, right?

An essence of a person. But because of that, We're stuck in this loop of, I can only feel seen when I am pained. I can only have value because people have shown me and given me attention when I am the sensitive snowflake. And so we're repeating and having this confirmation bias of like, I need to seek out relationships.

I have this antenna now. So the codependent traits is like, I'm seeking out relationships where someone, you know, Is may not be the best for me, but because I am so wounded and I think that I can only be seen as my vulnerable wounded parts, I'm going to seek someone who doesn't understand me. And that's the core wounding of a four, right?

We feel constantly misunderstood. So I'm going to do, I'm going to damage myself even more, find someone who doesn't get me, even though I know they don't get me. Unconsciously, I know they don't understand me. And so I've been in relationships. And, um, the universe has guided me out of that. But in the past, I've constantly been seeking out people and systems and social circles where I would look for that confirmation bias of I'm close to being understood, but they said this one thing, I feel suddenly rejected.

There was this one thing that I did and they misinterpreted what I was trying to say. I'm getting so defensive and overwhelmed. I'm getting emotionally hijacked. I don't think it's worth it. I'm going to now confirm my identity as the outlier, as the alien. I'm going to run away. I'm going to hide. I'm going to withdraw.

And so it's perpetual, this pattern. It's so exhausting. I'm so tired of it. And so like, we do that as a four. And then as my wing kicks in as a five, I will double withdraw and intellectualize of like affirming just the reasoning. So like Jordin said, we're writing the reasons for why. So like, I'm really good at explaining how and why happened, something happened, but to go into it is where the truly healing works.

Right. And so I think that's interesting because like, I'm sure Joanne will probably say something similar where with other types have a difficult time of even acknowledging the darkness and the pain, the depths of their vulnerability. We hold on to it too much where I actually find it a funny life lesson for me as a four to give myself permission to feel joy, like to feel successful and to actually stand out and embrace my light and have people witness me for what I'm actually good at.

Because I've been seen as Eeyore for most of my life. Like I'm just grumpy and I'm sad, but I know there's more of that, but I struggle sometimes where if I go out and have successful moments and then people give me attention for that, is that actually me too? And so there's this integration happening over time, right?

Where it's just like, I don't know if I actually like it. Is this good? This is good feelings, you know? And so I think that's an important part of us as fours where we will double withdraw because it's this shifting of your psyche of if it's so true. You start to lean into your self betrayal and abandonment of self when you realize, Oh shoot, I've done so much of the contribution to me living a life where I have been rejected, misunderstood, and seeking someone to see me.

It's like, Oh my God. And so that's a lot of pausing to withdraw on purpose. And so the intention comes out where instead of me reacting to the moment or the incident that happened where I run away because I have to confirm that I'm misunderstood and unwanted, I don't belong. This time I will withdraw on purpose to reflect on how am I contributing to what has happened?

And is there a possibility that I saw it a certain way? So I just was rereading. Riso, Wisdom of the Enneagram, before they had to prepare, and so there was this one part of like how we feel our feelings so much that we identify with the feelings instead of actually the experience itself. So I, I thought that was a good point.

So fours can really reflect on this, where if something emotional does happen, it's this, do the emotions exist forever? And realistically, maybe for a long time for us, yes. At the same time. Not consistently forever. And so I really want to meditate on that because it is true. There's some things that we don't believe to be true, but when we allow our emotions and cognition to separate.

It gives us an ability to really empower ourselves, and I think that's something that can be a strength, even though as a quiet, you know, moody person, I know I'm always going to be moody. Like, that's the thing that I think is realistic, too. Those are things that are going to, quote unquote, trigger me or make me feel like I don't belong.

But if I separate myself from the emotion and just pause a little bit, I can come back into the circle, the social group that I thought I was rejected from. And that's like the biggest thing, I think. I can share with fours, like, just go back, like, even though you feel like you were rejected and maybe you were feel strong enough to believe that there's something that they can offer you and you can offer them.

It's just like, you cannot constantly feel rejected from the whole world. That's impossible. You know, as a gamer, it's like numbers wise, it's probability. I know that sooner or later, I'll find someone that I can get along with. And so that's what I wanted to share.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): I could, I could listen to you all day. This is I just really appreciate you sharing.

And, especially we talked about earlier, my son being on the spectrum. And so I'm just absorbing everything you're saying.

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): Do I sound like him? Like when he talks about stuff?

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): No, he's we think he's a type eight. So it's really interesting, seeing kind of the differences and we're gonna have a parenting panel on the summit here.

And we'll be talking about kind of our children and you know, what types we think they may be. You can't always type your kids too young for sure. But I just knowing the Enneagram now for a while, and my son's 10, we think he's an eight. So it's really interesting seeing, some of the, the autism traits and then also the type eight traits.

And how they mingle together. It's very, very interesting. So I'll be talking a little bit more about that on the parenting panel, but I forgot the video that you mentioned. And I just remembered it's the how to defend yourself video that I saw on YouTube. Explain why you, you did that video. Because I think it's, I think it's really important. You said you might not have been in the most healthy space or something like that.

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): No, I was not.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): But I, I saw it as a positive thing when I saw it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to have Boonie say that. So what, what do you mean by how, like how you were advocating to others to defend themselves? Like, how have you felt like you needed to defend yourself?

Breaking Free: Embracing Self-Acceptance and Letting Go of Misunderstood Perceptions

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): And so identity is a really big thing for me because I want it reflected meaningfully through the relationships that we have. and the mirroring that I get in this world. It's incongruent in certain ways because if I say something or if I present a certain way and someone will look at me or say something, it's like, that's not congruent to how I see myself.

But if someone's joking about me with my autistic, like, traits or the things that I like, all of a sudden, wow, this world is completely different. And now it's kind of like a shattering of my perspective because Why is it so different? Why is mock me being mocked? Why is it made fun of so much? Or even the people in my life who were part of my life, the things that I did do and like, they were embarrassed to be around me because it was so abnormal.

And so there are these things where I was just trying to explain for me as a five wing cognition is very important to me. I try to explain my thought process so people can pick that up and be like, okay, you have a reason for liking the things that you like. Okay. Just because I don't understand that doesn't mean it's wrong.

It's just now I understand the thought process. That makes more sense. All I ever wanted to explain was the logic behind something. But because people considered it, instead of me explaining who I am, they consider it defensive. It's like now I'm being perceived as defensive instead of trying to stand firm in who I am and explain where I'm coming from.

And that would be such an incredible wounding that it would make me withdraw so often. And it's like this constant in and out process of again, the Tiredness of trying to take up space when you were afraid that someone's going to misinterpret what you say or do. And so, um, I reached this limit of I'm sure many people here have reached a limit.

I'm so sick of shit. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. And so like, what am I doing wrong or what's happening here? And so you're like, okay, what's the big thing? Being defensive, people feeling a certain type of way about your worldview and your sensory systems, and just needing to withdraw, but they're interpreting as you being egotistical, better than them, using certain language to represent yourself, and now, again, the mismatch of perception and identity, it's like, I'm so tired of this, and so the limit is like, who is allowed to receive the descriptions of who you are. Who deserves to understand the inner workings of your mind and your heart? Not everybody does. And I finally had the big light bulb go off, like, this is not working. They don't deserve this. They're never going to get it. And that's where Enneagram work, personality work comes in too.

Are they actually going to get it? Yes or no. And so the separation becomes very clear of like, oh, I don't have to explain. They're not going to get it. Like I'm free. I'm so free. And so I can go somewhere else where I can refill my cup. Like they get it. These spaces where I feel free to have joy and just be seen as who I am, like all these people, I'm sure we're going to come to the same conclusion just as we are, right?

And so there's again more space to not react of, they don't need to understand. Why am I chasing them? Why do I keep on chasing the wrong people trying to explain who I am when they don't get it, you know? And so that's part of it. And I know a lot of neurodivergent people, we will get stuck in that trap because our, we don't even understand our brains.

Most of us don't. We follow the TikToks, we follow the memes, but a lot of us don't really get the mechanisms happening. So there's like the body part component too, which I'm just going to recommend. Please go seek out occupational therapists. They will help too. Just, okay. I think I'm done. I'm done.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That was so helpful and so important, um, to teach others advocate to defend themselves and for us to pick up that torch, say, Hey, we want to defend you.

Me and my wife are constantly defending our son against neighbors. And people who don't understand him mis, misinterpret his actions. And cause you shouldn't have to do that for yourself. We talk a lot about this when it, when it comes to, people of color in, in majority white spaces. It's like they get super tired of having to constantly defend themselves.

Advocate for the issues when we can step up and we can defend and we can advocate and we can be an ally. I think the same thing is true with like autism, as well, especially, I've noticed like in movies, TV shows, there's certain traits that show up when there's like an a character who has autism.

And if they, if you don't have those kinds of common traits and people might not pick up on it. And those misinterpret all your actions, you know, like Zeke is an eight is very loud. He's full of life and he's just all over the place. So, you know, when he comes in the room as an eight, but in people, but then he still has those social interaction.

They think cues that he misses all the time. And so he, he doesn't pick, he thinks that people are constantly betraying him that are, they're constantly looking at him funny. And then that just agitates him. And then it causes, you know, an unhealthy social interaction. And then other people would draw from him.

He's constantly losing friends. So we're constantly trying to help people understand him, advocate for him, defend him. And so we just need to all do a better job of doing that for our friends and family members. So, thanks Boonie. I really, really loved hearing from you. It was moving on. I think Amanda, we need to go to you as a three, go, go back to three here.

I, missed you there on the, on the list. So can we, can you unmute yourself and share a little bit of your story?

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): Sure. Um, trying to think of like the way to sum up my experience. Cause I feel like Most of my teenage and adulthood life has been struggling with mental health issues. My childhood, I was pretty easy go, performer, entertainer, loved everybody.

And it wasn't until my adult years when like a bomb went off. Um, and I definitely think in hindsight that my issues with depression, Suicide ideation, anxiety, um, eating disorder, food addiction, body dysmorphia, um, and later diagnosed ADHD had a lot to do with being a one on one, uh, three. So image being.

Beautiful having the body type or the dress or any of those things that society valued was so what I was obsessed with that, um, and not being able to ever measure up. Uh, it just imploded on me. Um, I couldn't get skinny enough. I couldn't be pretty enough. I couldn't, uh, wear the right clothes. I couldn't have that, like walk into a room and everybody look at me kind of like fantasy that I wanted to get some kind of value, um, Imploded at that time, and it just kind of kept going into my 20s and 30s.

It wasn't until my later 30s and into my early 40s that I finally started getting some insights and ahas and making connections. And just like Jordin was mentioning, I was going to figure it out myself. It was like. I, we taught my talking to my dad, who's also a three. And I was like, I think it was in my twenties where I was like, okay, I'm really tired of this and I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to fix myself.

And I'm going to have that moment, just like Jordin talked about that moment of being like, here I am. I'm healed. I'm confident. I have value come admire me. And of course that never happened and it won't happen the way I imagine it. Anyways. So that comparing to other people, the competing, I had no interest in being valedictorian or being president of a club or the best athlete, but I definitely wanted to be a attractive, magnetic, charismatic girl. Um, and I moved around a lot. And so it was the, the standard, the expectation was always changing. So it depended on where I lived, what community we were a part of. Um, and then when you're in a religious community and a secular community, then there's like, okay, how am I supposed to present myself?

In this one and then in this one and then when you get into the work world as an adult, you have religious community and personal community and work community. And it just, I didn't realize that that was, I was doing was this constant, like, trying to measure up to all these different environments I was in.

I think my success in getting through a lot of that was my ADHD masking. I think it helped me keep pushing through instead of just imploding on myself. The shame was obviously present. I didn't like it. And it was like, I'm going to figure this out. Where's this coming from? So constant exploration.

And interestingly enough, when I got into teaching and I was teaching life skills and then school counseling, and so I was counseling other high school students, kind of similar issues, you know, I was seeing things in other people, um, and it was like that. I'm going to, I'm going to. Help fix you. And maybe I can fix myself in that process.

But the ADHD thing was a total, like did not see that coming. I was just recently diagnosed at 42. That was definitely a huge gut punch. It was a, I don't know who I am. I really don't know who I am. And so it's a lot of grieving, a lot of grieving, a lot of anger. Interestingly enough, I found that most of the grief came from feeling like I missed out on years where I could have accomplished something.

Like had I known I had ADHD and I couldn't have medication and therapy and help in my twenties, my teens and twenties, I could have done so much more with my life. Like that was what I was struggling with and also the frustration of wanting to accomplish more, but the anxiety or the ADHD or, the depression like held me back from a lot of the things that I wanted to do.

Like I wanted to go do this. I wanted to, you know, be in this position or be in the spotlight for this, but it kind of was always that voice that was like, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but, um, so there's a lot of frustration there. That push to want to perform and get value that way, but also retreating because the shame and the image and what if I can't.

And so it was this, this crazy cycle that I went through and I'm still going through working on finding value and just being me. Like, I don't have to be pretty, I don't have to be put together, I don't have to have the latest fashion, I don't have to be the best daughter, the best wife, the best friend, if I just existed.

I have worth and value and that still is really hard for me to wrap my head around. So that's where I kind of try to show up and be the best performer at is just being the favorite friend, the favorite, you know, I always tell my husband, I want to be the trophy wife for you. That would be the best thing.

I struggled with emotional eating and binge eating. And so I got quite heavy and that was very hard for me as an image conscious person, because I didn't even feel like I had worth being out in public, like as an ugly obese person, you should not have to look at me. I'm just taking up space. And so that was another like mental thing to work through.

And so I eventually was getting healthy, working out. Of course I took that too far as a three. You know, I was feeling good and accomplishing and I would get my kicks out of telling people that I got up at two 30 every morning and worked out for an hour and a half for five years until my body was like, you're done.

So yeah, so it was just in hindsight, I can just see it. Plainly out there that it was mostly that intimate one on one kind of needing to have that value in my world, whether it was my peers or my parents or friends or all those kinds of things that kind of pushed me.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thank you, Amanda. I love that you echoed Jordin's comments about I'm going to fix myself because as a three, we just need to keep hearing that, like we, we need should fix ourselves because it is rather embarrassing, to say that we are not six, not having success. We're seeing a successful, and I appreciated you, talking about your subtype that you're a sexual or one to one, three.

That's big. And that really does provide some really, uh, insight into mental health or mental health struggles, because I know the sexual three, more so than the achievements, like you said, the social threes are really into the, the success, symbols, status statuses. But for sexual three, you're really gonna want to craft desirable qualities or craft a desirable image to make others.

Once you more to desire you more. And so I can totally see how that would lend itself to really thinking a lot about body image, exercising, like doing all that you can to sort of craft the perfect image for your loved ones or the people that you really want to attract, did you feel like, and I know Beatrice chestnut teaches that a lot of times sexual threes for women, they want it to be the most like feminine, they want to fit into that feminine box that called the culture, the majority culture wants.

And then for men to fit into that masculine, boxes, did you feel a little bit of that?

Chasing an Ideal: Navigating Body Image and Identity in the Shadow of a Gentle Mother

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): I had an interesting relationship with that. Um, my mother, I'm an only child. We moved a lot, weren't around family. So it was, my dad was a workaholic self pros three. So it was me and my mom. And so her energy, she's a nine.

And her body type, she's very tall and thin was my goal post for a lot of my life. And I am, I got curvy real quick. So yay, middle school years and blossoming. And so I thought I had to have that body type. I was also in the nineties heroin shake, you know? So Kate Moss and looking like you were on your deathbed was the ideal and definitely could not do that.

And then personality wise, my mom's just. friendly and laid back and kind. And I always had friends that are like, your mom is so sweet. We just love your mom. And here I am like opinionated loud, like go, go, go. I'm a fire, you know, like a lot of young kind of masculine energy. I'm also a thinker and a lot of the Myers Briggs.

So there was this. I have to be kind and meek and gentle and sweet and serve, um, and be soft spoken and not have opinions. And I also grew up in the Bible belt. So, you know, you have a lot of cultural expectations. And so there was this, like, I have to soften myself. I have to keep my mouth shut. I have to be more like her.

Everybody likes her. Nobody wants an opinionated, strong female, you know, especially during my growing up years. So I did, I did struggle with that. I had a love hate relationship because I am a girly girl. I love me some makeup and some clothes and all the things, but I also felt that like, edginess to me.

And so I did, I had a hard time kind of resonating with that. And I, I think I still do, especially my husband's a five. And so he's a little more still and quiet and reflective and, you know, I'm completely opposite of that. And so you've got those role reversals in a relationship. Cause I do the finances and, you know, and he doesn't.

And so, It is still kind of present. Getting more comfortable with it obviously is the more I learn about myself, the more I go through therapy, EMDR, brain-spotting, all that stuff has been amazing for me to work through that stuff and then having that space with a therapist where I can just let it all hang out and like, I don't have to worry about other people watching me or hearing me.

Of course, you have to get to that point as a three with a therapist to be vulnerable in front of your therapist, learn to trust your therapist, but having that space for me to just kind of be brutally honest and let it all hang out has been really helpful too.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): One more question, Amanda, you talked about ADHD masking.

That's something that came up in one of my interviews on ADHD here at this, on the summit. And so I was like, when I heard about it, I was like, that sounds a lot like threes. This whole ADHD masking thing. So, and you said you used it to cope. It was helpful for you. So as a three who, you know, we tend to wear masks, what is ADHD masking and how is it, how did it help you?

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): Um, well, one, I think that's why I wasn't diagnosed until much later, because I learned how to adapt my behavior to the expectations. Um, so Matt, ADHD masking is. Um, much like the mirroring that threes do, you know, we're watching people watch us and learning what is acceptable, what is an acceptable. And so ADH doers dears do that as well.

Um, we see that, oh, this behavior is not. You know, we're getting some negative feedback from this. And so you learn to internalize, come up with, um, accommodations, ways to not get that negative feedback. For example, obviously the societal expectation is to show up on time for things, right? And a lot of ADHD people have time management, time, blindness issues and contend to be late for things so you, you overcompensate sometimes. So for example, I have no concept of how long it's going to take me to get somewhere. And that's where a lot of my anxiety stemmed from was, was coming from those things. So I will leave way earlier than I have to, to make sure that I get somewhere on time. So I will get to places. 45, 30 minutes early before I have to. And I'm okay with that because it lessens the anxiety of potentially being late. And so I'll sit in my car and like do whatever I need to do. ADHD, people also have to work on transitioning from one thing to the next. So it is helpful to sit in the car and kind of mentally prepare.

Okay, I'm going from this. I'm going into there. This is what I need to do. So it does help me, but, uh, you learn what is an acceptable. And so that's why I say being a three. And having ADHD that mirror and masking, I think was my, my life force and surviving, uh, thinking about the things that I struggled with.

I don't, I'm surprised that I wasn't hospitalized or really got into serious addictions, different things like that. But I think that was part of it is I just got in that. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to do it on top of being concerned about the image. What would people think if they knew?

And so that kind of pushed me.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Well, the whole goal of the summit is to help us to have more self compassion for ourselves and more empathy for others. And, you know, you have the normal. Three or normal type stuff that we struggle with everyone does, and then you, the ADHD or other mental health struggles sort of layers on top of that.

So I, as you, when you say that you struggle with knowing how long it's going to take to get somewhere, I'm like, Oh my goodness, as a three, we like efficiency, really getting places. On time and quickly. I can't imagine then having that struggle on top of that, of not knowing, like, like having that value of efficiency and being good efficiency, but then not being able to control that.

That sounds really challenging, really hard. So that's a good, I mean, thank you for sharing that example. That's, that's helpful for the reason the rest of us listening in, but thank you again for, for sharing that you're 42. I'm 42 and I'm going through a crisis as well. My identity as a three, like, what did I do the last two decades for other people?

And what did I do for myself? I don't know. It's our midlife crisis. And I really appreciate you saying, Hey, I wish I would have got sought a diagnosis earlier. Cause I could have been so much more helpful. And that's one of the things that keeps coming up too, is let's, let's seek out those things.

Not be afraid to get help early on because it could change the next decade or two of our lives. Uh, so thank you for sharing that wisdom.

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): Yeah. I say advocate, advocate for yourself, advocate for other people. And now that's kind of my big passion is educating how ADHD shows up for women, especially because we're the population where it's not diagnosed or it's misdiagnosed.

So now that's like I'm on fire for that because. I still, I have a couple of friends that are like I think I might have that. I'm like, well, what have you done about it? Well, you know, my doctor says that I don't have it. I'm like, no, no, no. If, if you feel like that's something you need to explore, like go find another doctor and then go find another doctor.

We have to advocate. So I think that's that three, like encouraging and cheerleading and fighting for people I find coming in now and trying to empower other people for whatever diagnosis they might think that they have or mental health issue that they might think they have. It's like, don't just sit in it, you know, go find help some form or fashion, educate yourself if that's just researching, you know,

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's good, Amanda.

Well, I interviewed Kristen Carter, who is the host of I have ADHD podcast. So go, go check out that if you're listening and you want more. And I also interviewed Nate McCord on how ADHD shows up in every type. So that would be another resource for you. Okay. Thanks, Amanda. We have two left, so we're going to go to Joanne next and then Eden.

So Joanne, would you unmute yourself and share a little bit of your story?

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So, I came into this panel. I was like, what should I talk about? And while I was listening to people sharing, I was like, Oh, I was like having like an epiphany just right now. It's like, Oh, I realized that whenever someone asked me about me, I I have like go to tracks of how I can describe myself in my life.

I can like talk about myself as, someone who's moved around a lot, had a hard time making friends. That's track number one. Track number two is growing up as a queer kid in the church. And then like having that whole thing blow up. And then a third track being like spiritual abuse, spiritual trauma, all kinds of stuff.

And so it was very interesting. Just like sitting here, it's like, very Four-ish thing to do. It's like, I can talk about myself according to these like pre rehearsed. Ways. And I think that a lot of my struggles probably came from like this. It's a, I think it's a pretty common four thing, determining the conclusion up front and then working backwards.

Like the conclusion is obviously there must be something wrong with me and that I'm fatally flawed and that nothing can never like help me. And I probably have gone through my whole life and have interpreted different experiences I've had as evidence, but there must be something wrong with me. So it's kind of like a circular argument and you know, even in the ways that I show up in life nowadays might be according to that rehearsal. And I, I just thought that was pretty, pretty weird. Oh, I haven't actually talked about this track in a while.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): So that's extremely valuable just to let us in your head already. Thank you.

For allowing us to see that that's, yeah, I'm very intrigued. I want you to talk about all of that for a couple of hours.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): I could, don't tempt me, but I think the main thing that I've learned recently is that I am important, but I'm not central. That I come with the experience of being a self preservation four.

So I'm a four that doesn't look like a four. Everyone else on the outside might interpret me or assume that I am basically every other type. It really depends on my mood. And the people who are the closest to me would be able to tell that I'm a four. And that's like, if I even reveal all the crap that's like going on behind the scenes.

And so there's a lot of masking, jury's still out whether or not I actually have ADHD, definitely have had anxiety and depression, PTSD, the full range. But nowadays there, there are two things that are happening for me in present day. One is it might be a possibility that I've identified with Being someone who has anxiety, depression, PTSD.

Then actually having anxiety, depression, PTSD. Like, I'm not going to discount that. There were several moments in my life where yeah, anxiety is like just running the show or that I've been kind of like stuck in the mud. But I think if that's like, that might be maybe like. 40, 50 percent of what was going on for me.

And I think the remaining 50 percent was what my four was doing. It's like, I've demonstrated that there must be some, there is something wrong with me and I'm just going to like squeeze every single juice that I can't add with this identity. What helped me was when I discovered the Enneagram, I thought I was a social four for the longest time because I like resonated with all the four stuff and it wasn't until my Enneagram coach sat down with me for about a year and she was like, I think you should revisit because what I actually ended up doing was to disconnect with my own suffering and outsource it.

So I thought that I was struggling a lot, but from outside observation, no one can tell that I was struggling. I grew up with major RBF, so everyone could kind of tell that there was something going on, but I would never show it. All the meanwhile, behind the scenes, I know how I'm feeling. So it was like super broody and dark and stormy and all that kind of stuff.

But what actually ended up happening was that I was very functional. So my parents had no idea that I was struggling in my childhood because I happened to be very good at school, but it wasn't that I was actually good at school. I mean, I might have had some skillsets, but nobody knew just how much, how many more hours I put towards finishing a project.

Like I would work till like three, 4 AM. And so I think in a lot of ways, like I resonate with some of the things that Amanda shared, like, I think that was a lot of the masking that I grew up operating, like the good easy child suffering silently alone was like probably the way that I survived throughout life.

To the point where now I, inadulted, I painted myself into that corner. And later on, like six, seven years ago, I met my bestie. Who is also an Enneagram therapist. She's a sexual too. And she was so gentle in the beginning, but now she kind of let me in on her initial impression of me that when we met and she said, yeah, you were just like, like a broken record.

You kept telling the same stories over and over and over and over again. And I think I had learned more about the four to realize that, Like that was probably how I was coping. But the, the issue was. I was already in a safer place. I didn't need to cope anymore. I had already left the, the church that blew up that I was working.

And I, I was the black sheep, the whistleblower, the rebel, whatever back then. And that was just like the identity that I had taken on since I left was, I was a person who founded a huge church family secret and I got cut off from my community and no one understands what the hell is going on. And I have all this power to single handedly destroy this church, but what do I do with all this power?

That was the narrative. I kept telling myself for like the first five years since I left that church, maybe seven years. And I think the more I learned about specifically the self press for type set up, it's like, okay, if I've identified with. Suffering itself, then there will be no healing. The healing will not happen because I've already eliminated as an option available to me.

And so I learned that I have an allergic reaction to joy. I remember to what Boonie shared and that joy for fours is a very threatening experience. It doesn't make any sense, I think, to other types, but I think for fours, it's living life as if the umbilical cord that tethers us to life in the universe has been severed and all of our lives is us trying to reconnect that tether by making ourselves to be very different or unique, or trying to prove ourselves and to earn our worth, or by being the most suffering person on the face of the planet, whatever it is.

And so if all of those things are a part of the type four setup and we have our type of what, but we are not our type. Namely we are more than our type. Then I have to go back to the drawing board and rethink everything. All of my premises, I need to reevaluate because otherwise I'm just recycling the same limited conclusion over and over again.

So nowadays it's more of, okay, maybe I am important, but I'm not central. I'm not the center of the universe. So maybe the world will not fall apart. If I take a break, maybe. I can actually take up more space without other people feeling burdened. Maybe it's okay for me to enjoy things. And even if I open myself up to risk of losing that good thing or whatever, maybe I'm already more than capable of handling that now.

Then I did before. So a lot of it nowadays is more of like, let me just be a single drop of water in the greater life ocean and see where things go instead of me trying to make myself or life be a certain way. So there's a lot of self preservation instinct stuff that I've been trying to work on.

A lot of my anxiety was probably from that instinct going on hyperdrive. It's like planning and predicting and practicing and all those things. And to be upset basically for the rest of the day or the rest of the week, because one thing fell out of alignment instead of just being like, it is what it is, you know, maybe things are beyond what I can perceive and imagine.

And maybe that's fine in the same way that I don't know exactly how hot it's going to be tomorrow. And maybe I don't need to know, maybe I just need to know in real time in the present and I'll entrust my wellbeing to life to take care of me as I need and also to myself to make good decisions as each situation comes up.

So I don't have to. You know, relish in the past, thinking those were the good old days. I don't have to future trip. I could just be here wherever I am. And I don't know whether or not I have ADHD. The question that my husband asked me was, what would you do next, even if you found out? I'm like, I don't know, because life is pretty good right now. I'm self employed on my own boss. Like I get to decide my life to be however I want it to be. Eventually I might find out I might not, but there's some part of me that wants to kind of keep the type four at bay that if I were to find out, let's say if I do or don't have ADHD, that I would go back from birth and be like, this is why I have been, this is how I've become who I am now.

That's a story that I think is too small. For where I am now. And so I'm kind of just rolling on by day to day. And, I think trauma, for me is kind of a more open ended thing. Like oftentimes people think of trauma as like a big, scary event, like a car crash or like rape or whatever. And those things obviously are traumatic.

But if it's the case that in each of our types that we can create our own traumatic microcosm. Then how about we give ourselves the very opposite of going beyond our comfort zone and for four, it will be learning how to recognize that maybe some goodness is readily available to me right here and right now.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thank you, Joanne. Thanks for sharing all that you did. I was. Kinda taking some notes down and I know, thank you for pointing out that you're self preservation. Four. I know self pres four can be sunny on the outside, suffering on the inside. And so tell me, is it a little bit like threes, you know how we talked about as threes, we don't like to go and get help?

Is it true? I know that self preservation four sometimes can suffer, suffer, suffer almost in like a masochistic way. Like they can endure lots of suffering. Yep. And does, do you think other self press fours will. We'll hold on to that. And, and cause I know that I've heard that they can almost feel more special because there's, there's something in such a unique way, but that keeps up press for us from getting help by kind of holding onto that or for you, like, what were you tempted to kind of just continue to suffer in a masochistic way or, you know, what propelled you to then move towards getting help and support?

Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming Counterdependency and the Pressure to Overfunction

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So there's dependency, there's counter, there's codependency, there's counter dependency. Counter dependency is like having an allergic reaction to relying on other people. It's just that in the United States, especially, we have a whole holiday to celebrate independence. And so, like, a lot of that, I think that was one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to break outside of that and still is like, I don't know what's masochistic if I'm just used to that.

That's my baseline. You know, like it wasn't until other people were like, you did what? Like you did how much work and getting that outside frame of reference that I reprocess like, Oh, what I reflexively do is more than what is actually required. What happens if I don't do what if I don't put in that much effort and then the anxiety that comes up usually is a sign for me now that it's my self press for over functioning.

A lot of it, I think that kind of, goes hand in hand with masking. I think self press 4 is like, no one can tell how we're dealing. And sometimes we ourselves can't tell. Because we are our own frame of reference. That's the self referencing bit of type 4. And so, asking for help felt terrible. I missed a step on the stairs several years back and I technically broke my foot.

And I was with my friend, I happened to catch her shoulder. So she kind of broke most of my fall, but I still ended up injured. And I was laying on the floor. And the first thing that came to mind was I asked her, is this the day where I'm supposed to cancel my clients? She's just like, was completely in shock.

She's like, what are you talking about? Of course this is. And I had to like get into a boot and everything. And it just sucked. being injured. But the hardest part of that experience was knowing that I had to ask for people to give me rights. Like the physical pain was easy.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): No, thank you for sharing more of that.

That's really insightful for us to hear about what's going on within a four, especially self press for, and thanks for sharing about your church experiences. Even though they, they weren't, you were sharing some things that weren't positive. And I just, I know that there's people who have used, uused to be in spiritual communities that aren't, and then there's people that a lot of people are watching that are in spiritual communities are going to Christian churches.

And I just want to point out that, you know, even if you have rose colored glasses and think that your spiritual leader or your spiritual community is like, so great, uh, that not all churches get mental health and that's why we're dedicating a whole session to that. When I was starting out as a spiritual leader, I was a horrible, I keep saying this, I was not a good, I did not get mental health.

And as a three, that was still needed to grow up, I kept, I had a lot of work to do in understanding mental health. And so I think it just helps for anybody to go to a counselor, to seek support and get a third party, sort of audit of your spiritual experience and tell your spiritual experience to somebody else.

And for them to be like, you know, that doesn't sound really healthy. Well, let me, let me walk you through this. Cause then, cause sometimes we get googly eyes and we, we just think our, our churches, you know, has the right teaching or has the best leaders or even, even in those situations, there might be some things that are not good.

Going well, and you need to help walking through those things. I grew up Catholic and I was telling my wife about something in terms of like, a relationship to like the, the town, the priest of our town, and she was like, that's not like, what, that, that is not healthy. And, and so like nothing bad happened, but it was just, you know, It was just an experience of like, if we need to be sharing our experiences with our spiritual leaders and community and have somebody else do a little audit of that, because there might be places that, where we need to heal.

And sometimes we can't see that. And obviously our spiritual community is biased, so they might not be able to help us see that. But an outsider might be able to help see that. And you guys are all, a lot of you guys are coaches, counselors, therapists. So you know what I'm talking about, but I'm just stating the obvious for, for those who are watching.

But also I'm going to be interviewing, Audrey Assad on here. And she's going to be talking about, telling her story of spiritual OCD. So that might be an interview that you guys might want to pay attention to or watch. So, but thank you, Joanne for, for sharing your story.

I'm going tof ollow up with you. I need to hear a little bit more of your story. So I'll follow up with you after the panel. Okay. We have Eden. Eden's back from the thunderstorm that her internet got cut off, but she is back. So Eden, can you unmute yourself and share your story?

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yes. Apologies for having to being forced off, should I say?

Right. Yeah, and, and I missed the other two. I'm so sorry, Stephanie, I missed your, your story. But yeah, I'm Eden, and I am an enneagram type two. And I'll be talking a little bit about my history with anxiety and depression through kind of my life. Now as a practicing therapist and attachment coach, I always start with the beginning, right?

Like those early attachment, those early childhood years. When I entered the world, my mom and dad and sister, older sister, had just moved to a new city. And, um, my dad was traveling Monday through Friday. There was no family or support there. My sister has down syndrome. She was maybe a year out of having open heart surgery and here I came, right?

So needless to say, I had entered into a family system that really had some pretty intense Needs and very little room for a new set of needs, right? And that obviously reinforces reinforced in me that primary type to trait of attending to other people's needs and neglecting my own So that was just it's kind of like the perfect melting pot for that Trait to really form and flourish and in me. So as a sibling, I think it's It's worth like stopping there a little bit as a sibling of someone with special needs.

Not only did it feel like there was no room for my needs out of just the circumstances, right? No one's fault, but there was also so much shame feeling a need, right? Because I have so much more than she does. How, how could I even think about? Picking up space here. So that I think added another layer to. Not being in touch with my needs.

I had to kind of work my way through the shame around that. So overall, I kind of grew to be pretty good. I became the like token friend that was the counselor, right? I can really read and anticipate people's needs and it felt a little like maybe three ish at times like I can I'm gonna kind of morph a little bit here based on what I'm seeing and I felt like a superpower really.

The shadow sid of that superpower, there was kind of an undercurrent of conditional self worth manipulation of others. So I could feel valued. That's really kind of just come around into my consciousness. Wow. Like I'm doing these things because I think that this person is going to bring me value and I'm going to create a need for myself in their life so that I can feel validated and affirmed.

That's been a fun one to kind of discover more and more. And really ask myself, okay, what do I want in this relationship with this person? Like, do I want to be friends? Do I want to be acquaintances versus I need them to need me? That's, that's kind of been really helpful. But yeah, shadow side, and then also having a really loaded self critic that can come in, when those personal needs or opinions.

Or that like stress eight, you know, kicks in, a lot of shame around that. And my, my depression, I was thinking about my childhood and I was like, I think I was good. I think I was good. And then like my twenties hit and I had left my family system. And was kind of dropped into the world, right? And it was terrifying.

Because I was then responsible for the choices that I was making. And I didn't know what choices to make because I didn't know myself. I didn't know what I wanted, didn't know who I was, what I needed. I felt like that moment from, the notebook, except without Ryan Gosling, where he's like, stop thinking about what other people want.

What do you want? Right. What do you want? Um, which is a terrifying question. So like a 20 something, but also really could and did inspire some creativity and imagination and curiosity about myself. My part of my anecdote to my own depression, obviously therapy, my own therapy, some medication, um, but really was songwriting and performing, that process.

It was something I'd been doing since a kid, but I had kept those songs totally to myself. I'd never shared, never performed nothing. So when I started writing in my depression, I just was like, well, maybe I go to a coffee shop and play an open mic or, and it, and it just started flowing. Right. and that, there's so much, there was so much power to the experience of I am standing behind an amplified microphone, right.

And there are people looking at me, hearing my words and hearing my voice and they want to listen. And so that really started building up that connection to myself, my voice, my thoughts, my feelings, um, as well as that self worth. And then, you know, I think another phase was becoming a new mom.

I think anxiety, like, just came in and snuggled up next to me in that phase of life. And part of it was just like my idea of myself being shook, right? I had this concept of myself as this eternally patient. And the token caretaker for like the whole world, right? And I was known as a very patient person and then to experience myself as like so depleted, as very limited.

Um, as resenting my kids and my partner at times, and like what felt worse than any of that, like these moments where I would lash out at my kids, right? It was just completely unacceptable, not in my framework, and there was a lot of wrestling with, you know, okay, who, who am I in this new role with these new demands?

What do I need? How do I communicate that to my partner? And how do I communicate that with my kids? So there's been a lot of, a lot of self care that I've stepped into, which, you know, that, that is like a buzzword and I don't love to use it, but it really has been moments of stillness. Oftentimes when I'm alone for whatever reason, for me being able to get to my core self requires me feeling very embodied, um, and not in my head, not paying attention to the people around me.

I do hot yoga and the room is dark. I love it. No one gets to see, no one sees your sweat, right? Like. Yeah. You feel it, but you don't see it. So hot yoga shavasana is that moment of reflection at the end of yoga class where you're laying there and just really noticing what's coming up in my consciousness, that is a way that I hear myself speak, imagery or in words or in thoughts or songs and really paying attention to that.

So finding a rhythm and working that out with my partner and my life, right? My lifestyle, working that out, finding that rhythm where I stay connected to myself in the midst of all the things that I'm doing in the midst of all the needs. We have a dog, we have chickens, we have a turtle, we have kids, right?

Like, I love being in that role. And I think that's one thing that's we're saying, like, I imagine there's parts of ourselves that we love. Right? Like, in the types that we are, I love being that nurturer and that caretaker, and I love being able to offer a patient, obviously a therapist, right? I love being able to offer that space for people, um, but it's also, it has to be in balance, otherwise I stop being as good as I can be for, for myself and for others.

So that's, that's my 2 cents here.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): if you go to a type two therapist like Amanda, or it's like Eden, you may get a reference to Ryan Gosling, to help, you know, your mental health. So just to let you know,

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. To be, to be fair, I have not, I haven't seen that movie probably since it came out.

But it was very profound when I heard those words coming out of his mouth. And you pointed out that relational anxiety might manifest as a two by creating needs that you can meet for people. A lot of the mental health anxieties come for twos is relational anxiety. And so I like how you put that.

Pointed that out. And didn't you say that you felt like you couldn't talk about your needs because you had siblings or sibling that had more needs, right? I think that was really helpful to hear because you might, especially as a two, you might minimize your own needs, especially if you can see other people who are struggling and be like, well, who am I to bring this up?

I'm just going to be more of a burden. And that's kind of a thing that a lot of you guys shared in the panel is kind of the tendency to minimize your, your struggle as it's not being a big deal. Uh, when it actually is, and you're deserving of support and help and, uh, for people loving people to come around you.

And then I liked that you pointed out that songwriting has been a really helpful, like therapy tool. I hear that over and over for twos, like I had no two who does photography and those creative outlets. When you're just going out and doing something for yourself, that's fun and enjoyable is self care.

And, I always tell twos, especially, um, in, in churches where you're, it's continually preached to be self, be selfless, be selfless, be selfless. Well, twos aren't already selfless. They need to be more selfish in the best sense of the word, uh, something that feels selfish is actually self care.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yes. And I didn't, I didn't mention that as well, but I could have gone on a whole church, path, right.

But I think that was one of my major early on. I grew up in the church. That was one of my major struggles with the church because that was not a message that I needed reinforced, for myself, I needed to be valued for myself and I needed my strengths and my gifts and my talents to be mine.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yes, that's what the Engram was so helpful to me because then I can, I'm telling nines now, take up more space, take up more space, but that's not usually a message that's, that's preached. Well, thank you, Eden. I'm going to start with you and then work back to the others on the, on the panel in closing, tell us where we can find you online, any point us to any resources that you want us To know about any work that you're doing. I'll ask that question of everybody. And then if there's a burning thought that you had, that you didn't get to share, now's your time to get it in. So go ahead and work. We find you online, Eden.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. I have a group private practice. I come on with my husband. He's also a therapist and an Enneagram Nine. It's called Inside Out Collaborative and that's insideoutcollaborative. com. And then,for coaching stuff that's edenheider. com. I have a podcast that focuses on attachments.

There's just a season out there. It's just a little, little flip, but that's called inside out podcast as well. And my Instagram is @edenheider. I'm not on as much. That's part of self care that's happened over the past couple of years as I'm not as much on social media. I'm more in my body, which is positive.

But yes, I love hearing from people. Um, And yeah, there are lots of good resources on those pages too.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah. Um, and I'll post the links that you shared with me. I'll post them below so that people can, can find you that way. Perfect. Uh, let's go back to Stephanie.

Stephanie, where can we find you?

Stephanie Cross (Enneagram 2): Hey, um, so I'm on Instagram. Uh, like Eden said, I'm not on there a ton. Um, but it is storycraftstuff. editor. And I have a website where you can find me for editing services. And sometimes I do blog about grief on there too. Um, but that is storycraftncom.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Awesome stuff. Uh, Jordan.

Jordin James (Enneagram 3): I am on almost all the socials. Um, it's at just Jordinjames. Um, so you can find me on there as a three. I have a lot to express and I am on social media a lot. Maybe, uh, I'm taking some self care notes. Um, so yeah, you can find me on social media. I, um, a lot of my narcissistic abuse stuff. If that's something that anybody listening is interested in.

is on my, in my writing and I write a lot on medium. com. So I think that there's a, there's going to be a link for that as well. And then my, my favorite thing that I just created earlier this year is a 30 day email program called worthy. And it is all about, reclaiming your self worth, your unconditional self worth from the inside, but it's tailored around letting love do the work for you.

So like, I'm really tired of a lot of healing stuff out there that has you working really, really hard to heal because it does not, does not actually have to be as hard as we're making it. Um, so that's called worthy. Uh, it's just a 30 day email. Um, of course it's only 33 bucks. Uh, so highly, highly recommend that.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah, I found you on medium. com too. I found one of your articles and I was like, well, she is very vulnerable for a three. I, I like it. Yeah. I need to get her on the panel.

Jordin James (Enneagram 3): Yeah, actually that, that I had a burning thought as I was listening to y'all fours. I was like, Oh man, this is so good because I've got, I've got a four on me for sure.

And I've realized that like, My four parts are so gifted and special and deep, and they are weird. They are really weird, and my three parts blame my four parts for why we're so lonely. Like, if you were less weird, if you were less deep, if you could just be more shallow and fit in, like, then we wouldn't be so lonely.

So as I was listening to the, the fours, I was like, oh man, that's like the war that's been going on inside of me all this time. So thank you fours for being so vulnerable with that.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Love that, Jordin. I totally agree with that. Uh, Boonie, where can we find you?

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): So, my website is organizedmesses. com. I also have YouTube with a similar name, Organized Messes.

You can just find me there. I, So I have a disappearing relationship with my Twitch, but I want to promote content on there because of my love and support for being part of the gaming community. So I am streaming on Mondays and Thursdays. I actually just lecture because I like to info dump at people.

And it's like my history of not being able to just rant about a topic for 30 minutes on end, which is why I initially created my YouTube, but now I'm going to do it with a live. live action with people who can comment and ask questions. And so I've noticed, not coincidentally, I'm sure you all know, there's a lot of ADHDers and autistic people in the gaming community.

And so I found my people. Um, my perception of rejection is, uh, slowly disappearing and I feel like I do belong there. And so if anyone wants to come say hi, you can just lurk. You don't even need to say anything. Um, I'll be there. So, and I also have a couple lectures that I, I have. Recorded for letsplaytherapy.

org. It's through the lens of play therapy by talk about neurodivergence archetypes and video games for therapists seeking to understand the world in a different lens. So thank you.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Wow. I love that Boonie. And I found you on your YouTube channel. Thank you for taking up space and sharing your story. And, uh, I, I love that.

Keep doing that. Okay, Amanda.

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): I have on Facebook and Instagram, uh, two different accounts. nagyonfire is my personal, but I, I do health coaching, ADHD, all that stuff there. And then Nagy on Fire Coaching is more specific to self awareness, typology, that kind of thing. Um, and I wanted to add that the social media actually helped a lot of my Healing because I wasn't active on social media.

I was a lurker. I didn't want to expose myself in any kind of vulnerable way. So I just watched what other people were doing. And when I started, um, health coaching and talking about weight loss and posting those, uh, not so. Pleasant photos. Um, but I didn't want anybody to see was kind of therapeutic because it released a lot of that shame, right?

Like talking about the things we're ashamed of releases the power it has over us. So I actually found it therapeutic to be vulnerable and share a lot of these things, um, in social media and speaking a little bit more about the ADHD and whatnot. So, um, Yeah, for me, it was helpful to expose myself that way and realize, Oh, it's not that big of a deal.

Like the world didn't end and you know, a lot of people are like, I've I'm there too. And so there's that, that space of feeling like, Oh, I'm not alone. And all these things that I'm going through. So

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): It's good. Thank you so much, Amanda, for sharing that. Last thought and we have Joanne.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So I have two hats on one is as an enneagram therapist and, I have a free guide that's called the emotional habits of enneagram types.

It's a free PDF. I basically explore what I call the big five feelings. Mad, sad, glad, scared, dumb. And how each type has different relationships with each of those motions. And then with the feelings translator hat on I built an online school for feelings because a lot of the work that I do with clients, people like.

Why didn't they teach us this in school? So I made a school. And so with that, I have a free guide called, The Big Feelers First Aid Kit, basically what to do when messy out of control feelings show up at what seems to be the wrong place, the wrong time in the wrong ways. So that's a free guide.

But I also have the online school where I basically share In let's say 20 or so hours of things that I actually share with my clients in session. But I've had a long wait list for quite some time and also people reaching out from out of state. And I'm like, I can't work with you in therapy. So here's this and said, but that one you can find at intelligentemotions.com.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Awesome. I think that's everyone, right? Okay. Well, thank you to all of you for having the courage to share. I know that so many people right now feel seen and are feeling like, Hey, I'm not the only one and feel empowered to go get support or seek out support. So thank you so much for your courage and vulnerability.

And for those of you watching today, before you head over to the next interview or the next panel here on the summit, remember to do things, seek support and share compassion because you are not alone.

Loved what you saw?

Get the EnneaSummit All Access Pass so that you can see the 30+ other talks, including with Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Curt Thompson!

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

Grab this free guide that shows you how to grow beyond the patterns that keep you stuck!

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Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

How Enneagram Type-Specific Retreats Help You Dive Deep into Your Personality

Transformation from the Inside Out

As an Enneagram therapist, I want to walk the talk. I’m committed to working on my own Enneagram type’s ego structures so that even the way I help people aren’t cluttered by my own Type Four biases and reactivity.

(If you don't know what the Enneagram is, start here!)

I’ve been trained by my Enneagram teachers - Beatrice Chestnut & Uranio Paes — founders of Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy — and have gone through their Personal Mastery & Professional Certification Tracks.

Here are some other blogs about inner work retreats:

• How CP Enneagram Retreats Supercharge Your Growth

• Reflections from the CP Enneagram Inner Work Retreat as an Enneagram Type 4

Most of the prior retreats were for people of all nine Enneagram types.

This blog is about 5 reasons why Type-specific Retreats would help you take your inner work on a laser-focused level.

Reason #1: Less = More

The human brain can only take in so much information, let alone information about NINE DIFFERENT TYPES (or 27 subtypes!!).

Yes, I would still highly recommend the other 5-day retreats that cover the nine types, but there’s something about SIMPLICITY in doing the deeper dive on ONE TYPE (YOUR type!) that really hits home.

• What are the central themes of your Enneagram type?

• What are your type’s core childhood woundings?

• What are the main psychological defense mechanisms of your type?

• What is the emotional habit (aka PASSIONS) that drives your automatic patterns from behind the scenes?

• What is the mental habit (aka FIXATIONS) that immediately directs your focus, to then summon your passion and its workings?

• What does your type look like across all the Levels of Development? (e.g., what does a Type Four person fully stuck in ego look like vs. a Four who’s done a great deal of inner work?)

• What are the three SUBTYPES of your type (Self-preservation, Social, and Sexual)?

• What’s the alchemical outcome when you mix your passion with your dominant instinct?

• How can you tap into all three Centers of Intelligence (Head, Heart, Body) to grow beyond your type?

Ultimately, it would still be useful for you to be familiar with the other eight Enneagram types, but for the purposes of your own growth, having a fuller understanding of your own Enneagram type inside and out is practically more immediately useful so that you’re STAYING IN YOUR OWN LANE and not getting distracted from doing necessary work!

(I’m especially looking at you Enneagram Twos and Nines who often look to everyone else except for yourselves and also to Enneagram Fives who often hoard information without taking concrete growth steps!)

Reason #2: Get Straight to the Point of TAKING ACTION

When you do a deeper exploration of your own Enneagram type, you can skip the accumulation of heady knowledge and get right to the points that really confront you with a mirror that reveals your own patterns IN REAL TIME.

Personal growth work is already hard enough as it is, but it’s even more difficult if we tend to INTELLECTUALIZE what really needs to be ACTED upon.

I love how the Enneagram is both COMPREHENSIVE and COMPACT at the same time. The Enneagram contains a wealth of information about our types in very accessible ways that are easy to remember and regurgitate.

The hardest part is catching our patterns in the act, not learning what our patterns are. There comes a point where we’ve learned enough heady knowledge about our types that it’s now time to TAKE CONCRETE STEPS.

80% ready is READY ENOUGH. Take what you already know, and RUN WITH IT! Time is of the essence, and we need to know that sometimes we DO know enough to do DIFFERENTLY starting TODAY.

Let us not drag our feet any longer on taking the important steps towards freedom!

Find out what those steps are by signing up for your Enneagram type-specific retreat.

(If your type’s retreat isn’t available yet, contact them and add yourself to the waitlist!)

Reason #3: See Yourself Reflected in Others

I joke with my Enneagram Four clients about what might happen if you have a room FULL of Fours.

Lament all they want about how they’re the MOST different, unique, exceptional, and fatally flawed person on the planet…but they can’t ALL be right!

I used to tell this to clients as a hypothetical…until I actually attended the Type 4 Retreat myself and saw for myself how WILD and WEIRD it was to see MY patterns showing up in OTHER PEOPLE in REAL TIME. (It’s not just me!)

As with the Boggart in Harry Potter who morphs into what we fear most and disappears when we see how riddikulus! it is, so does our own ego loosen its hold when we see those same patterns in someone else like in a mirror.

Not only are we able to better OBSERVE our own patterns in action (might even be triggered by this), but we are also able to cultivate better COMPASSION for ourselves in ways we can for others (especially important for people who are so self-critical, self-judgmental, or self-loathing) as we see just how much that mirroring person is SUFFERING because of their/our type.

You def can’t get that insight by reading a book! Better to experientially SEE you for yourself in real time!

Reason #4: Focus on Your Type’s Passion 

All of the nine Enneagram types have a deadly sin (add two more to the Seven Deadly Sins and you have nine!):

• Type 1 - Anger

• Type 2 - Pride

• Type 3 - Self-deceit

• Type 4 - Envy

• Type 5 - Avarice

• Type 6 - Fear

• Type 7 - Gluttony

• Type 8 - Lust

• Type 9 - Sloth

These PASSIONS (lit., “suffering”) are each type’s ego-driven emotional state that totally takes over someone’s life. They are a reaction to us losing contact with who we truly are (our “ESSENCE”), and are ways that our EGO tries to cope with that loss.

The word personality means MASK. Each of us HAS a mask, but we AREN’T our mask.

But what happens when we FUSE with our mask to the point of forgetting who we really are? We live our lives THINKING we know ourselves, when in fact we have no freakin clue.

EVERYTHING we do in life is driven by the passion, whether we know it or not. The issue is we usually are UNAWARE of how pervasive it is.

But what happens if we were to discover:

1. Everyone wears masks

2. We each wear a specific mask

3. Our specific mask looks like XYZ

4. Here is how the mask stays on

5. Here are ways to take it off

Once we have a more concrete sense of what each of our personalities look like (like knowing where the edge of the mask is), then we have a better shot at taking the mask off to reveal our true selves.

These type-specific retreats will help you know what YOUR mask looks like so that you can have that chance to know your true face.

When someone has done a lot of inner work to peel off that ego mask and reveal their essence selves, their emotional habit is the exact OPPOSITE of what it was in their ego state:

• Type 1 - Anger > Serenity

• Type 2 - Pride > Humility

• Type 3 - Self-deceit > Veracity

• Type 4 - Envy > Equanimity

• Type 5 - Avarice > Non-attachment

• Type 6 - Fear > Courage

• Type 7 - Gluttony > Sobriety

• Type 8 - Lust > Innocence

• Type 9 - Sloth > Right Action

As an example, the more personal work I do as Enneagram Four (whose reputation is to constantly compare ourselves and always be in emotional chaos), where do I go?

Towards seeing myself as being EQUAL to + SIMILAR with others, and having emotional STEADINESS.

Pretty wild, huh??

Reason #5: Focus on Your Type’s Fixation 

In the same way each Enneagram type has an emotional habit (PASSION), each type also has a specific mental habit (FIXATION).

• Type 1 - Resentment

• Type 2 - Flattery

• Type 3 - Vanity

• Type 4 - Melancholy

• Type 5 - Stinginess

• Type 6 - Cowardice

• Type 7 - Planning

• Type 8 - Vengeance

• Type 9 - Indolence

Each type lives in a deluded/warped version of reality as we “fell from grace” and lost touch with true reality (the Holy Idea)

• Type 1 - Resentment > Perfection

• Type 2 - Flattery > Will

• Type 3 - Vanity > Harmony

• Type 4 - Melancholy > Origin

• Type 5 - Stinginess > Omniscience

• Type 6 - Cowardice > Strength

• Type 7 - Planning > Wisdom

• Type 8 - Vengeance > Truth

• Type 9 - Indolence > Love

Yes, this is very jargony, but part of that is likely because of:

1. translation issues

2. this likely being beyond our current emotional & intellectual paygrade to fathom

The main thing for you to know now is that even BEFORE the passion drives the train forward, it’s our FIXATION that sets that train on the train track.

Where we look affects where we go, and what we focus on limits our reality. (Imagine the sky that you see is but a painted ceiling. What if there’s SO MUCH MORE out there?)

No matter how much work we do to peel off that personality/ego mask, if we don’t shift our attention AWAY from the mask, it’s only a matter of time until it goes back on.

We need something else to focus our attention on so the mask STAYS OFF. That is what the Holy Ideas are about.

It’s easy to get lost in all the abstract, metaphysical language, but that’s all the more reason to really hone in on what this means for YOUR specific type.

All of this knowledge is pointless unless you know what it concretely means for YOU where you are right now.

Summary

In this blog, I listed five reasons why I HIGHLY recommend that you try a Type-specific Inner Work Retreat:

1. Less = More

2. Get Straight to the Point of TAKING ACTION

3. See Yourself Reflected in Others

4. Focus on Your Type’s Passion 

5. Focus on Your Type’s Fixation 

Ready to go deeper in your personal work?

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

Grab this free guide that shows you how to grow beyond the patterns that keep you stuck!

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

Loading...

Woo hoo!!

Check your inbox for your free gift guide,

"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

Healing Burnout with the Enneagram

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Samantha Mackay on her Youtube channel. Samantha and I talked about how knowing our Enneagram type can help us recover from burnout.

Watch the video or scroll down for the transcript.

Healing Burnout With The Enneagram

Samantha: This conversation is jam packed with insights and tools and beautiful metaphors that will help you on your journey for healing with burnout and avoiding burnout in the future. And even if you've never burned out, it will help you support someone who has, or who is recovering today. I'm talking with Joanne Kim of OliveMe Counseling, a marriage and family therapist based in California. She's a Certified Brainspotting practitioner and Enneagram trained professional. We talk about the five main feelings. The fifth one might surprise you and the surprising feeling we need to access more often to help us shift out of burnout and the five things we need more of to help nourish ourselves and support our recovery. And we talked about which one each center of intelligence needed to do more of or to focus or prioritize on. Now there are a lot of links in the notes to get more information to help you connect with Joanne. And let me know in the comments, which metaphor or framework you love the most, and they're going to start using in your life. All right, that's it. Enjoy.

Samantha: So we're talking about burnout and how we can heal it with the Enneagram. It may be that a good place to start is what is burnout? Like, and how do we know that we have it?

Joanne: I think one signal for burnout is that we've just exhausted our reserves. That when we had more energy, we operate one way. And then when we burnt out, it has all the spiky stuff that we're usually not proud of. So as a therapist, I usually work with people around their emotions and our emotions. I'm biased. I'm a four. Like I do a lot of feelings work, but I believe that each emotion has its own message behind it. Our emotions are supposed to tell us what we need at the end of the day. But if we label some feelings as good and others as bad, then we kind of get all tangled up. And burnout is one outcome where we've played favorites with our feelings so much so that we get all tangled up and stuck. And then on top of that, we get frustrated at ourselves, frustrated at other people. So I think anger is probably a really central emotion when it comes to burnout because usually anger is a very active, dynamic, powerful emotion. Once you use up all your resources, you're usually left with the other ones. Anxiety, numbness, sadness, loneliness, partially because in our burnt out state, we make a lot of decisions that cause more problems for us to have to clean up.

Samantha: It's really interesting the way you, you frame it all within that realm of emotions, because I remember when I was burnt out the second time, I was just exhausted, I'd taken a job that I had loved and stopped caring. And when I, when I resigned to essentially go and sleep for three months, they offered me what then was my dream job. And I just, I couldn't care about it. I couldn't, I couldn't find any, any emotion to get excited, to come back from the brink, um, there.

Joanne: Well, the, there's a possibility that the emotion that you were feeling a lot of back then was numbness. I asked people like, what are you feeling right now? And often people say, well, I don't feel anything. I usually then follow up with the question, is it that you don't feel anything in particular or that you feel numb because numbness is the presence of a specific feeling. And so like chafing, you know, when our skin keeps rubbing against the same part over and over again until it's like rub raw, right. Numbness kind of kicks in to help reduce it constantly being activated, right? Constantly being stimulated or triggered. And so part of burnout is we've exhausted our resources in overly focusing, overly working, overly paying attention to things that we just can’t anymore. So numbness comes in. It's a very protective thing. It's so that we don't continue to expend more energy, but numbness is sometimes seen as a problem. You see someone sitting on a bench just staring off into space and you're like, are they okay? Hey, wake up. Come back, right? We kind of shake people out of that state because sometimes we're uncomfortable with people being in a flat state But maybe that's our body's way of trying to actually help us in that instead of us needing more, more stimulation, more activity, more intensity, maybe we actually need less. If we give ourselves less to give our bodies a chance to recover, then I think naturally our faculties will come back online, will be present again, and we'll be able to enjoy things. What you're describing when you said, you know, like they offered me a position that was my dream job and I just wasn't interested, There's a term called anhedonia that is one, it's actually one particular marker of depression or burnout. Hedonia, that's kind of where we get the word hedonic pleasure, right? So anhedonia means no pleasure. It's the state that person gets into where they don't feel joy over things that really used to excite them, probably because their nervous system has been so bombarded already.

Samantha: It's so interesting because that's a seven. You know, it's all about pleasure. And it's so interesting to think that at some point there is just no capacity for pleasure anymore. It's um, that's fascinating. So I'm gonna turn to the types in just a second, but I want to just call out what you said, that numbness is a protection mechanism. And I think that's really important because most of us think numb is bad, but I think one of the most pivotal moments in working with my therapist was when she said, could you be numb? Could you be feeling numb? And I'm like, Oh, I feel numb all the time. This is just my state of being. And having lived in that state for such a long time, it was amazing to have a reframe for it. That was so helpful.

Joanne: Yeah. I mean, I think about numbness kind of being like a styling back on our sauces in food. One of my favorite foods is sushi, Japanese food. And one of the things I love about Japanese food is that it's not centered around heavy sauces. It's more down to the freshness of the ingredients themselves. I live in the United States where like most of the restaurants here, they constantly just like douse their salads, their meats, everything in like such intense flavors. And then they accompany that with like extra cocktails or other things that just keeps adding more intensity. And some of the close people, um, in my life, that's what they gravitate towards, because that's what their taste buds are used to. And so when it comes to them eating Japanese food, it's like a taste test. Very bland and boring. And so it's taken me some time as a way of connecting with my body to actually practice cutting out flavors, reducing the amount of sugar I put in my coffee, dialing it back on the sauces, drinking tea without any extra additives into it. And then like noticing like, Oh, there's actually a lot going on here. There's a lot of subtlety to it. That totally got missed, buried under all the extra stuff that we do, but that's basically what we do in our day to day life lots of activities, full schedules, you know adding TV shows that are about like murder mysteries that keep us up until you know late at night because of all these cliffhangers.

Breaking the Cycle: Embracing Silence, Stillness, and Solitude to Reconnect with Yourself

Samantha: I'm thinking as a head type, I need to learn some more, and I can imagine for heart types, I've got to keep relating, I've got to keep connecting, and body types, I've got to keep doing. And we get stuck in those, that, those false, you know, narratives, um, that we don't realize add intensity into our system, that are extra source.

Joanne: Yup. And so one of the main things that I teach my therapy and coaching clients, they usually reach out to me because they're so good at focusing on and taking care of other people's needs that they forget their own until they get so resentful that they just can't take it anymore. And so one of the first things that I teach them is about numbness. As I've shared with you, that numbness is not the absence of feelings, but it's the presence of a very specific emotion. And then they're like, Oh yeah, that's what I feel all the time. And then the concrete step is to focus on one of the Five S's of Less. Okay. These are Silence, Stillness, Solitude, Simplicity, and Space.

These are the different ways by which we can dial back and all the ways that we're constantly bombarding ourselves. But three of those things, silence, solitude, and stillness correspond with the triads of the Enneagram. Silence for head types, lots of chatter going on. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many possibilities or options. Solitude for hard types. And dialing it back, spending time by oneself to oneself for oneself, instead of constantly focusing on other people's experiences, stillness for body types, because there's constantly a lot of activity and busyness. Busyness is seen as a badge of honor, especially in my part of the world, in the Silicon Valley. These three things are also described in a lot of different spiritual or faith traditions. Like they've been talked about for thousands of years, maybe. And the Enneagram has also been talked about for thousands of years. Right. And so it's like, it's no wonder that, you know, a lot of human existence is us just trying to learn the basics all over again. And it's just not quite getting, making its way in.

Samantha: And it seems ridiculous that it's so hard to learn the basics and yet is our daily struggle. So when I took those three months off work, you basically described those five things exactly what I had unintentionally. So I did have an extremely long list of things I was going to do every day. And thankfully I had a mentor who said to me, write them all down, but only do exactly what you like you and your body feels like in the moment. And literally all I did was sleep. I would occasionally eat and occasionally go for walks. I didn't watch TV. I didn't read books. I didn't do yoga. Like I didn't do the massive list of things. And it's still even with that three months. And then I sort of started to slowly work again, still took another two years before I could work full time. And even on those first few weeks and months and years, I could still only work a few hours a week in terms of providing that focus because I still need so much of those five things. Cause I'd been denying them for myself for so long.

Joanne: Yeah, I kind of think of them as items on a menu. Take your pick. What's on your, what's on your plate today?

Samantha: Yeah. And if you push it, you'll have to do all five at once.

Joanne: I mean, we're trying to do less here, not more. I get it. I mean, so I think one of the, main instincts that tend to show up in my practice, I get a lot of folks who are self pressed dominant who are so good at trying to optimize and hyper optimize, like how can I cram the most stuff in the shortest period of time, go for efficacy and efficiency? It's the trap of optimization in that the more we try to optimize, the less efficient we get. I mean, this is, you've heard of instances where, you know, multitasking is not effective, but it happens so easily for a good number of us like it's just reflex like thinking I need to get I need to go to the grocery store to grab some milk, on my way to the grocery store I'll also pass by the post office and I'll also stop by the you know other store where I need to return something and then somehow a single task of getting milk from the grocery store becoms like five or six things and then I'm frustrated because people won't drive fast enough in front of me. So I was like, where did this frustration come from? It came out of nowhere. It came out of thin air, but really is the expectations that I placed on myself. For what reason? I don't even remember anymore because it's part of my autopilot and being self pressed dominant person. And so that's one of the things that I also share with them. It's like, well, Could it be possible that you try to optimize is actually what's leading to anti-optimization? If that's the case, would it be the case that you focusing on one thing at a time might actually make you quicker? Can we just take things off your plate? Focus on that one thing at a time. A lot of my clients hate it. They're like, why?

Samantha: Well, and I feel like getting so burnt out and getting so sick forced me to have to focus on one thing at a time. And yet I've noticed the past couple of weeks that actually multitasking has started to look different from what I expected. And so it's sneaky how it creeps back in, even when you think you've done like a lot of work on it.

Joanne: So when it comes to our own personal inner work, like, uh, my Enneagram teachers like mentioning that we have to be extra vigilant in constantly looking out for how our Enneagram autopilot will try to sneak its, sneakily sneak its way back in. And then we're all of a sudden tangled back right back up again. Mm. So sneaky.

Samantha: So you mainly see nines, ones, twos and fours. Is that right? In your practice? And so like, what are some of the like differences that you see in terms of what burnout can look like? Because I know some people think, well, nines, they're so slothlike how could they possibly have burnout? But they're such hard workers. I'm curious about that. And then, you know how the different types can start to focus on one of those five S's. And how they can start to be a little more inefficient.

Joanne: Yeah, so the reason why I work with nines, ones, twos, and fours is because on the Enneagram Diagram, they're the right side of that circle. Nines kind of straddle it at the top. But I've heard in some resources that the right side of the symbol is called the Social or the Prosocial types, and then the left side being called the antisocial types. Hmm. And the difference is that prosocial types tend to have their own patterns that are often oriented around going along with other people. Whereas antisocial types tend to do things more independently of others or sometimes even against other people. So because that's what's built into the type structure, the reason why those who are on the right side of the Enneagram tend to get burnt out is because they constantly orient themselves around other people or things outside of them. You know, focusing on other people's experiences, their feelings, their needs. Like you can see 9s, 1s, 2s, 4s are kind of the exception to the rule, but like in a lot of ways, nines and twos just generally focusing their attention outside of themselves forgetting themselves their own wants and needs. Twos they might think about their own needs, but kind of in after they already get resentful about it and not having it reciprocated in their relationships. Ones often repressing their own wants and needs because they think their needs are bad and trying to be a good person whatever that means to the point where they just paint themselves as a dead corner and they find out they have needs anyway. And then, fours, fours tend to focus on other people, but in opposition. So on the surface, it seems like they're the ones where they don't care about what other people think. They absolutely care about what other people think, but they just try to define themselves as opposite. And so they also get burnt out. In that there's no central anchor point in them being connected to who they inherently are, image type. And so all four of them, I mean, I would work with threes too, if they thought that therapy was useful. I don't often see them. Uh, but in, in the way that the prosocial types, their types often and, blurring distinctions between themselves and others, they blur the boundaries. So, it's like we're ones. I am not myself, but I am someone who fills a specific role in a collective. I am known for my position, for my power, my responsibility, my actions, the consequences. I don't have any sense of inherent individuality. I am a cog in a bigger machine. Like that's just kind of generally how I think ones operate. And so there's a lot of guilt in even admitting that they're exhausted and they have needs because they should be doing more, you know, twos also feeling similarly, but more for relationship reasons. It's like, well, what if they don't like me anymore? Type of thing. There's a lot of anxiety that keeps people focused outside of themselves. Until they get burnt out, they get resentful, shit hits the fan, things break, and then they, you know, reach out to a therapist like myself, and they're like, I don't, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself, right? And some of them, they already know their Enneagram type, and so we can just jump right in as to how their type shows up in different ways. Some of them are like, I don't even know why I keep doing this to myself. And it's like a whole like eye-opening experience for them to realize that autopilots exist and that they happen to have a specific autopilot. So in terms of all four of those types, probably solitude is the main thing for nines and twos. As the others referencing types. Nines, especially like with sloth, you might see this less in self presence, but more social sexual lines that are inherently people oriented, where if they don't have anyone to merge to, they're just kind of floating aimlessly and there's no movement. Right. But that's precisely why they need to spend time away from agendas being implemented from other people and more to themselves. Um, ones probably could benefit from stillness and silence and quieting the shoulds instead of thinking of shoulds. It's, you know, the idealist types ones, fours and sevens are like, well, things, how things should be, how things could be, how things could have been versus thinking of how things are for, you know, how, how they just are, right? So for ones and fours, focusing on what's present, what exists already, instead of looking towards a potential or hypothetical possibility. Simplicity, ones and fours probably could use a lot of that because they make things way too complicated. Um, and space, I like thinking of space, like, yeah, uh, opposite of clutter, just having constant things around and just needing even physical room, literally going outside in nature, standing under the big sky, seeing oneself as a small, tiny speck in the larger universe, I think ones, twos and fours could really benefit from that because in our different ways, we think of ourselves as so important. So, those are just a little bit of different examples of how the five S's would kind of integrate for each person according to their type.

Escaping Autopilot: How Caring Too Much Can Lead to Burnout and Numbness

Samantha: And it's so interesting how that autopilot really creates that pattern of setting aside feelings, not tending to the things that are difficult. Or in the fourth case wallowing in those feelings, but yeah, you know, all the self pressure can equally just not pay attention to them. And just thinking about how we started this conversation about how there is all these feelings and we need the information that they're bringing us. And when we're just too busy or just too on autopilot or caught up with all the, the thoughts that are saying we should do this and we have to do that, those feelings don't get heard Because I wouldn't have thought of burnout as being not having the time to tend to or listen to our feelings coming up and that just and they bottling up till we get numb I'm just finding that connection fascinating and seeing that all come together in that way because I think it's easy to think of burnout is I've just done too much as opposed to I've cared too much.

Joanne: So there's a couple different terms. There's compassion fatigue. There's vicarious trauma. There's my favorite term, ruinous empathy or empathy gone too far. Kim Scott in her book, Radical Candor, fantastic. I would highly recommend it, but again, pro social types, giving too much of a damn about lots of different things. I mean nines kind of might have an easier time because part of their autopilot is to be in numbness - the narcotization right the checking out But in some ways all those types need to care less about whatever the types focus on and to care more about things that are in the blind spot. It's just that it just so happens that for all four of them what's in their blind spot is their own needs and wants. So I like talking in general. When I introduce emotions, I talk about what I call the big five feelings, mad, sad, glad, scared, numb. Obviously, there are more feelings than that. Yeah, but you add numb into the big five. That's really interesting. Okay. And part of the reason for that is I mean, anger, sadness, joy, fear. Those are usually mentioned when people talk about the main emotions, but I swapped out disgust for numb because numb is the presence of an actual feeling instead of the absence of them. And I like thinking of these as a set. They go hand in hand. For example, anger is a very present tense, action oriented, expansive, powerful emotion. Sadness is more focused on the past and what could have been. In a very low energy, more contemplative, kind of heart driven space, joy being the emotion that says that things are good and they're available in their presence right now. Anxiety that's pointing towards the future of what could be, but towards the negative and also very active emotion, but it usually makes a person feel Seems smaller, whereas anger makes them seem bigger and then numbness, which is like, I don't care about anything. I'm going to dampen all of these guys. Right. And so when it comes to burnout, usually the main emotions in question are anger and numbness. I mentioned why numbness is the case because we've given too much of ourselves and we just don't have anything left in the tank. Right. Or we've gone through too many experiences in a short period of time and our nervous system is completely fried. What we don't think about is that anger is actually something that we need more of, not less, when we're burnt out. But it's not anger being frustrated towards other people, because people usually think of anger as a bad emotion. Like, oh, we shouldn't be angry. Whereas anger actually says, this really fucking matters. Numbness says nothing matters. Right? So the opposite of that is like, you know, this specific thing or I or that other person really matters and that what's happening to that person needs to change now. There's a sense of urgency and the, um, requirement for major shifts to happen agency action will all that. So when we get to a point of burnout, we're not in a place to feel sadness, joy, anxiety, because we're checked out. Right. But we can't stay in the state in this space for very long because we still have things like life still continues even when we're burnt out, right? We need to actually use anger, see it as a potential good emotion and use it on our behalf so that we're not in a position where our body needs to summon numbness for us. If we had tapped into the fiery, vibrant, creative energy of anger in the first place. as pro-social type, we would not have been in a place where our needs were running on empty, that our own experiences were missed by other people. We would actually speak on behalf of ourselves. We would address situations where we are unfavored or looked over or taken advantage of. So I would think of burnout as being the outcome of us having done, underly having done anger, not doing it too much. And so in addition to us actually doing nothing, we need to actually start connecting with that creative energy again.

Samantha: I love how you call anger creative energy, that those things are rarely paired together, but I can really see how powerful that is. And my first thought was, It's not okay to be angry on your behalf. Like it's okay to be angry on other's behalf, but it's really hard to summon that energy on your own behalf. Cause I, as I think back to what led me to be burnout, I couldn't have expressed anger at other people, but you're right, I could have generated some anger on my behalf and led me to make different choices.

Joanne: Yeah. And I've come to this conclusion in my own Enneagram work, because I am a four who's self preservation instinct dominant and sexual repressed and I had a lot of biases against the sexual instinct and I think that instinct itself is probably the most directly connected to anger. The sexual instinct is also connected to spontaneity, intensity, what's wild, what's vibrant, what's fun, exciting, things like that. Whereas a self pressed dominant person, I kind of clamp it all down. Right. And so as I started summoning my own repressed instinct, the sexual instincts and started tapping into more of my anchor, it's like, well, I don't have as much buildup of those other feelings anymore because my needs are getting met more directly instead of in a roundabout way, instead of me constantly exhausting myself, feeling like I have to prove that I deserve goodness. As if I don't already deserve goodness, right? And so anger was probably one of the most healing emotions to connect with. That was a huge surprise to me. I'm like, what do you mean I'm supposed to do anger more? I want to do it less.

Samantha: I want to do as little as possible. It's so funny. It reminds me one time I was in this Martial arts class and I was hitting something and they said, imagine it's a person's face and boy, did I get so much more focused and I had energy that just, I didn't know I had the second I put someone's face in it.Yeah. I think it's, it is really important to reframe and re-understand what anger is because most of us think of it as rage. And yet it's simply an ability to stand up for ourselves and others, but anger can be extremely quiet. It just has this presence. It's grounded. It's focused, it's clear, it's direct. It doesn't have to be loud and critical or violent in any way.

Joanne: No, I think violent, the violent explosive type of anger is most likely to happen when we don't give anger its rightful place to show up. Like if there were adequate opportunities for us to speak up about what we're needing directly. Actually, the tone of anger can sound like, Hey, can I get my stapler back? It becomes big because it's repressed and then it goes underground and it comes out the black market. There's just one more piece is that I think in just studying different aspects of the Enneagram - those who have a sexual dominant instinct probably get unfairly pegged as being too much, too bad, too intense, too angry, too whatever But I mean i'm speaking as someone who's not sexual dominant I think sexual dominant folks probably get too much flack that they actually need to be seen with respect. And we need to know what value they bring to this world, that those who are sexually repressed, especially, need to actually do more of, not less.

Samantha: Completely. And the more I spend time with people whose Enneagram type I know, when they say something that I, that is really unexpected to me, I'm able to value it a lot more. You know, when a six says you should question that, I'd be like, no, no, it's fine. I I'll just take it. It's great. And I'm like, well, maybe. Maybe I should question that. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, you know, and it's, I'm finding that really useful because each type, each dominant instinct brings its own value, even though it brings its own autopilot. It brings value and we can learn so much from other people, even Um, as we're all doing our inner work to tame those instincts, calm those autopilots. So the thing I wanted to ask about is the caring too much piece and learning how to care less, because when I was going through that, it felt like a part of me had to die to start caring, to stop caring about the things I was cared about so much. And it was a really difficult reframe because I thought if I stopped caring about these things, who am I? What am I, what's left if I stop caring so much? And so I'm curious how you might help types make that shift.

When Growth Disrupts: How Personal Development Challenges Relationship Dynamics and Autopilot Tendencies

Joanne: Well, in all the types, I think of all the types as archetypes of the universal human experience. We resonate with a little bit about all the types. We just get stuck in one. It's the one that's most familiar. So much so that we just assume that's the default. And we see this, especially in relationships where different types tend to be drawn towards each other. And oftentimes they're like the types that share a line on the arrows path, right? Or wings even. Right? I think that the things that we value in our types are probably ways by which we outsource to someone else things that we actually need to do for ourselves. So, I'll give you type 2 and type 8 as an example. Type 2s. They care so much about other people in their autopilot when actually they actually need to take some of that care towards others and direct it towards themselves so that they get their needs met more directly instead of through another person. But it's as if them caring for themselves is bad, therefore they need to go about this in a direct way. Type 8s. Type 8s are known to really value strength and power, or at least not being vulnerable. But they outsource, they, they lop off their vulnerability. and they project it onto someone else, making someone else seem smaller and weaker than they actually are, and thereby making themselves feel bigger and stronger than they actually are. And so they're usually going together in a set, because often apes need someone to protect. Right. Right. And so, in a sense, like, we hear of instances where opposites attract. Well, part of the reason why they might attract each other is because each person is outsourcing to the other person what they ought to do for themselves. A lot of 2 5 combos in relationships. Right. And so at a certain point, when there are these relationships formed, there isn't a huge problem that happens when one person starts growing. When a person starts healing and starts doing their work, they give away things that they have no business taking on, like other people's responsibilities. And then they take back what's rightfully theirs, like their own power and voice. Well, what happens if you have equilibrium between these two people and then one person starts changing? Well, that's gonna completely disrupt the whole thing. And so often there's pushback because this person's like, well, what are you doing? You're supposed to stay in your position because that's the agreement that we made, right? And so when it comes to caring too much, it's not clear whether what we care about is actually what we, in our essence, care about, or what our autopilots care about. It's not clear whether eyes of four really value authenticity, or the type four values authenticity.and I need to recognize how I have my autopilot, but I'm not my auto, but there's some space that I need to create more distance from. And so when people do their personal work, there's a huge portion of it where everything is turned upside down and people don't know which side is up anymore. It's like, what do you mean? I'm supposed to like practice anger on purpose. Like I thought anger was a bad emotion. That's supposed to be like super destructive. Like, what do you mean? I'm supposed to do the very thing that I've vowed to stay as far away from. What do you mean? I'm supposed to have boundaries. Like, that's being selfish, like, you know, there's a lot of turmoil and resistance and the dissonance is actually probably a marker that people are growing. So I usually at this point encourage them, it's like, you're going in the right direction. It's just going to feel like crap for a long time.

Samantha: Yeah. And to be able to ask those questions and even to recognize that there is a paradox and there is things out of alignment is, yeah.

Joanne: So I like thinking about our autopilot, like someone who's about to get laid off, they're about to lose their job and they're freaking out. So they start creating all these problems that it knows how to solve so that it stays employed. I think that's what our Enneagram type ego structure is like. So instead of us judging ourselves, like, why do I keep finding myself in the same situation over and over again? I can't get out of it. And then they judge themselves like, no, there's an active second party with its own agenda and its own desire. Its agenda is to keep you in autopilot in the ego. This other person has an agenda for you to not notice what it's doing, but for you to judge yourself instead. So once we think about, Oh, There's another entity that is trying to get me to do something. Okay. Let me turn on my inner rebel and create some space and some boundaries with my own type so that I can find out who I really am. So it's a lot of cloudy mind work for a lot of people in their process.

Samantha: I love that explanation of the, the type is someone who's about to get fired and working really hard to stay employed, and to conjure your inner rebel. Like, I love these two little metaphors. They're fantastic.

Reclaiming Joy: How Building a 'Fuck-It' List Can Heal Burnout and Reconnect You with Your Inner Child

Joanne: I mean, in psychology, we call that externalizing. We need to put that outside of ourselves instead of thinking that it's a part of us and who we truly are. And so once people start. thinking that there's a whole way of living, then it just opens all these possibilities. But in order to get there, there's going to be a huge section of that path where it's going to feel like we're going in the opposite direction and that's okay. Keep going instead of stopping. But this is why I don't blame people for wanting to stay in their ego. It is everyone's personal decision as to whether or not to pursue this path. And so I'm very thankful when people do, but I also don't blame people for not doing so.

Samantha: Yeah, that autopilot works pretty hard and it can be hard to see it in action. So just, just wrapping up on burnout and all those feelings we can't access and needing to get into anger more to like advocate on our own behalves and what we need and also the solitude, silence, space.

Joanne: Stillness. Simplicity. Yeah. Stillness and simplicity. I'll, I'll give you the link to the blog so that there's a quick link. Perfect. It's all listed in there.

Samantha: Okay. Awesome. Any, uh, final thoughts or words on healing burnout with the Enneagram?

Joanne: Ooh. Um, one of my favorite activities I recommend is for people to build a Fuck It List. This is a list, not of all the things that people want to do before they die, like bucket lists operate, but a fuck it list is a list of all the things that they never gave themselves permission to do, but they really wanted to do growing up. This is learning how to tap into our inner children. Again, because a lot of the pro-social types are ones that grew up way too quickly. So they lost a lot of that innocence, that carefreeness, the inherent sense of their own goodness. And a lot of sense learning from a lot of our sevens, right? Tapping into joy, purity, ease to kind of offset the hard work that gets them to a place of burnout in the first place. So one of mine was to get a tattoo or to go watch a movie by myself in the theater. It doesn't have to be super intense. Instead of looking for permission from the outside, doing it.

Samantha: I like it. It doesn't have to be super intense. And yet going to the movies by ourselves can be a super intense experience. You know, you don't have to go jump off a cliff. To do some deep inner work, you know, and sit in that discomfort of doing something that you've never had permission to do before.

Joanne: Simplicity. Simplicity. Thank you so much for taking me through all this today. Thank you for having me here.

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What are the emotional habits of your Enneagram type?

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

SAMANTHA MACKAY

Samantha Mackay is an Enneagram coach certified by Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy. She has spent 15 years healing from chronic stress, anxiety, depression, pain, an autoimmune condition and, more recently, trauma.

She believes that understanding the role of our ego in our healing is key. Samantha helps people reclaim their inner wellbeing through the wisdom of the Enneagram. For their bodies, for their work and for our relationships with others, at home and at work.

Learn more about her here.

Enneagram & Personal Styling

Skittish about Being SEEN or the Center of Attention

I don't know about you, but I grew up with intense self-consciousness and was always squeamish around being seen or noticed, my wardrobe involved all kinds of loose, baggy clothes that were comfortable and functional AF but were really meant to HIDE how I looked.

(SHAME was probably my closest friend growing up.)

With the exception of an RBF (Resting Bitch Face) that has no rival, I spent most of my early life trying to be seen for what I DID (competency, knowledge) instead of how I LOOKED (image, appearance).

Enneagram Type: OVERDOING Some Parts, UNDERDOING Others

Since I discovered that I was an Enneagram 4 with a dominant Self-preservation instinct and repressed Sexual instinct, I realized that I was living out an extreme posture of hunkering down in whatever gave me the sense of security while also cutting off my source of vitality and flow.

(BTW - despite what it's called, the Sexual (SX) instinct isn't only about sex, but rather it's where our creativity, vivaciousness, and expansive energy comes from. In contrast, the Self-Preservation (SP) instinct is usually more guarded, calculated, and steady. Read this if you wanna learn more about the three Enneagram instincts and why they matter for our growth!)

Long story short, what I thought would be in my best interest (to live life in a guarded way) was actually the very thing that was CAUSING problems in my life and relationships.

(Have you ever felt OUT OF CONTROL in a certain area of your life, try to EXERT CONTROL to feel steady, only to find out that you're MORE out of control? That's generally how anxiety is.)

Little did I know that *because* I cut off the source of my power and energy (SX), I was living life more anxious, numb, and reactive than I really needed to at this point in my life.

Enneagram Growth: Returning to Balance

In order for me to become more steady, grounded, and whole, I needed to GROW BEYOND the trap of my Enneagram type by doing the OPPOSITE of what my type is designed to do. One way to do that is to dial back our dominant instinct (SP for me) and nurture our repressed instinct (SX for me).

Instead of continuing to wear things that kept me hidden or blended me into the background, I needed to practice actually DRAWING attention, fostering aspects of myself I used to dismiss as impractical or frivolous.

...through a Wardrobe Revamp & Makeover!

In meeting my bestie Melinda Olsen (Enneagram 2SX), whose type and instinct sequence is the OPPOSITE of me, I've healed a lot of deep wounds and had major breakthroughs.

One specific way she helped me was to help me discover my STYLE (how I show up on the OUTSIDE to match how I am on the INSIDE) through clothes, colors, and body posture.

Here's one example of how my vibe totally changed from before. (Yes, that's a genuine smile, and I feel comfortable + confident as hell!)

Never would I have thought that CLOTHES, HAIR, and MAKE UP would be such an meaningful part of my growth + healing journey...and yet, here we are.

Since my makeover, I've been encouraging my SP-dominant and/or SX-repressed coaching + therapy clients to consider using their wardrobe as a concrete way for them to live out their true selves beyond their Enneagram type.

So here's the cool announcement! *dun dun dun!*

Melinda is offering personal styling using the Enneagram!

If you're someone who:

• Needs to up your wardrobe game but are feeling ANXIOUS, CONFUSED, OVERWHELMED, or EMBARRASSED,

• Want to tap into and nurture your Sexual instinct so you can experience your wild, creative, vivacious side

• Grew up in a repressed or shaming environment (especially as someone who's LGBTQ+ or POC)

...then Melinda's your gal!

Check out how Melinda can help you come into your authentically badass self!!

What's Your Relationship With Rest?

In another blog, I shared about how my feelings about my birthday changed over time.

In a similar way, so have my sentiments towards all things related to REST -relaxation, stillness, vacation, play.

One of the reasons was because I have an allergic reaction to JOY. (Mine is very Enneagram 4ish, but other types have their own versions. I also hear a ton from Enneagram 1s or those who have a dominant Self-preservation instinct as to why joy is difficult for them.)

When good, fun things come up, I would feel FEAR instead, accompanied by lotsa anxious thoughts:

• "What if something bad happens while I'm having a good time?"

• "What if I have such a great time and then it ends? Will I be okay?"

• "What if it'll turn out disappointing?"

...or SHAME:

• "I haven't done enough to deserve a vacation."

• "There's so much to do, and not enough time or money."

• "I feel bad for leaving the people I'm taking care of."

As such, rest (and even play!) are LEARNED SKILLS, not something that comes readily to me.

So how did I go from rarely resting to now having regular vacations multiple times a year?

Nowadays, there are 6 weeks off that are just built into my calendar:

• my birthday week

• my anniversary week 

• holidays 

• a buncha mini vacays sprinkled in between...just because.

(The less often you take time off, the more you're FORCED to take time off because you get sick, burned out, can't focus, etc. It also takes longer time for you to decompress and get into rest mode - some might even spend half their vacation time just catching up on sleep.

The more often you take a break, the more readily you can drop into rejuvenation mode. Taking many shorter breaks throughout the year is better than taking a single extended time off!) 

(From my time in Taiwan! So rejuvenating being in luscious nature... 🌿)

Here are some things that helped me practice regular rest & play on purpose:

(1) Realizing that I have Ruinous Empathy 

When I overextend myself in caring for others out of guilt or shame but to the point of burnout or resentment.

Those who should pay close attention to Ruinous Empathy include:

• Enneagram 9

• Enneagram 1

• Enneagram 2

• Enneagram 4 (Self-preservation)

• Enneagram 7 (Social)

• Enneagram 8 (social)

(2) Inverted Golden Rule 

I ought to do unto myself as I would do unto others (if I encourage others to take breaks, so should I).

I should not make myself the exception to the rule as my Enneagram 4 autopilot wants me to.

Those who are Enneagram 2s should watch out for their pride playing out by living as if you don't/shouldn't have needs.

(3) Practicing childlikeness to counter shame 

If a helpless baby - who's super unproductive and contributes nothing to the world but literal poop - is deserving of goodness, fun, and joy, why wouldn't I?

Those who tend to be "extra serious/grown up" or tries to prove their worth by DOING include:

• Competency types - Enneagram 1, 3, 5

• Reactive (negative) types - Enneagram 4, 6, 8

• Types who have a hard time letting go of control - Enneagram 1, 6, 8

• "Adult", responsible types - Enneagram 1, 2, 6

• Idealist types who live in the SHOULDs/COULD HAVEs - Enneagram 1, 4

(4) Following nature's footsteps 

If seasons of inactivity and seasons of activity go hand-in-hand (one not lesser or greater than the other), what would it look like in my life to integrate both?

What if there's MORE to life than just what my Enneagram type tells me? What biases am I reinforcing? What's in my blind spot?

It took me quite some time to get to where I am now regarding rest, so if a 6-weeks-off-per-year approach seems out of reach for you because of responsibilities or resources - no problem.

The important thing is that you begin moving more in that direction little by little STARTING TODAY.

Some questions for you:

• What's your relationship with taking time off? Do you have any emotional reactions to the topic of rest?

• How does your Enneagram type feed into this? What themes might be playing into this?

• How can you take one small step towards building in more rejuvenation time into your calendar?

How Different Enneagram Type Really Feels About Their Birthdays

Feelings about your own birthday because of your Enneagram Type

One of the most common things I see in my work with my Enneagram therapy + coaching clients is a complicated relationship with their own birthdays. (I'm looking at you, Enneagram 1s, 2s, 4s, and 9s!)

This might be because of a host of reasons:

• Lack of practice in celebrating + having fun — "There's so much to do. Who has time for vacation?!"

• Lack of practice in celebrating oneself, feelings of shame + unworthiness

• Self-consciousness — not wanting to be the center of attention (or to be noticed, period!)

• Resentment - "I did this for YOUR birthday; why didn't you do it for me?" “I thought about all the things you wanted to do for your birthday. Why didn’t you ask me what I wanted?”

• Unspoken desires + expectations

• Focus on OTHER people's wants + needs

This isn't from nowhere. A lot of it might stem from our Enneagram autopilot ways of living life, including putting others' needs before our own or feeling like we need to EARN love and goodness.

Years ago, I would have never imagined announcing my birthday so openly to 3,000+ people, let alone the 5 closest friends to me.

Because I felt SO UNCOMFORTABLE drawing attention (even positive ones), I used to get squeamish about my birthday, burying my head in the sand and hoping it would just blow over without anyone noticing as if it's a terrible event.

This tapped into the same part of me that would avoid, deflect, or minimize any compliments or appreciations I got.

It always baffled me how some people would not only enjoy their birthday but would want everyone to know it. How can they handle such intensity of positive attention??

In the past several years, I learned that my own Enneagram type (Self-Preservation 4) was interfering with my ability to be celebrated.

Here is what happens for Enneagram 4s:

• Enneagram 4s have such a deep shame message that says, "I am bad/broken."

• Anytime someone tells Fours something similar to the above message, we absorb it and won't let it go. Anytime someone says something different than the above message, we deflect it. (Self-referencing)

Here is what happens for those with a dominant Self-preservation instinct (regardless of Enneagram type):

We crave predictability, control, and planning. Anything we haven't planned/prepared for (e.g., other people's emotions/sentiments or surprises) freaks us out.

By knowing my Enneagram type, I've done a lot of deep healing to recognize that:

• I, too, have goodness in me - just like everyone else.

• Others don't automatically have alterior motives - some are actually excited to celebrate me.

• It's okay to allow myself to be seen, loved, and held.

This does NOT mean that those who aren't an Enneagram 4SP can't ever get squeamish about getting positive attention. This just happens to be the 4SP reasons we get stuck.

Other types might also deflect for different reasons:

1. Enneagram 2s might crave positive attention and feel rejected when they don't get it. But when they DO get positive attention, they feel embarrassed and awkward.

2. Enneagram 5s might prefer to keep it low-key (maybe to even sleep in) rather than having to interact with other peopel

3. Nines generally feel uncomfortable being the center of attention (though they feel hurt when they're ignored or not included)

4. Self-preservation 1s might be so obsessed in noticing their imperfections that they have a hard time acknowledging that they, too, are good.

5. Social 7s might want to focus on making things fun for everyone else and put their own wants last.

Here’s a chart that might give you a sense of the internal sentiments per Enneagram type!

Years ago, I would have never imagined announcing my birthday so openly to 3,000+ people, let alone the 5 closest friends to me.

Because I felt SO UNCOMFORTABLE drawing attention (even positive ones), I used to get squeamish about my birthday, burying my head in the sand and hoping it would just blow over without anyone noticing as if it's a terrible event.

This tapped into the same part of me that would avoid, deflect, or minimize any compliments or appreciations I got.

It always baffled me how some people would not only enjoy their birthday but would want everyone to know it. How can they handle such intensity of positive attention??

In the past several years, I learned that my own Enneagram type (Self-Preservation 4) was interfering with my ability to be celebrated.

Here is what happens for Enneagram 4s:

• Enneagram 4s have such a deep shame message that says, "I am bad/broken."

• Anytime someone tells Fours something similar to the above message, we absorb it and won't let it go. Anytime someone says something different than the above message, we deflect it. (Self-referencing)

Here is what happens for those with a dominant Self-preservation instinct (regardless of Enneagram type):

We crave predictability, control, and planning. Anything we haven't planned/prepared for (e.g., other people's emotions/sentiments or surprises) freaks us out.

By knowing my Enneagram type, I've done a lot of deep healing to recognize that:

• I, too, have goodness in me - just like everyone else.

• Others don't automatically have alterior motives - some are actually excited to celebrate me.

• It's okay to allow myself to be seen, loved, and held.

This does NOT mean that those who aren't an Enneagram 4SP can't ever get squeamish about getting positive attention. This just happens to be the 4SP reasons we get stuck.

Other types might also deflect for different reasons:

1. Enneagram 2s might crave positive attention and feel rejected when they don't get it. But when they DO get positive attention, they feel embarrassed and awkward.

2. Enneagram 5s might prefer to keep it low-key (maybe to even sleep in) rather than having to interact with other peopel

3. Nines generally feel uncomfortable being the center of attention (though they feel hurt when they're ignored or not included)

4. Self-preservation 1s might be so obsessed in noticing their imperfections that they have a hard time acknowledging that they, too, are good.

5. Social 7s might want to focus on making things fun for everyone else and put their own wants last.

Here’s a chart that might give you a sense of the internal sentiments per Enneagram type!

View fullsize

View fullsize

(I’d love to hear your experiences of birthdays based on your Enneagram type & subtype if it’s different than what’s above — shoot me an email!)

What does knowing our Enneagram types do?

It helps us see how our autopilot ways of thinking, feeling, and doing actually gets us STUCK in painful situations. Each of the nine Enneagram types show us how we create our own suffering (on top of the challenges that come with life).

I really wish I knew the Enneagram earlier in life - it totally would have helped me heal and move on from the same old narratives.

This is why I'm so driven to spread the word about it - NOT so that I tell you how to put yourself in a box, but precisely to show you how you've been stuck in a box already and help you get out of it.

Your Enneagram type is NOT who you are - it's what you've BELIEVED you are. There's so much more to you beyond that.

Some questions for you…

• What has your the idea of birthdays been in general? (Some might have made it onto your Life Timeline!)

• What’s been your experience of YOUR birthdays?

  • What made the BEST birthdays the best?

  • What made the WORST birthdays the worst?

• How does your Enneagram type show up in what made up your best or worst birthdays?

• What has your experiences with OTHER people’s birthdays been?

  • What feelings come up when you think about other people’s birthdays? (Excitement, envy, sadness, loneliness, jealousy, resentment, etc.)

• How does your dominant instinct (Self-Preservation, Social, Sexual) show up?

• What is one thing you can intentionally do differently to celebrate yourself (if you tend to shy away from your birthday)?

  • What is something you’ve always wanted to do but never gave yourself permission to pursue? This blog about the Fuck-it List might help.

  • How can you ask someone else to help you do that?

• How can you celebrate others for what THEY want/need (instead of going according to YOUR IDEA of what they want/need?

(If you’d like to add your experience according to your Enneagram type, shoot me an email and I could add it here as part of a communal convo!)

The Enneagram Instincts & Creativity

I was invited onto The Empowered Sensitive & Creative Podcast with Rim to discuss using the Enneagram to decode instincts and emotional patterns. Rim is an artist, a certified life coach, and an NLP practitioner. Here is the transcript of our conversation or give the podcast episode a listen below!

Rim: Joanne Kim, LMFT, is an Enneagram and Brainspotting Therapist in the Silicon Valley. She helps people transform their biggest feelings into their greatest superpower. She does this in three ways. The Enneagram helps people discover and grow beyond their emotional reactive patterns. Brainspotting helps people massage out the painful emotional knots in their nervous system.

Intelligent Emotions is an online program that helps people build their dream life and relationships through the power of their own emotions. A big feeler, an Enneagram Type 4, and a fellow HSP, Joanne has come a long way in being in harmony with her feelings and spends her free time hammocking, cocktailing, or soap carving.

Hi Joanne, welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy for you to be here today.

Joanne: Thanks. It's good to be here.

Rim: Can you start by telling me a bit about yourself? Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Where are you based right now?

Yeah, I am a therapist and feelings translator down in the Silicon Valley in San Jose, California, and, mostly work with a lot of sensitive and empathic creative types to basically put their life on hold in trying to take care of other people or trying really hard to not be criticized, not be judged.

Joanne: Working around other people. And so my work has been to help people draw out their true selves and live their best life. So it's been really good, really fun. And yeah, I'd love to share a little bit more about how I do that today.

Rim: Yeah. Wow. Amazing. I really like, really like what you do and we need more people like you.

Joanne: There's a lot of room for more people to come on board because being in the Silicon Valley, we have a lot of emphasis on like engineering types and people who can like, chug in a lot of work without complaining. There's a lot of politicking that happens in a lot of these industry companies, but that's kind of where a lot of the sensitive types tend to struggle because being very ethical, they don't really like throwing people under the bus or like being deceptive and things like that.

And so it's been pretty hard. So if you can send more people over this way, then that would be great.

Rim: Yeah, definitely. And it's not only in the Silicon Valley, I think. I guess over there, it's like concentrated. I think everywhere where you have a lot of competition, I say competition like this, because, you know, could be perception, but is it actually the truth?

But anyway even in the creative industries artistic world, it can be quite tough. And for sensitive people, it's, yeah. I mean, I think there are a lot of sensitives who really are really great at engineering, at arts, at creativity, but at the same time, it can be so much, so much to handle.

Joanne: I mean, I imagine that success is itself a double edged sword, because once people actually create something fantastic, it's like, well, now the bar's higher, so I have to, like, beat the old thing.

Otherwise, like, I might be irrelevant, I might be replaceable, and there's a lot of that kind of anxiety and fear, so. So much stress that happens. Yeah. Mm hmm.

Rim: Somehow stress was and still is something that when I grew up, at least I think now it's changing, but I remember when I was younger, being stressed seemed like a good thing. You know, like it's bad that you're actually doing something in your life with your life.

People were like, Oh, I'm stressed. I'm stressed. I'm stressed. And then if you, if you would come along and say, well, okay, actually. People around you would feel like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, maybe you're not ambitious enough.

Joanne: It's like a badge of honor by itself. And so like definitely get a lot of that It's as if the people aren't like hustling all the time. That they're being lazy like it's a character flaw instead of being like I did my work during work hours and now it's not work hours. And so I'm gonna go hang out with my family or go up for a walk or do something light and easy. Like there's a lot of emphasis on pushing and enduring and struggling really. Yeah, yeah I mean the pressures are already strong from the outside if they're also strong from the inside then it's like the body doesn't ever get a break. Until it crashes and you just can't take it anymore.

Rim: Yeah, that's true. That's interesting. As you were saying this, I got a vision from when I was an art student, we were, we were shown a video about Francis Bacon, who is an artist from the 20th century, and it was a video about explaining his process. It's really marked me. So the video is, there's a guy sitting in an armchair, and we just see him, like, I think from the chest up, facing us.

And we see he's receiving punch in the face. So he's receiving a punch, then another punch, then another punch, then another punch, and you know, at the beginning, he's handling quite well, and then after a while, it's really hard. So it's really weird, but anyway, then you can see his face getting disfigured. Disfigured and then blood pouring out and then at the end is completely destroyed. And then I don't remember the rest of the video, but I remember that scene and the artist said that that's his vision of what he's trying to portray in his art. His art is quite tortured and quite heavy in that sense.

And yeah, what you were saying, what you were talking about external pressure and internal pressure. It made me think of that as an image.

Joanne: Mm hmm. And if you imagine, like, a lot of empathic types, like, how we tend to navigate with bullies, not quite well. And so it's just like taking it and taking it and taking it until, like, one day we just, our resentment just builds up so much that we kind of flip our lid and just everything comes out.

Rim: Yeah, definitely. Exactly.

Joanne: A lot of toxic dynamics. Like, people are like, Why are you so dramatic? Why are you so emotional? When it's really that there's been a build up of all this stress that had to go somewhere in the first place.

Rim: And then at the end, some sensitive types and empath types end up believing this bullying is true. It's how things should be. So they also end up bullying themselves internally.

Tell me, before we dive deeper into what you do and how you help sensitive souls to handle the emotions better and feel better and thrive, how did you get into this work?

Joanne: I think it's a not uncommon thing for healing types to come into this work because they've had to do their own work. And I definitely wasn't planning on being a therapist or being entrepreneurial. In hindsight when I look back I recognize that there's been kind of a common theme throughout the different things that I've done. Because if you kind of look at my resume, there's no like one thing that dominates everything I'm kind of like bouncing around and it's easy to assume that there's no connection in between any of those notes. But I think each endeavor or each role I've taken on basically was the latest creative option for me to paint out like my dream. Which is to be a dream activator. I love sitting with people getting to know them getting to know their stories and then being able to draw that out to their best potential but there is no like official job title dream activator.

And so I had to kind of figure a lot of things out on my own. And after my college years, I had a lot of personal struggles growing up as like a first born daughter of a Korean American or Korean immigrant family, and I kind of moved around a lot and had a lot of trouble like joining new communities, making friends and things like that.

I had a lot of feelings built up. Because the messages that I got in those various contexts was like you shouldn't have feelings just tough it out, It's not a big deal like, Do your work. And so that kind of built up until after college and a couple of like typical events happened. But for me, it was like a switch flipped on and then like all these feelings just came out And because I didn't know what was happening and because my environment wasn't particularly friendly towards feelings that was when I sought my own therapy space as a client. And I was in there for a good number of years, did a lot of work and a lot of things settled down enough where I was like, okay, like, so I should probably figure out what to do next. Because I'm doing okay now, I don't have any crises, but, you know, I'm not really sure what to do next. And I was sitting in the middle of my therapy session talking to my therapist and thought occurred to me like Why don't I do this?

Because I love talking to people one on one. I love getting to know stories. In the ways that i've processed my own therapy stuff like I would share it with other people and other people are like wait That's what you're learning. Like, that's like, I get that too, or I resonate with that too. And I think there's something along the lines of like teaching, coaching, joining, empowering other people that got me down the path of seeking to become a therapist myself.

Fast forward, several years, I've been loving therapy, loving being in private practice. And being able to help people in ways that intuitively makes sense. At least it fits me and it seems like it fits a lot of people that I work with. And now i'm at the point where it's like, you know, I think therapy provided the best canvas for me to do my latest work. But in actuality like I think there's more to it.

I think I have a natural Innovative bent to me where I probably won't settle with just one thing. I will probably regularly be in a space of inventing myself over and over and over. So I've landed right now in the space of being very entrepreneurial. And so five years from now, like who knows what I'll be doing.

But I do enjoy every iteration of what I've done over the years. And at the current moment, it's operating as an Enneagram therapist. Helping people find their reactive patterns where they get stuck. And also as a feelings translator, being able to help people tap into their own emotional space to actually use that as their greatest asset instead of their biggest liability, as often people think they are.

So that is the, that was the current checkpoint.

Rim: So I wanted to say, I really resonate with what you say. I feel like you, like, I can't imagine be doing always exactly the same thing. And if you look at my resume, same, you would see different things. And if you don't pay attention, you might think, Whoa, this person is, has been all over the place. But then when you, when you think about it, It's all tying in.

It's like different pieces of the puzzles. And bit by bit it's creating something that makes sense. And I've noticed the same with a lot of other highly sensitive people. Have you as well? Have you noticed it's quite a common theme amongst us?

Joanne: I think so. I think especially for people who are highly sensitive and also gifted in that, like, There's a lot of internal processing that we do to begin with. Just by virtue of being a Highly Sensitive Person and looking for things of greater depth, greater meaning, instead of something that's more surface level that I mean, no shade to like jobs and careers that are about making money because money is super important. But I think for a lot of sensitive types, they can't last that long working in spaces where there's only the immediate reward there. I think there needs to be challenge, there needs to be stimulation, there needs to be like thinking outside the box, being able to make work more personal, like an expression of oneself. And so, I think it's more likely that sensitive types are likely to get bored, and burnt out.

And not because they're not capable of doing the task, it's just I think we need something very specific. Something inspirational or motivating for us to keep going.

Rim: Yes, yes, we need this deeper meaning. And if we are searching for this deeper meaning, it would make sense because then we're uncovering layers.

And as we've been to the next, like the next level of discoveries or expression, then there's another layer. and so on and so on. So we kind of dig deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. So then things will shift. But then I suspect like for you, you say maybe in a few years, who knows, you might it might evolve, but I imagine there will still be this thread. That is, I think you like, I call this the, our essence . And then that would be to still making, makes sense.

Joanne: Yeah. Like the core part of me will probably remain the same. And the nice thing is the skills that I accumulated along the way are very transferable. So I might just be in a different industry altogether. And I used to be, I used to be very hard on myself about that.

It's like, why can't I just like, stick with one thing? Now I've learned that well, maybe I don't have to. Maybe I can maintain like, the consistent thread of who I am, but find all these different ways to play that out. So, yeah. The journey itself has been pretty fun, and because there's no predefined path, it's been a great experience for me to even use my own professional trajectory as a way of getting to know myself, find out places where I get stuck, I get triggered.

Because, like, there's so many moments where I was so stressed out and procrastination and perfectionism and all that stuff kicked in when I was like writing my website pages. And I don't think that's as much the case if I were to be working in a career where I just plug and chug numbers and there's not a whole lot of room for me to pay attention to my internals, get to know my emotions.

Figure out what what's behind my reactivity and things like that. So It's been a personally and very professionally rewarding process to be able to give myself permission to not always have to walk down a predefined path by other people. More so to really honor my own uniqueness and my own inclinations rather than judging myself. Just see what happens if I give myself permission to be in my flow state, be in my sweet spot and see where that goes.

Rim: I love that. Yeah. That's creative. You get to choose, you get to recreate again and again. And we live at times where it's becoming easier to do that and less, you know, shine upon. But that being said, I think many people are scared of this reinvention and they're like, Oh, I have to, as you say, I have to pick something or what would, what will happen?

Because you know, the unknown can be quite scary. How, how do you handle that, like releasing the anxiety and because in order to be in the flow, you need to kind of not be anxious.

Creativity and The Enneagram Instincts: Self-Preservation, Social, Sexual

Joanne: So I borrowed a lot from the Enneagram, which is the main framework that I use. And oftentimes when I like show up on these talks, as I described, like the nine types of the Enneagram and how there are nine different ways of seeing and responding to life.

But there's kind of another dimension to the Enneagram where it's about the three instincts. The three instincts basically being three modes that are built into our automatic lizard brain. Like, these are so quick, they're so reflexive that they're happening before we even know it. And the three different instincts are called Self-Preservation instinct, the Social instinct, and sometimes it's called the Sexual instinct or the intimate 1:1 instinct.

But I happen to be someone who is very Self-Preservation instinct dominant. In short, what that means is that the way that I orient myself in the world is through planning, preparing, anticipating, scheduling. I prefer for things to be very orderly, very structured and controlled and predictable as an attempt to try to eliminate feeling out of control.

Now, most people like, they don't quite like feeling out of control to begin with, but Self-Preservation types, like that's like one of the biggest triggers. I need to make sure that things are according to plan. I need to make sure to eliminate any variables. And even when good things, if they happen without me having like planned for it, it can stress me out because I don't know what to do next.

And so for me, like that's been a huge struggle in releasing control and allowing myself to just go along with things. I think what really helped was me recognizing that I was creating my own trap. If it wasn't so much plans going sideways that was the issue. It was that I had so many plans to begin with and I set myself up to have a very small window of success. Because I create all these conditions that need to be 100 perfect So once I recognized that, it was just like, wait, if I'm creating my own stress by coming up with all these expectations of how things should be, then what would happen if I tried something with half as many expectations?

What would that be like? And I tried those experiences over and over again to realize that the end result was actually a lot better than me meticulously planning for everything. Because sometimes I would come up with inspirations that I that didn't come up when I was in the planning phase they would just come in the moment like I think in a lot of creative spaces you hear about having like drops of inspiration that kind of come out of nowhere when you least expect it. And I think allowing for things to come about organically really helped for me to live into that space of seeing what's on the other side after I've released the grip, at least a little bit. And I was getting rewarded for it over and over again, what I thought would be for my benefit in planning everything out was actually to my detriment.

And what I thought was the worst thing, which is the release control actually turned out to be for my greatest good. So that really helped me to soften my dominant self preservation instinct. It's like, I don't need to be in that hyper planning mode all the time at least. I could afford to soften my grip, and let's see how things turn out.

Also, that part of the Enneagram doesn't get talked about as much.

Rim: That's so interesting. It's interesting because it shows how imagination can be such a great thing. But also it can go against us, we can turn it against us because like what you described seems to me, it's kind of imagination, imagining all the things that can go bad or this need, this need to imagine how things would be, and sometimes, often our imagination can be very creative and create the results, some results we want, but we don't know everything.

Joanne: Yeah, that's a huge thing.

Rim: Things can be so much better than what we can imagine.

Joanne: Mm hmm. I think combination of also being a highly sensitive type, it's like getting so bombarded with change and all the stimulation that comes with it. It's feels so disruptive internally. Even in the normal day to day life, like there's like in the other room, like someone could be, you know, dropping their phone and then have like a sudden startling noise.

And then I'm in the middle of something and it's completely like, you know, focused. And it's especially for sensitive types where there is that maybe over readiness to take in new information. I think, especially those who are also self preservation dominant, they tend to want to overcompensate by making everything consistent, planning every single detail out, as a way to like control one's external environment to control one's internal environment. But again, it's to our detriment when we do it too much.

Rim: Definitely. So do you think that , the person who wants to do something, but then think that they don't know enough or they are not ready, not yet, they still need to learn more or practice more? They would be the self preservation type, so they would use knowledge as a security blanket.

Joanne: Yeah, knowledge is a huge one. Competency. Competency is a big, big trigger button, like being extra embarrassed when finding out that something happened outside of your awareness or being revealed that you actually don't know all the information especially if it's in front of other people but even without other people. Like recognizing oh, like I don't know how to do this I feel so frustrated and the more frustrated we get the more we zero in on the thing that we're frustrated about and then it just becomes like this extra aggravating situation. A lot of that has to do with the self preservation instinct being in the top two. It doesn't quite have to be the dominant but there are these three instincts and we have all three.

It's just one of them we tend to forget and it's shoved in the closet. One we think is the solution for everything. It's like when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail kind of situation where it's confirmation bias. And in recognizing that the hammer itself is causing problems at this point. It's good to, to realize like, Oh, like are there. There might be some other options. There might be some other ways for me to navigate through this. And so the Social and the Sexual instincts for me were really important for me to kind of reintegrate or reconnect with and balance myself out so that when I come across a new situation, how I respond depends on what the situation needs instead of what I prefer or what I'm used to.

So, that's been, that's been really good for me to learn about that myself and also to be able to share that with other people.

Rim: Yes. Sounds really interesting. Would you mind to talk briefly about the other two instincts?

Joanne: Yeah, so the Social instinct, because all these are survival instincts, self preservation instinct says I need to control factors for me to feel safe and secure.

The Social instinct basically says I need to make sure that my position in a group, a collective, is secure for me to be okay. So the social instinct emphasizes themes like belonging, status, position, role, power, like who's in, who's outside of a group, who's at the top, who's at the bottom, who is recognized by others, who's kind of more on the outskirts.

A lot of these themes that we might see more in like more organizational or political spaces, those who are Social instinct dominant, that's their main way of seeing life. It's like who's better or worse. It's always like relative to other people. Whereas a self preservation instinct, it kind of can operate on its own, like whether other people around is less central.

But the Social instinct is like, am I seen, am I recognized for what I do, or am I fulfilling my function in a community? Am I being a responsible cog in the bit, in the greater machine? So often those who are Social dominant tend to focus on what does the group want or what does the group need and how can I orient myself with respect to the collective.

And then the Sexual instinct, which is also a relationship based instinct, is less about the group and it's less about the person's own individual well being, but it's more about intensity and significance to a chosen person. So it's called the Sexual instinct and that kind of gets people confused.

It's not all about sex. It can include sex, but it's really being able to orient oneself with respect to those special chosen people. This person when they're sitting in front of even a stranger at Starbucks. They can be really attuned to that person on a very one on one, energetically connected basis.

They're like very involved, they're very present, they're spontaneous, they go with the flow. I like calling them the the vivacious instinct. Where it's about, Leading life with zest, with a lot of vitality, whereas a self preservation instinct tends to be more guarded and restrictive. Yeah. More conservative, more constricted, more risk avoiding. The Sexual instinct is more risk taking, more adventurous. And so it's the fun instinct in a lot of cases.

Rim: But what's the flip side of it?

Joanne: The flip side of it is that it can be very impulsive and sometimes aggressive. It has the more competitive bent in being the best person or anything else, like the biggest, the brightest, the prettiest, the richest.

It's always like competing against other people and has to take the one special spot at the top or the one special one special spot in another chosen person's life, like being the closest person. So again, we have all three instincts, right? And all three instincts come in handy, but there's a huge issue when we think only one of these matter and then one of these actually causes problems.

And so we become very out of balance. So when you combine our dominant instinct, one of the three, with the nine Enneagram types, which are about different motivations, the why we do what we do, the instincts are about how we do the why what we do. If you combine them together, we get 27 subtypes, which accounts for a lot of diversity in how our human temperaments are.

But in current Enneagram literature, you'll hear a lot about the nine types. You won't hear a lot about the instincts and you probably won't hear as much about the subtypes. But I think, honestly, the instincts, because they're wired into our lizard brain, if you can balance out what's happening on an instinct level, even if you don't know your Enneagram type, that itself can do a lot in helping you unlock your own potential. Because you find out how you're getting yourself into trouble.

And then you also recognize what skills that you're not used to, that can really come in handy.

Rim: Someone with the same Enneagram. So just like, for example, we have the same Enneagram Four, but then if we have a dominant instinct, which is different, then our experience of Enneagram Four could be totally different.

Joanne: Wildly different, especially for Four and Sixes. Because the motivation, especially for Four, is around suffering and meaning.

Like how can I be my most authentic self? If you combine that engine with a Sexual instinct that's like, it's all about vitality and zest for life and intensity and things like that. You're going to get a type of Four who's very wild in their feelings and they're very dynamic, very charismatic. But they often start problems, sorry, start projects, but never finish because they're constantly going from one thing to the one intense thing. One fun thing to the next. Right? And so they might get frustrated. Right? And they're often the ones that direct their negative emotions to other people. So they're known as the angry fours. Whereas the self preservation four, which is my type, being more guarded. I actually don't let other people know how I'm feeling. So even though i'm feeling a lot of things on the inside, I usually keep it to myself So on the outside, I might look like a very different type while on the inside. I'm very much a four

Rim: Oh, wow.

Joanne: So the motivations are pretty similar in terms of the central themes by virtue of being type four but how our patterns show up? Can vary wildly, based on what dominant instincts we have.

Rim: Okay, that's interesting. Are there, like, did you notice, or do we know if one instinct or two instincts are more predominant amongst HSPs or not?

Joanne: I think you can run the full gamut, but especially as Highly Sensitive Person trait, our Social context really matters. Like, I often talk about what it's like being a Highly Sensitive Person in the United States, where the main themes are being loud, aggressive, the best, like, being top dog, right?

They don't quite align with that. The natural tendencies of a Highly Sensitive Person. And then in a place like Japan where a lot of the values are around modesty, intentionality, dedication, conscientiousness. Those really align with the general agency trait So the same person would have very different experiences depending on which country they're in. And I think in a lot of ways it's the same with the instincts. So if someone, if a Highly Sensitive Person happens to be in an environment like Brazil where there's a lot of emphasis on vitality and fun, those who are a Sexual instinct will probably align better than those with a self preservation instinct who is more guarded.

Whereas let's say in a lot of Latin American countries, I think that are probably heavily Social instinct dominant where it's about the family. It's about the collective, the neighbors the churches. And so it's less so about standing out as an individual and more about being a member in a greater community. And so if someone is a dominant Sexual instinct who is about making themselves stand out. Well, they're gonna clash against their communities. Self preservation dominant then they're gonna be seen as more selfish or more guarded and reserved and they're actually expected to be. So different countries have preferred instincts as well.

Rim: Yes, totally. Yes. You know, I read a lot about things written from people living in the US and some I resonate with and some I'm like, no. It feels really hard. I feel, oh my God, like it must be so hard to live there as an HSP. But I, like the idea of, you know, working super hard and this hustle culture. But now I feel like, you know, France is quite known for not being, for taking things easy and all of that.

But actually, I think it has changed and it's catching up, at least in big cities, like in Paris. For example, where people are working. Like, you know, there's this thing of, ha, ha, ha, I am super busy. I work so hard and it's becoming also part of the values. And then something else I want to, I want to say is I lived in Asia.

I lived in China for many years and it's different from Japan, but there are some common things. So there is this emphasis and value of the family. And, you know, not, and also not showing too much. Not showing what you're feeling, like keeping it for you and valuing the social cohesion. So that's one aspect, but then there is at least in Shanghai, which is a huge, huge growing city.

And then it's like the other, then I think it's like in the US or in other western countries where it's all about individual role and working a lot and proving things and showing what, you know, and it's kind of it's kind of conflicting.

Joanne: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And so like having a lot of awareness of our own tendencies is important. But especially for sensitive types, we need to consider the social context that we're in because a lot of the stress, a lot of the feelings we might have, actually they're other people's stuff. Or they're the byproduct of the contrast between our patterns and the general society's values. So I think that a lot of sensitive types tend to be more prone to anxiety, guilt, and shame. Because, not because there's something wrong with them per se, but they happen to have taken on all the stress that comes from not quite, not gelling with the main dominant environment that they're in.

And so it's really important for especially like empathic folks to tap into the main emotion that helps to buffer and protect us, which is anger. But if anger is labeled as like the bad, scary, destructive emotion, then we're locking up the very skill and resource we need to actually take good care of us.

Rim: And now that leads me to my big question, which is how can Enneagrams learning and knowing about our Enneagrams can help us with that? But first, because we've been talking about Enneagram, Enneagram, Enneagram, and I imagine some of us don't really know. Sorry, my dog. I have a new dog.

Joanne: Ah, that was adorable.

Rim: Yes, what did I want to say? What is the Enneagram? I think some people, like many of us, may have heard about it, but without really knowing what it is. Can you briefly explain what is the Enneagram?

Joanne: Yeah, the Enneagram is a personality framework for describing nine universal themes, for human motivations. Through which we experience, interpret, and react to the world. We have all nine themes that are readily available, but for various reasons, because especially when we were kids, life was super overwhelming and we can't handle complex information, we defaulted to one of the nine. And so that one Enneagram type, out of all nine, helps simplify the way that we process and react to information.

By focusing in on some central themes. Like the theme of perfection, or being lovable, or being one's individual unique self, or being safe and secure. There are these different ways that when we integrate all nine, we can show up in life and again, respond to the situation for what the situation needs, not according to what we're used to.

But often we've identified with one of those themes to the point where we think we're right and everyone else is wrong. So I like using the different movies to describe how the Enneagram works and one of them is The Matrix. It's like finding out, waking up one day and finding out that the life that you've been living is actually made up.

It's fictional. And that fictional life that we've been living is basically us living life through our specific Enneagram lens. There's actually more to life, there's a whole different world out there, but when we only see what we want to see, we're basically reinforcing our trap, our cage that we're stuck in.

And so, I don't know if everyone in this audience has watched The Matrix, but a little bit of spoiler alert, there's a character in there who knows that everyone's been living in this fantasy world. and knows while he's like eating his steak, says, I know the steak is fake. I know this isn't real, but I would rather eat the steak than basically like live life for what it is.

And so there's some people who actually choose to be in denial about how the world actually is so that they can kind of maintain their own perspective on life. So the Enneagram type tells us about the main defense mechanisms. The main view by which we understand life that used to be useful when we were growing up But at a certain point it stops being useful in the same way and actually starts creating problems.

I'm of the opinion that we're born with it not as like a genetic thing. But that when we're born, we have a predisposition to be drawn to one of the nine types. It's very simple it's very like I know having talked to some individuals where like their earliest memories are like when they're like three or so years old and no one's taught them about the Enneagram obviously. But there are certain themes that are present and are very loud, even from a very young age.

So because of that, I kinda lean in the direction where people are born with a predisposition towards a certain type. And life experiences reinforce that over and over again, kind of justifying that they need it. But it's confirmation bias. Like, if you're looking for signs that your friends are about to betray you, you'll probably find evidence, quote unquote, right?

Instead of it actually being true. And so it simplifies the way that we process things. It creates a lot of problems later.

Rim: So do you think we can, we need to, it's useful for us to learn about all of the types, not only the one we must identify with, so that we can integrate all of them?

Eventually, though. There are some types of the nine that tend to focus on other people. And not on oneself and so for starters for people who are very new to the Enneagram journey I would highly recommend that once they find their type that they spend the most time there. Eventually, it would be helpful to learn about the other types and there's a sequence of the other types that are important to recognize Because each of the nine types have their corresponding growth path. And so, the each of the nine types is connected to four other types.

So any of the four other types would come in handy to provide an additional option than just their own type. The remaining four, if you can get around to it, it's good to learn it. Or sometimes we'll have to learn it because those are the types of our closest people. And we are dealing, we're in their slash zone and they're in our slash zone, so it comes in handy for us to recognize what their go to patterns are so that we don't interpret them according to what makes sense to us, so we get to know them according to what's going on for them.

Rim: Alright. But yeah, I feel like, as you say, it's important to focus on your type first. Okay. Yeah, especially for those who tend to care more about those around them. Did you think about Enneagram 2?

Joanne: Enneagram 2, 9s, 3s, Self preservation 4s. There's a good number of types and subtypes. Where they focus on other people as a way of not doing their inner work and not processing and dealing with their feelings.

Rim: It's not me, it's them?

Joanne: Yeah, it's probably more stereotypical. Like, ones can do the same thing as well. It's just all of us have, all of us might do the same thing, but have very different reasons for why we do it. And unless we know those reasons, we can't untangle our own patterns. So. It's generally good practice.

It helps us have like a focal point to really pay attention to the invisible mechanisms that are driving us. These are our blind spots. We don't actually know that they're happening because they're automated and anything automated works well, quote unquote. When it's operating smoothly behind the scenes without anyone knowing about it, but what happens if we're automated to something that keeps creating problems?

Well, it's in our best interest to really switch to manual and find out what's really going on, right, and make adjustments as needed. Now, I have a tendency, as I said before, being a Self-Preservation dominant Four, I have a tendency of thinking that things are not likely to work out easily for me.

They'll work out easily and well for other people, but it won't work out for me. So I need to really put my nose to the grind and work really hard and obsess over details so I can control the outcome. In actuality, the work that I do might already be fine and actually other people might be like, yeah, that's amazing But in my eyes, I think it's crap.

I might think that here's a flaw, there's a flaw. Like these are the ways that could be better or that you know, this is the way it's not enough. And I can kind of have a more negative event if I were to let my Enneagram type, dictate or define anything

Rim: Wow Perfectionism. And so once you're aware of this, okay, for example, in your case, so you know, now you know you're an Enneagram Four, you know, you have this self preservation instinct, and then you, you know, how it shows up and how it can sabotage your efforts. Yeah. Then once you know that, what do you do with that?

Joanne: The main thing is for you to not judge yourself, once you recognize your own patterns, because sometimes judging ourselves is what our autopilots do. Eventually, it's to soften our reactivity. In space lies our power to choose. Within that power to choose lies our growth and freedom.

There's a quote by Viktor Frankl, who is a psychologist and a Holocaust survivor, and he wrote this great book, which Called the Man's Search for Meaning. There's a fantastic quote in there that I think captures the main reason why self work is really important. The quote goes like this, "Between stimulus and response, there's a space. Within that space is our power to choose. And within that power to choose lies our growth and our freedom." The main meaning behind that quote is, between something happening and our reaction to it, there's a window. The smaller the window, the less freedom we have, the bigger the window, the more options we've got.

And so our work in paying attention to our own patterns is to try to increase that space between something happening and us reacting to it as much as possible. So that we're not living like robots. We're living like human beings who can actually choose into things. So that's why it's really important for us to recognize our own go to patterns.

The Enneagram helps us reveal the invisible patterns that maybe others can, other people can see in us, but we can't see in ourselves. We're blind to it.

Rim: So it's like a tool, like an ally that helps us to see things, witness things. Yeah. And then once we're there, so okay, self awareness, not judging. So it's like accepting that it's how it is right now. Yeah, I then would the Enneagram, like learning about the Enneagrams, would it give us the tools to do this shift, to do this change? Or it's more just to pinpoint and show us how it is and how it could be? Like showing us, like, is it, I don't know, like if I use the word vibration, like Enneagram, for example, is the authenticity, the search for like the meaning of self or something like that. I don't know if I'm using the right term.

Joanne: I would like to think of the Enneagram as a map. It's a map that tells us where we are because we've been lost this entire time. So we finally locate ourselves. I mean, what good is locating yourself if you don't know, if you're still lost, you know. We use that map to find out what other places we can go to and how to actually get there.

So I mentioned that each of the nine types are connected to four other types. These are the growth paths for each type so that we loosen the grip that our type has on us. These four other types are other options that are more readily available. And so in that sense, we find out our types to recognize how we're getting ourselves stuck.

Rim: So if I'm one Enneagram and I would benefit from learning from the other Enneagram, but that person is that Enneagram, then they might benefit from learning from my Enneagram?

Joanne: Absolutely. Yeah. And so that just to give you an example, okay. My husband and my best friend, the three of us are different Enneagram types, but the types they happen to be are in my growth path. I'm type 4, my husband's a type 1, my best friend's a type 2. It just so happens that type 1 and type 2 are in the type 4's growth path. And it just so happens that type 4, my own type, happen to be in their growth paths. Type 1 involves type 4 and type 7. Type 2 involves type 4 and type 8.

Whichever case. So in a sense, we trigger the crap out of each other, because we do what the other person doesn't do well in and vice versa. But the other way of seeing it is they do well what I need to also learn how to do for myself.

Rim: So they're like a mirror, they're showing you what's possible for you in a way.

Joanne: But then if I, if I don't do it for myself, I'm going to judge it. So for example stereotypical type ones are known to be very principled and very methodical, but when they do it to an extreme, they can be very rigid and inflexible. So fours, who tend to be very spontaneous and creative, can judge ones for being very boring because they're so methodical in the way that they do things.

And then ones can be like fours, you fours are so crazy and chaotic. Why can't you stick with the plan that you set? Right? And so they can be at huge conflict with each other if they think their own position is automatically correct. And the anyone else's position is wrong. But in actuality, ones need to learn how to connect with their own authenticity, and actually learn how to be more like Fours.

And Fours, who tend to be very wild and chaotic or spontaneous, need to actually learn how to bring in the commitment and the follow through of type ones. You know this as like a creative, right? Like we can come up with all these ideas and then start them, but like not really finish them. Because there's a slog that we go through, right? And so learning how to tap into our arrow type, our growth paths, patterns, can really help us get unstuck from the mud that is our type.

Rim: Okay, I see. And it helps us to understand the other better without judging them.

Joanne: Absolutely. Right.

Rim: Right. Accepting who they are. And putting things into perspective, really.

Joanne: Yeah, like, in the beginning with my best friend who is a type 2, type 2s are known to focus on other people and not focus on themselves.

I used to kind of roll my eyes at that. It's like, you know, why don't you know your own feelings? Why don't you know your own needs? But I recognize now that I'm overly focused on my feelings and I don't consider other people as much. So I've learned a lot from her in learning how to come outside myself.

And she probably has learned a lot about how to connect with herself and her authenticity by observing me and how I naturally operate. So we've built more greater compassion for ourselves and also for other people in their own individual paths because there's no one way of living life.

There are nine plus ways and the Enneagram just helps us show that there are other options available.

Rim: Yeah, totally. That's really inspiring. So, do you think, would you recommend to do this work? Learning about the Enneagrams as a group? You might reap more benefits if you do this with your partners, with your children, with your parents, with your friends, or it's still very, very useful if you do it as a one person. Not knowing, because of course you know, that the Enneagrams of your closed ones, but. I imagine many people don't know. You maybe cannot ask and you know.

Joanne: Yeah, because our autopilot types tend to work in very sneaky ways. Like I said, like, sometimes people come to therapy with their own idea of what needs to be done to find out that their actual growth path is the opposite of what they like. People come in wanting to work on their relationships where the main reason why they're having relationship issues is because they focus solely on other people and have gotten resentful in the process. And so even when it comes to our own personal work, if anything, the simpler way of expressing it is: consider the three instincts, Self-preservation, Social and Sexual instinct.

Where those are the three different approaches for how we are to live life. So there is value in doing some self study where you're not around other people, you're doing some more inner contemplative work, and that will be the self realization. And then there's value in learning things in a group context, because sometimes seeing another person who has the same type or has a very different type can give us a lot of rich information for us to then process.

And then, you know, our most intimate relationships. Those will be the people who trigger the most out of us right and where you know, we can't get away from just constantly putting on a certain mode or putting on a certain mask. Those are people who will challenge us because you know, they're impacted directly and so all three arenas of focusing like doing the work on an individual solo level, doing things in a group context, and doing things in intimate relations.

All of those are absolutely essential. But different countries might emphasize different ones, like in the United States, there's a higher emphasis on doing things by oneself, the hyper individualism, rugged individuality, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, not relying on other people.

People in the United States need to learn how to be more reliant on the group instead of constantly trying to stand out as an individual.

Rim: I get that, but in order to learn to rely on others. Do they not need to shift something internally at their own individual level first so that they can accept and, you know, like be ready for it.

Joanne: Yeah. So I would say it's not like a sequential thing. Like you need to do this first before you do that. It's like, if you can do them simultaneously, that's best. But if it's hard to do that, then you first start with softening your own dominant approach.

Rim: I'm wondering if I'm not Self-Preservation instinct because I'm approaching things in sequence. I like this idea of step one, step two. I know. Like, very often I say, actually, no, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, sometimes, but, you know, in the creative process and all of that, everything can be, there's no rule, but I know I find myself, I feel reassured when I know there's step one, step two, step three, like sequence.

Joanne: Yeah. That's, that sounds Self-Presie. So it might be in one of your top two instincts. It's not clear yet whether that's your dominant one, but I think of the second instinct as like a second language. Like you can speak it well enough, but it just might not be your preferred language.

Rim: Hmm. Yeah. I like this comparison.

Wow. So tell me so HSPs, they often struggle with overwhelm and self doubt in their creative pursuits. And, you know, we talked about this desire that very often we have as HSPs to do many things, to create different things and to move on from one, iteration to next one. And as you said, sometimes we don't finish things. As a result, we don't finish things.

How can Enneagram help us with that if we want to finish things? I don't believe we have to finish everything we do, by the way. Just a disclaimer here. Yeah. But if we, if we want, obviously we do want to see results from what we're doing and so, yes, what, how, what can you say about that?

Joanne: Yeah, so there are some common struggles that creatives have, like procrastination, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, etc. But the nine different types have different reasons for why that might be happening. Like, someone who's type nine. Might procrastinate because they don't know they have a hard time focusing on 1 thing.

They have a very diffused focus of attention. Whereas ones might procrastinate because they feel like in order for them to do the job well, they need needs to perfect. But in order for it to be perfect. 1 way of assuring that something is perfect is to not start. Because once they start, then it becomes something that could be possibly criticized.

And then. Sixes can struggle with procrastination because they're constantly questioning themselves. Like, is this the right decision? And things like that, you know? So there are lots of different motivations that show up in different patterns. We need to get to the motivation instead of focusing on the behavior because someone might, let's say brute force their way into finishing a project, but there's so much emotional turmoil that came out of it.

So it was fine for this project, but what happens if there's another one? they're going to go through the same thing over and over again. So knowing our own Enneagram patterns helps us to untangle the specific ways that we get stuck. So for the person who's Type 9, if they procrastinate because they have a hard time focusing on one thing, their work is to practice limiting options and narrowing it down to maybe two options, and then flip a coin if needed.

For ones, it's about recognizing that imperfection isn't, doesn't mean that the person's unworthy. Actually, a lot of things are imperfect, but still good. Like nature, there's no perfect tree, but it can still be good. And so that person can practice doing things even though things are imperfect.

Person who's type six is procrastinating. Instead of constantly questioning themselves, practicing reassuring themselves that based on their past experience, All the things that they've done, even though they've doubted themselves, actually turned out pretty good. So how about they give themselves more credit? So there's three examples of procrastinating, therefore three different ways of growing out of it.

And knowing our own types helps us to zoom in on the specific mechanisms that are going on.

Rim: Okay, that's a lot. I'm already seeing myself going down the rabbit hole of searching and analyzing every time. Yeah. Out of curiosity. Well. I will not go there. I want to ask you a personal question, actually, because you have three businesses, so you're actually creating a lot. And just before we started to record our conversation, you told me you started this year with this intention of slowing down and doing things slightly differently.

Can you talk a bit about About this, because you're an HSP, you're Enneagram 4, how, like, how did you go through that? Or how is it helping you to slow down?

Joanne: Well, a couple of different angles to it. One is instead of me trying to create the perfect business, where I was just stressing out trying to force one entity in like being everything, I realized that there are, it might just be simpler for me to create separate entities where each of them can have a life of its own.

Part of it was like to provide more options for me to express different parts of myself without constantly trying to pick one at the expense of something else. So that was one reason. The other reason was because there was a lot more to me than being a therapist and I needed a creative outlet for me to really tap into those other parts of me.

So my first business is as a therapist in private practice working with people one on one. And then my second business is I'm really good at finances and marketing and behind the scenes stuff that most therapists hate doing. And so I help other therapists or healers in the private practice setting build their own dream business. So that way I get to scratch that itch of like, you know, building new things, but I'm not the one actually building it. I get to help other people do that for themselves. And the third one is for my online school for feelings. Where there are lots of things that I would like to share with other people that I can't in a one on one context because I only have one body and there's like hundreds of other people.

And so part of it was out of a practical need and part of it was out of this desire for me to give myself permission to not make this one big giant perfect thing, but have lots of different ways of feeling different parts of myself. I think a parallel with relationships is that sometimes, especially for sensitive types, we tend to idealize a romantic partner thinking that we need to find that one person who can fill all my needs.

And then we get frustrated because that doesn't happen. But if we recognize that we can actually get a lot of our relational needs met in lots of different ways, then it releases the burden on that one person who gets chosen. So kind of a similar set up, but more on the business side. But part of that was me realizing that type fours fours tend to have a hard time settling. It's like there always needs to be this evolution towards something new. And I do recognize that is a huge driver for me and I found that that was leading me to burnout.

It's as if I need to constantly reinvent myself so that I would be okay. Nowadays, it's more of thinking I'm already okay as I am and I can create but I'm not creating so that I can be okay. I'm creating because I am okay. So it's kind of swapping the personal worth, like how that's been attached.

Rim: That's a big shift. It's just the change of words but it's a huge, like an edge.

Joanne: It's completely flipping it upside down. Yeah. Yeah, because the Four tends to do things to fill this big hole in themselves, but that was that's an assumption. It's like what if i'm actually already worthy, what if i'm already enough? And so instead of making my creations yet another project to judge myself over. What if I create because I kind of want to have fun? As a young child would like when they're playing with things, it's like, yeah, that's what kids do. Like, it's a very natural, normal, good thing instead of constantly like, checking to see whether they're doing their homework or whether they're doing it perfectly, you know.

Rim: When you do the comparison with the child, it seems quite silly to expect the child to have just one passion, one activity, one hobby. It doesn't make any sense. So why do we expect this of adults? Somehow?

Joanne: I mean, I think there's an expectation that we should just grow out of things and that life is very linear. But one of the other things I've learned through the Enneagram is that Fours tend to live life as if they're constantly teenagers, angsty teenagers who are constantly feeling things and struggling and questioning their identity and things like that, being embarrassed and ashamed. And I like completely skipped over like a typical childhood experience because I was constantly focusing on what could have been.

And so now I'm catching up with the childlike part of me and in recognizing that maybe we're just supposed to have different modes at different times. Instead of growing out of something permanently and never going back. So being playful is one of the reasons why I'm wanting to create more space within my week and to slow down.

So actually I've been spending a lot of time this past month working on jigsaw puzzles. I've dialed back from doing a lot of work in the business and spent more time watching stand up comedy and working on different Lego pieces and it's been really nourishing for me just as much as the work that I do is also nourishing.

Rim: I love jigsaw puzzles and I love stand up comedies and I think it's, it should be part of work. I mean, you know what I mean? I think using your brain on this kind of modalities. is actually very helpful. It's great brain gymnastics.

Joanne: Yeah. But I think a part of me, the reason why I shifted to puzzles is because I didn't create it. I am consuming someone else's creative work. And I think there's something very relieving about that. It's like, I'm not an active participant here. I'm very passive. All I do is I spill the puzzle pieces onto the table and I assemble. And put things together like I don't have to come up with my own expression things and that's actually a very good balancing experience for me. Because the most I mean the majority of my work week I'm constantly making something new. Creating new Instagram posts, creating new blogs, and creating new podcasts. And there's always like something new that I'm generating and it's a muscle that when it's overused that can lead to injury So wanting to kind of balance that out.

Rim: I agree. I agree. What does it mean being an empowered, sensitive, and creative person for you?

Joanne: To be very much in tune with who we are, our essence as you described it. Finding our true selves that are, that's buried beneath our ego and our defense mechanisms. That we come back to being our young, innocent, childlike selves. A lot of that comes through play. being able to give ourselves permission to enjoy things because that's what we enjoy.

Rim: Yes. Yes. Yes to that. That's so true. And now to wrap up, tell me, how can people learn more about you and how can they work with you?

Joanne: Two different options. I think in this podcast episode, we talked about the Enneagram and talked a little bit about different emotions. And so I am an Enneagram therapist and I help people find out their reactive autopilot patterns that end up creating a lot of very predictable problems. And so I do have a free guide called the emotional habits of each Enneagram type. And that's available at the link in the show notes. And if you happen to be a sensitive type where you find out that a lot of your very important but big feelings tend to show up at the wrong place, the wrong time, or in the wrong way. I have another free guide called the Big Feelers First Aid Kit and that's also available in the show notes. So that one helps you find out what to do when your emotions show up in very unexpected ways, so that you can carry on with your day without judging yourself

Rim: Lovely. That sounds great. Thanks a lot. Thank you. And that's it for today, my friends. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and that it inspired to explore and inquire on your instincts and how this awareness can shed some light into your emotions, your thought patterns, your reactions. And also to be curious about the others around you and see how we can all learn from each other and keep growing.

And I'm sorry if there were a few sound, like technical hiccups. There was a struggling internet connection. And well, you know, that's how it is with tech, but we still managed to do it. So hooray to that. And on this, on this note, see you next week. Bye bye.

Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode and if it has inspired you, please share it around you. Also, if you feel called to it, please subscribe to the podcast and give me a review. It really helps to spread the word out. All your questions are welcome. You can sign up to me on Instagram at rimcreativenergy.com or email me via my website rimcreativenergy.com and don't worry, I'll share in the show notes exactly where to find me. Until next time, sending you loving creative energy.

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What are the emotional habits of your Enneagram type?

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"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

The Central Themes for Each Enneagram Type

Buy on Amazon

It's a regular practice for me to reflect on my handy 5-Year Journal, where each page is designated for each day of the year.

I've gotten in the habit of jotting down what happens each day neutrally - the good, the not so good, the typical event, the extraordinary situation - so that I tame my Enneagram 4 habit of only looking at negative data (to then wonder why things don't ever work out for me).

Main thing I noticed?

How the emotional tone of my daily logs have shifted over time because I changed the colored lens through which I see life.

The accounts became more well-rounded, which then set me up to experience each new day in a much more balanced and grounded way.

If you notice what you notice, what comes up?

These are some go-to themes for each of the nine Enneagram types that "colors" the lens through which we see the world:

1. Enneagram 1 - integrity, truth, perfection, improvement, good or bad

2. Enneagram 2 - relationships, being liked/loved or rejected

3. Enneagram 3 - image, succeeding (and looking good while doing it)

4. Enneagram 4 - authenticity, creativity, being seen as different/unique 

5. Enneagram 5 - scarcity, limited resources, energy levels, being encroached on by others

6. Enneagram 6 - safety, security, trust, authority

7. Enneagram 7 - novelty, freedom, fun, limitlessness

8. Enneagram 8 - challenge, impact, change, power/strength

9. Enneagram 9 - harmony, peace, ease

...and each of the 3 instincts:

1. Self-preservation - order, predictability, planning/prepping

2. Social - status, image, influence, role, position in a group, inclusion/exclusion

3. Sexual - being special, intimacy, competition/rivalry, being the "est" person (best, prettiest, closest) or "THE one"

What "lens" or theme you tend to see your life through! 

The Nine Types of the Enneagram

Melissa Smith from the podcast “High Vibe Mindset” invited me to talk about emotional growth with the Enneagram types. Scroll down for a transcript.

Transcript

Melissa Smith: I've got a special Enneagram episode today. We are going to Bust some myths and talk about how Enneagram is helpful and the ways we might use it that's not helpful. You're gonna learn what the Enneagram is and how it can be used in your life as a tool for empowerment and for self reflection and growth and the Enneagram is one that I think is starting to become a little bit more popular.

But maybe you're more familiar with Myers Briggs or the DISC personality, used a lot in different workplaces, but the Enneagram is another tool. And I'm super excited for the expert guests I have on today because I love the way that she uses the Enneagram. She's a therapist and she integrates this tool into her therapy work.

Joanne is a therapist-turned Feelings Translator who helps Highly Sensitive Persons turn their biggest feelings into their greatest superpower.

The people who work with her are often the first or the only person in their family or communities that intuitively process and express feelings. And consequently, they're often judged or criticized. So they end up learning how to please, placate, or perform until they hit a wall. They're super familiar with anxiety, guilt, and shame, partly because of an allergic reaction to anger — their own or others’.

Often these super responsible, empathetic persons will reach out to Joanne after they've already burned out they're in those resentful lopsided relationships or they've been sucked into their shame spiral.

When Joanne shares her approach about how to work with feelings, the number one response she tends to get is,

“Why didn't they teach me this in school??”

She has a really awesome free guide, it's called the Big Feeler First Aid Kit.

It helps you learn how to navigate your feelings when they show up when you least expect them or want them. And you can go ahead and grab that free guide at www.intelligentemotions.com/firstaidkit.

All right, let's dive into the episode, Joanne. I'm so excited for this conversation and to kick it off. I would love for you to share a little bit of background on the Enneagram.

What is the Enneagram and how it's been used historically?

Joanne Kim: The Enneagram is a a personality framework that compared to other things like Myers Briggs, StrengthsFinders, things that often track WHAT people do as their patterns. The Enneagram tracks WHY we do what we do.

So it's more about motivations. unconscious needs, fears, longings that often like drive us from behind the scenes. And so we don't know that it's happening. Often the people around us have a clearer idea.

Melissa Smith: That makes sense. Okay. So a lot of the fears and the needs. So, I would love to talk about how that shows up for the different Enneagram types, but what are the types or what could you if you sat down and you're trying to figure out what your Enneagram type is? What does that kind of look like?

Joanne Kim: Well, I would like to say that it's a simple framework. It does become very powerful once we locate our type, though in a lot of ways there are some exceptions to the rule.

A lot of what we've heard about the Enneagram, especially like social media and recent books, only cover about the nine types. “Ennea” means nine, “gram” means points, so it's like nine points. And generally, these are nine themes that we all resonate with, we just get STUCK in one. It's just that there are some variations within the type that maybe go the opposite direction.

Sometimes it's helpful to use 27 subtypes, instead of nine. But in looking at the different types in order to find out what your main type is, we look at some of your historical triggers. Like when you look back on the times you felt the most excited or you felt the most heartbroken, what are the common denominator themes?

For some people might be feeling FOMO or feeling like they have all these big aspirations, but there's something inherently wrong or flawed about them or constantly feeling frustrated because they're trying to improve things, but just things don't quite turn out the way that they want to. And so on so forth.

So we look for the themes, and that is one of the reasons why the Enneagram is harder to type for. It takes more time than taking a quick online test, but the end result is that much more rewarding because we locked down what remained invisible up till then.

Melissa Smith: That's a helpful way to see it because I think I noticed a lot of that feeling like I resonate but like you said, but really getting down to those core themes… what's a core fear that's coming up? What's that loop in my head when I'm in a situation before we dive into maybe each of those types and the subtypes, I would love to hear what you observed as a helpful versus not helpful way of using the Enneagram. So that people can understand, you know, we're going to talk a little bit more about what it is and what the types are. To help listeners to maybe figure out their type on this episode, maybe not. It a little more work than that.

What's the purpose of using the Enneagram and what's a good, helpful way to use it?

Joanne Kim: Yeah, I would say any tool or framework that taps into people's vulnerabilities has a very deep transformational potential for our inner work. But it also is a double edged sword because in the hands of people who misuse it or their own egos take over, a lot of people can wield that power poorly or kind of against other people.

So, the discovering our own Enneagram type is inherently a very personal journey. We ought to give ourselves permission and time to really sit with the different themes and to see which one actually resonates with us, especially because some of the types happen to be more shapeshifters. It kind of depends on who we happen to be around.

But after we find out our type, Whenever we reveal our type to other people, other people ought to know that that is a very vulnerable step. We're not sharing our types with others so that others… I mean, it's like we're kind of giving other people access to kind of our biggest fears. Right? And so I would say there are some people who like announce their type on the internet.

Like, I'm such and such type, and therefore like, this is just who I am. Actually, our type is not who we are, it's what we believe we are. So it's what we've pigeonholed ourselves into. So our type is our starting point in our growth journey. Our goal is to grow beyond the type. So when we hear about another person's type, it's like we're only getting a snapshot of where they are and historically what their patterns have been. It doesn't say anything about who they can become.

Melissa Smith: Yeah, that's super important.

Joanne Kim: So, actually, the more a person's done their personal work, the harder it is to tell what their type is. Because our types are basically concentrated doses of our psychological defense mechanisms. So people who ironically tend to feel very proud of their type might actually be announcing that they're stuck in their defense mechanism.

It is a very useful framework because it gives us a lot more complexity and dimension. But again, that's part of the reason why it's harder to type for in the beginning and often a lot of the reasons why some people might just dismiss it outright. It's like, well, how accurate is it really?

We're finding more and more. It's been a framework that's been around for thousands of years. Though it's been mostly passed down through oral tradition because, you know, spiritual teachers who are teaching their pupils wisely instructed their pupils to not write this down, because in the hands of the wrong people, it can cause a lot of damage.

But Berkeley students did as Berkeley students do in that they went against their teachers, they wrote it down on paper in the 1970s. What we've known about the Enneagram since then is that version.

And so we're still uncovering more and more about the Enneagram finding out that there are bits and pieces that actually have been reflective in a lot of ancient traditions. Like the Seven Deadly Sins that's been around for hundreds of years. You just add on two more, it becomes Nine Deadly Sins. And so it is a very rich framework and it seems like it's also kind of ever evolving. And so one of the reasons why I really appreciate it instead of like a rigid fixed thing.

Benefits of the Enneagram

Melissa Smith: Yeah, there's so many layers to it. Cause I saw it online. I would see a lot of posts like this is this type strength or weakness. And then again, you know, okay, now we're all talking about the fears and the needs, the deadly sins. Give you the awareness and like you said, sit with it. A lot of layers and information to that.

We kind of spoke on a little bit of, how the Enneagram can be a tool for self growth and self awareness. It obviously has various archetypal type of themes that I need to dive into. But for you personally, what have you seen as some of those major themes and like the benefits that we can discover when we're using the Enneagram as a tool?

Joanne Kim: Well, so my Enneagram type is Type Four. Sometimes it's known as the individualist, sometimes it's known as the Romantic. Sometimes the terminology is very limited because it talks about what people do versus why. I'm also a therapist by training and it just so happens that therapy itself is like the Type Four's playground because Four's are often like the navelgazers who want to go internal and do all this introspection about who they are and what matters to them, what reflects them as an individual and all that stuff.

And therapy is actually built exactly for that purpose. It's just that a lot of Fours seek therapy thinking that they'll be able to heal or whatever, only to find that they're recycling the same thing. So I think in a lot of cases, Fours actually need more coaching than they do therapy.

But for myself, because I was already very internal, I had mistakenly assumed that I have a monopoly on what authenticity is, like,

• “No one understands me”,

• “Everyone's going to misunderstand me”.

• “What's the point of explaining to them and all that kind of stuff”.

It wasn't until I really got into the Enneagram and I found out that this was actually a type structure. I was like, crap, I'm basically doing this to myself. I'm actually creating my own suffering but I'm not the only person who deals with this. There's like a whole subpopulation of people who all kind of operate the same way. And if they conclude that their life is tragic, but everyone around them are like, why are you so upset? Then maybe it's the person creating their own narrative of suffering for themselves.

And I think that kind of like blew open a whole process where I was just reevaluating my own experiences. And it's not to say that I haven't gone through hard things, but I definitely made it emotionally more difficult. Yeah, because my type framework identifies with being a sufferer. It's as if I have to be suffering at all times in order for me to matter, which to those who are not Fours might sound like, what how does that even work?

But if someone, if a Four is listening to this and like, wait yeah that's that's how things are, right? No, it's not. So that's been super helpful. It's definitely super charged my own healing and growth process.

Melissa Smith: Yeah, I believe I'm a Four as well, but it's really funny because at first I thought I was a Seven. But I was only a Seven for like a short period of time. I had all the depressive, self-shame, self-whatever stuff my whole life. It's funny too, because now I've been in this process of like, who am I and how do I be more like authentic?

It is my word of the year. I have the know that. It's that journey of like, am I like a seven or am I like a three? Because I am ambitious, but I also have FOMO. But when you realize, okay, but what's really happening in these interactions and what I'm striving for at the end of the day, 

When I first came across the Enneagram, something told me like, oh, you could be like a Four, you were very Four when you were in elementary, middle school and high school, but maybe you're not. I saw the terrible side of it for some reason, maybe I just read into the negativity online about fours, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to be a Four. No, that's terrible. And kind of convinced myself, like, there's no way I'm a Four, you know, that ordeal. And really, I think those are the ways, too, that people can really use the Enneagram in a way that's not going to benefit them, right? Like, kind of just zero in on, oh, these traits are positive. I want the positive traits, and I think, want to be like that type.

Joanne Kim: Well, I think in a lot of ways, that's the byproduct of very simplistic teaching on the Enneagram. Right. Like the 1970s, it feels like a long time ago, but, you know, historically speaking, it's really not that long ago. And so if what we have heard about it is the more rudimentary version of it. It's like that there are nine types, what each of the types tend to look like or how they operate what happens in like their, I mean, some people call it the path to growth and the path of stress.

Right. It's very super simplistic. Since then, cause I've been trained under Beatrice Chestnut, who is also a therapist by training. She's been really taking the torch to integrate the Enneagram and psychology together and introducing also the subtypes. It's it's actually much more complicated than that.

In order for someone to have like a teaching platform, they really have to know the fuller picture of what the Enneagram, like how that framework works. Instead of taking this part of it and then disseminating that information because people will draw all kinds of conclusions. There's a ton of people who reach out to me.

Some people who know their Enneagram type and they're like, well, I'm such and such a type. And you know, this page says that when I'm super healthy, I become this type. And when I'm super unhealthy, I become this type. And then I just tell them, that's only half a picture. Right. And so there's a lot of shame, extra shame that people either put on themselves or they dump on other people based on these very elementary frameworks. That's partially why we really got to put the brakes on in really taking our time to learn about the Enneagram more comprehensively. I mean, I think that in a lot of ways.

It's becoming more popular these days. It's kind of like the next BuzzFeed quiz. It's like, what kind of cupcake are you? It's along those lines, an easy cocktail party topic. But this is probably not one of the topics that lend itself well, especially because it's dealing with people's core needs.

Melissa Smith: When you dive in and you really see it, it's like you said, it's so transformational, it will put you through that dark night of the soul, right? It's going to be like, whoa, crazy. You really get a better understanding of yourself, but it also can help you be more empathetic to other people. I think it's awesome in that way, but it is funny because those are the type of things I think that are more seen or popularized are those Enneagram posts that are a photo of someone. And I wear this type of outfit and I drink this type of drink because I'm a Seven, you know, I'm the rebel, whatever.

Okay. So let's dive into then and share with listeners a little bit about those nine types and just your observations on those different nine types.

Enneagram One - The Improver

Joanne Kim: I think it might be easiest to go through the nine themes instead of going in like deep dive. I do have a blog post that I'll share the link to if someone wants to do, like find out what their type is in a DIY format.

But the nine themes in order of type are, you know, starting with type One is about improving. So Ones I like to think of them as the idealist who has like such lofty standards and then they get frustrated because the reality of where they are now, there's such a huge gap between that and what they think things should be. And so improver that mode shows up in ways that they either improve themselves, they improve other people, they improve the situation, or they make themselves the role model that other people ought to follow.

So often the emotional energy that goes with that is anger, but not like the outward expressive kind. It's more like the seething quiet behind scenes, like stewing resentment version. And so oftentimes Ones have a very like, like stoic or stern face, with kind of some wrinkle on their brow because their attention is towards how can this be better? They often have noble intentions because they really want what's better for themselves or the other person. But, when that goes overboard, they end up accidentally becoming very critical.

And so everyone can have an inner critic, but for once the inner critic's going on 25-7. It's non stop, it's relentless, it's like the person is living as if they're always in a courtroom. Or there's always a judge. There's always a defendant. There's always a plaintiff. So, Ones can in a way always be stuck in like work mode because there's always something to do, always something to improve, something to fix. And they have a really hard time going with the flow and being at ease and resting they often get resentful at other people who take time off and things like that when it's actually a signal for them to really be taking time off themselves.

Melissa Smith: Yeah. Mm hmm. Would perfectionism be something that is an energy that shows up for them or something different?

Joanne Kim: Yeah. And so that kind of depends on like the subtypes. So there are three different kinds of ones. And so the person who improves themselves, that will be the true perfectionist. The person who becomes the role model, they often take like a teacher type of vibe.

And then, the person who tries to improve others, they're like the reformer or the zealot. They're very fiery. So, each we kind of need to learn how to round out within our type. And then also among the other types too. Because our type and our subtype is actually where we get stuck. We live as if that's the only way to live and gotta need to soften that up a lot.

Enneagram Two - The Befriender

The type Twos, I like calling them the befrienders. Sometimes they're called the givers and the helpers, but again, that's focusing on the behavior, not the motivation. I like calling them befrienders and it's a term I borrow from my teacher because the reason why Twos often are in helping roles is so that they can get something in return. Their main focus, their theme is around connection relationships being liked, being loved, it’s very other people focused.

So I would say like 95 percent of their attention probably is about other people. Rarely do they actually think about themselves, except, think about themselves in relation to someone else. Often, these are the folks who will gravitate towards helping professions, only to find out that because they haven't been thinking about their own wants and needs, eventually their body catches up with them and they get super resentful.

Similar to Ones but it's different in that it's a resentment about there being such an imbalance. in relationships. Other people are receiving their help, but that other person isn't particularly thinking about, you know, reciprocating and things like that. So a lot of imbalanced relationships. There's kind of this pride or arrogance in the two that, considers, I know the other person's needs better than they know their needs.

I have to make myself indispensable. It's kind of like a manipulative way of ensuring that there's some connection. Because the core fear is if I don't have connection I won't survive. If I'm not liked if I'm not loved then I'm gonna be devastated. Again, even those who aren't Twos might resonate with that in some ways But for Twos, that's like the central. So yeah, I would say that Twos, because they're so focused on other people and less so on themselves. Two's are probably one of the types that are the most misunderstood in the Enneagram community. Because it's really hard for everyone else to learn about someone who doesn't quite know themselves to explain what's going on behind the scenes. It just so happens that my teacher is herself a Two. And so doing her own work, she's finally like revealed what's behind the curtain.

Melissa Smith: And then they would have a subtypes too? Maybe something that's a very much like a caregiver.

Joanne Kim: It surrounds a different ways of seducing or charming others. So, one way of seducing is like being very young and cutesy, like, Oh, you know, I don't know how to take care of this thing. Like, what will I do? And then someone who's like, Oh, I can do it. They get like the more powerful, the strong or older person to come to their rescue. So it's the, the charm or seduction as if they're a child. And then there's the seduction of capturing the attention of an audience. So this is more of the if we think about the younger Two as like the princess. Then this would be like the empress, this very like power oriented, very good at in corporate settings, knowing where the hierarchies are and kind of working the room. And then my, which is the classic seductive types, like the femme fatale, like, seducing a chosen person that can be a best friend.

It can be a romantic partner meeting that person's needs so that that person can meet all their needs. So, if you think about, like, the sirens in the Odyssey, where they're singing and they're luring sailors to come towards the shore and then the boat crashes into the rocks and then that leads to a deadly ending. And that's kind of what that version of Twos look like. But all three of them have something to do with this gift to get dynamic, or this charming, seductive, shapeshifting piece. So sometimes Twos can be harder to type because they shapeshift to be more likable. Kind of depends on their relationship context.

Melissa Smith: Okay. Yeah. So the needs, you know, you mentioned it being about wanting love, wanting affection, obviously, like people pleasing, they're trying to love bomb at first, or let me do all these things for you. Let me wow you let me give you all this love. But hey, I expect to take care of me like the princess archetype or something.

Joanne Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That might not actually be very conscious. For them, they might not, they might think of themselves as being super generous. It's not until like way later, they're like, after all I did for you! And so that's part of the hard thing is that if they aren't aware of that particular piece and knowing that, I mean, even acknowledging that they also have needs, that's a super difficult part for Twos. And so they could have gotten their needs met sooner, had they even acknowledged that they had needs like everyone else and that it's okay to have needs, it feels very humiliating.

Melissa Smith: Is this also kind of like a codependency thing? Like I need a connection. I need the other person I'm going to take care of you, but I need someone to take care of me. Like we need to do this together. I can't do this on my own type of thing.

Joanne Kim: There are several types that can have that pattern, just for different reasons. Two is one of them that is, out of the nine, the most obviously relationship oriented. But someone else can have that set up because they're very unsure of their own abilities. They feel like they don't have the power or the strength to do so this might might be more out of a sense of like imposter syndrome or lack of confidence instead of like, I need to be with another person, you know?

Yeah, like what I just mentioned is what type Sixes can do like a Nine version of doing that, is the person just doesn't want to make their own decisions. And so it's just easier to be around other people. But yes, type Twos tend to be more host or hostess, right?

It's like welcoming people into their home kind of thing. I think that a variation of that is the parasite host dynamic, where it's as if they have to constantly be fused with someone else in order to feel okay. In reality, what Twos don't often realize is they're actually okay being on their own and spending time with themselves, but that's like in more in their blind spot.

So when a Two hears this for the first time, they're like, that sounds terrible, but it's actually technically part of their growth work.

Enneagram Three - The Performer

Joanne Kim: Type Threes main theme for them would be the performer. Sometimes they're known as the achiever, but that focuses on what they do. The main thing to focus on is that they need an audience. It's not just about doing a lot of things. It's about doing a lot of things and looking good while doing it.

Right. And so, in a sense Twos and Threes are also shapeshifters in that they're doing things because of other people. Threes are also one of the types that are very disconnected from themselves, so they don't quite know what their own individual agenda is. They're gauging their environment and sensing, okay, what are the metrics of success here?

What are things that people admire? And let me become that. And so often Threes get a lot of accolade, they get a lot of praise for what they do, not knowing that that's actually part of the ego at work. So I'm in the middle of the Silicon Valley tech world, entrepreneurial, like there's a lot of good stuff happening here. But it's also the place where those who are type Threes hide the most. What they think is great is actually, you know, ego driven psychological defense mechanisms. And so the challenge with Threes is that the very thing that keeps them trapped is the very thing that's celebrated, at least in this part of the world.

And so, especially in the United States I think a lot of Threes would have the hardest time doing their personal word because, why would they go away from the reward system? That celebrates them for like looking good, very image-oriented brand focus, wanting to have what's the best, but the best in other people's eyes. There's a lot of sadness that's very deep under the surface, uh, and that is what Threes need to get in touch with for them to really know who they are as their own person, their own individual self.

Melissa Smith: Okay. Yeah, you mentioned for One, there's a lot of anger, underneath. Three, it's sadness.

Joanne Kim: Well, Three is they're disconnected from sadness. They actually need to be more connected with it. So it's like, there's an inverted relationship in that sadness is one of the emotions that highlight our individuality. Like, it tells us what really matters to us. But when someone's shut that down for the sake of being what other people want them to be, there's that inherent sadness that comes from losing connection with oneself. But that is part of what Threes blocked out.

It's like they're sad about not connecting with what matters to them. And they're also sad that they don't even know who they are. But that is something that Threes who've done some work come to recognize. It's still there, even if they're not aware of it. But usually it's what it's super loud when Threes have worked themselves down to the bone, their body shut down, they get sick, they're bedridden. And then what do they do in bed? All these feelings that have been buried come up. And they're like, I need to not feel like this anymore. I need to hurry up and get better so I can get back to work. Right? So it's that trap that we get stuck in.

The Twos in a sense also have a sadness theme too, in that they've also disconnected from themselves, except they probably are more in touch with sadness, or they might use it as a way of seducing in ways that differently from Threes, in that they just shut it down because it feels like a very inefficient emotion. They have too much work to do, sadness just slows them down.

Enneagram Four - The Romantic

Joanne Kim: So in comparison to those two types, type Four which I like the term the individualist instead of the romantic. Type Four overdoes sadness in that everything that other people underly feel, the Four feels extra strongly in that part of that is to be a distinct individual to be unique, to be special. It's always this sense of being the exception to the rule that really appeals to Fours. And so if you think about like in a family or an organization, someone who tends to be the black sheep.

Melissa Smith: Yep, black sheep!

Joanne Kim: Yep. Black sheep, rebel, whistleblower, the lost child, like all of those terms. Those are very Four-ish roles. That people of other types can also feel too, but type Four, that person has that as their personality. It's like even when they're in an environment where they're, you know, everyone knows that they're a very integral part of the community, the Four feels like they're the oddball out, that they're always on the outside looking in.

So, in that sense, there's like a tension between the heart types: Twos, Threes, and Fours. Twos and Threes disconnect from their authentic selves to connect with other people. Fours go the opposite direction, they choose connection with themselves, but they disconnect from other people. And so in that sense there's extra sadness. Sadness can be itself a security blankie. So Twos and Threes need to do sadness more, Fours need to do sadness less. Partially by recognizing that things aren't as bad as they think it has to be. Or that what they want isn't as elusive and far away as they think it is. It's actually maybe already available to them. It's just, that's what's in Four’s blindspot.

Melissa Smith: Anytime I make a tag, it's like creative rebel and always rebel or black sheep and all those things. But what is some of those core fears? Like, where does that sadness come from? You said being misunderstood. I think that makes sense. Or being the odd ball out. Any other?

Joanne Kim: I think that's like the outer layer. It's what's more visible. Because as a Four, like I've definitely used being misunderstood as a way of justifying the way I live my life, right? And so a level deeper actually ironically is the fear of goodness. Which is not what Fours are known for. It's being so afraid of connecting with our goodness, with goodness of life because it's like if we have connection to goodness then that exposes us to risk of losing it. Let's just skip all that risk and just assume that we don't have it to begin with.

So it makes a lot of sense in that way but it doesn't make sense in that we live as if that's like the all encompassing truth that therefore we don't deserve to have goodness. So we take the good thing and we take it way too far. So all the other types. But in that sense, like what we know about the Fours, melancholy, longing, all that stuff, that's just a surface level pattern that we see deeply buried underneath.

And often when Fours hear this, they sometimes glitch out. They're like, what does that even mean? I'm scared of goodness. I've been wanting goodness this whole time. But when they really do that exploration, well, every time something good's happened, I've sabotaged it. They have a hard time sitting with it and allowing that to actually see them.

Melissa Smith: Makes sense because I would love all this stuff or I want friends or whatever, but I'm not good enough or I'm the oddball. Obviously, we feel like we want those things. But like you said, the fear of goodness. A big lesson for me. I did a family constellation thing with my mom's Brazilian and they have, you know, people act out what's the dynamic what's going on here and my big theme was fear of success.

I'm like, that is so weird. I'm like, well, duh, fear of failure. But like fear of success, you know, and person acted me out. Laughing or looking away, being embarrassed, like not able to look success in the eye. I have some deep-seated beliefs here of, you know, success is just not, not a thing for me, or there's some fear there, like you said.

Joanne Kim: Yeah, yeah, so the central theme. I did call, of course, the individualist, and the exception to the rule, but the central theme is around suffering. And the subtypes of Fours is that there's some people who overly suffer outwardly. It's like, woe is me. Everything's terrible. So everyone else and their mama knows how they're suffering.

And then there's some people, some Fours who make other people suffer. It's like, how dare you make me feel this way? I'm going to go after you. So first is a sad Four. The second is an angry Four. And then there's the Four that doesn't look like a Four which is the subtype I happen to be, where they suffer silently alone.

So nobody around them except like the closest people has any idea just how much this person has taken on. And so this type of four actually can look like a lot of the other types. Just essential piece is it kind of depends on their mood. And so there's a lot of identifying with suffering. It's like, I need to be always suffering for me to feel like I'm okay. Again, to other types are like, why? But to Fours, it's like, that's, that's just life. That's just how it is. And so the idea of taking that off, it feels terrifying.

Enneagram Five - The Observer

Joanne Kim: Fives, I like thinking of them as the observers in that they're like the people who live in a fortress with thick walls high up in the ivory tower and they're looking down at the world from a distance and that they're very much in their heads. They engage the world through their intellect instead of actually engaging life by being in it. And in that sense, the, their strength is in seeing things more neutrally, more objectively, whereas Twos, Threes, and Fours, and like other people, have a hard time having a more balanced view. But the downside is that's at the cost of them having shut down their hearts. So Fives often feel like they're different in that they're kind of awkward, they don't really know how to interact with people.

Part of that is from this fear that if I open up this fortress door, other people are going to come in and they're going to take everything I have. They're going to take all my energy, they're going to take all my resources, and I'm going to be left with nothing. And that is probably the core fear, the fear of being depleted.

It's just that normally, Fives live anticipating depletion, so they like ration out every single part of their day to make sure that at the end of it, they'll still have enough. It's just, though, in actuality, and it's more evident for other people that the Five lives, starts their day with 20 percent battery life instead of 100 percent. And they're like, okay, I need to dedicate 1 percent to this and 2 percent to that and they're like constantly in scarcity mode. So anytime something new or unexpected happens, they're like, oh my gosh, I only have so much left. Like, what am I going to do? And then they panic and they shut down.

Melissa Smith: Do you think that starting with the 20 percent is just genuine, for whatever reason, they have less energy or is it also more like the belief of like, Oh, I, there's no way I have a hundred percent.

Joanne Kim: It's the second. Their fear is around abundance. So they need to recognize that they actually have access to the abundance of life, that they have lots of resources instead of needing to keep their fortress door locked. If they open it up, And integrate with the rest of the world, then even when they use up their rations, well, they can rely on other people to bring in more and replenish. But that is not an assumption that they have. And so often Fives, even when they're like given a million dollars. They're like, I don't know if I'm going to have enough. And this always calculating like, okay, these are the ways where it's not going to be enough. And this over rationalizing. So, their main engine is around fear, though, being disconnected from their hearts. They don't even know that it's fear because they rationalized that it's just them being smart.

Enneagram Six - The Questioner

Joanne Kim: I like the word Questioner, sometimes they're called the Devil's Advocate or the Loyalist and those things also apply too. But, for sixes, there's more active fears, more of this frenetic energy, like, oh, like I need to make sure that my radar is on at all times because I can't be caught off guard.

So they tend to be like Chicken Little, like the sky is falling or the sky can fall at any time. It's like the, what if something bad happens? And so in that sense, they tend to think about every single situation about the worst case scenarios and then prepare for all of that. So, you know, if something goes sideways in actuality, Sixes are your people. You want to make sure you stick close to them because they probably already thought about it. But the downside is they can't relax. Because if they relax and they let down their guard, what if something terrible happens, and then it's kind of that thing recycling again. So it's exhausting. Their bodies pay the toll for that and other people experience Sixes as being overly negative, even though in the Sixes mind, it's like, it's just me being rational and practical.

And again, that there again is that self-justifying dynamic of that's reflective in each type, but the sixes are around safety, security, trust. They often question authority figures, not knowing that it's because they've disowned their own power. If someone knows their own power, even if an authority figure tells them what to do, it doesn't rattle them. It's like, yeah, this is what this job requires. Instead of, this person's like trying to control me. They go too far with that.

Melissa Smith: Making me think too of a lot of someone who might, just mistrust a lot. Conspiracy theorists.

Joanne Kim: Yeah. Like with Fours, there's a lot of variation within the subtypes of Sixes. So some people are like actively questioning it. It's like the fight mode as an expression of fear. Some people though actually align with those conspiracy theories or people with a lot of power and strength. They're like, oh my gosh, if I stick with this person who's very powerful, then I'll be okay. Yeah. So Sixes are also kind of harder to type for. And so if Fives are very neutral and sixes are actively negative…

Enneagram Seven - The Enthusiast

Joanne Kim: Sevens are actively positive, and this is like everyone's favorite person because there's a life of the party. They're super fun because they're constantly looking for what's good, what's positive, what's okay, what could be, what the possibilities are.

And in that they're excellent at brainstorming things, coming up with wild dreams and ideas, but their limitation is that they get bored very easily. So they are good at starting projects, but not very good at following through with them. And on the surface, there's a lot of this high positive energy, but at the core of it, there is a deep fear of being trapped in pain.

So it's kind of the exact opposite of Fours. Fours are trapped, but Fours are scared of connecting with goodness, so they overdo negativity. Sevens are scared of negativity, and so they overdo good. It's just because the nature of how their patterns show up, they get rewarded. Everyone thinks that they're great, but the people who get really pissed off are the family members and the partners and the co-workers, people that they're working alongside. Because these folks need to be extra responsible for the ways that the Seven is not taking responsibility. So the term for Sevens is the enthusiast, seeing things in a more positive way.

Melissa Smith: I thought I was a seven and even one of my best friends of 20 years. Can see me as the Four and the Seven because it's very FOMO life of the party all this I know myself that I don't come from that everything has to be almost like that toxic positivity. I can really bring them down and get philosophical. All the time very easily, but the Seven kind of makes me think of the comedian trope or the person that has to be very outgoing trying to run away from the pain, right?

Joanne Kim: Yeah, yeah, I think because you mentioned that you're Brazilian, right? There's a possibility that it might be a cultural influence too. You know, and so I would say Brazil is a very Seven-ish country. In that even people who are not type Sevens, those who have that culture's influence might look Seven-ish So there's part of that as an option and there's a specific type of Four that actually looks like Sevens.

Melissa Smith: Okay, interesting.

Joanne Kim: So if you're looking into subtypes, every type has three versions according to the instincts, self-preservation, social and sexual. Those are the three instincts we all have, but one of them takes the driver's seat and then one of them is shoved into the trunk. And so your combination of your type Four and whatever your dominant instinct is, it might also be partially why you might show up like a Seven at some point. That's for further exploration later. Like for me, I am the self reservation Four. And so in the sense that I don't look like a four, part of that is because I definitely have big feelings on the inside, but I don't always show it on the outside. I turn on a specific mode when I'm in public. So there's a possibility that if you are type Four, then you might be self preservation Four.

Melissa Smith: Awesome. Well, people will benefit from working with you and learning more and getting into the more of the subtypes and everything.

Enneagram Eight - The Challenger

Joanne Kim: I think of Eights as sledgehammers. Where it's about big impact, maximum output. It's they're super high level, high visionaries in that they want to seek whatever has the most like direct outcome. And they tend to have a lot of impatience for the nitty gritty details. A lot of their theme is around power. Strength being active, but what's not as visible is that it's out of a fear of being vulnerable and at the mercy of other people.

And so they basically overcompensate with strength so that they don't have to get in touch with their weakness. So oftentimes people who think their Eights are very good at like tolerating like negative feedback because they don't really care about what other people think. At least that's what it seems, but on the inside, they extra care about what other people think, but they don't want to allow themselves to go there, so they kind of end up putting up this very extra tough persona.

But you know those people who act all tough, but then when someone slices them, they zero in on that person. Vengeance is one of the key themes of type Eight. So it's like the inability to let things go and to be forgiving and to start afresh. These people tend to be at high levels of a company, lots of CEOs, lots of bosses, and they tend to steamroll over other people. But as companies are designed often they're celebrated for the work because there's maximum impact.

We just don't know what the body count is, because those people probably have been fired, they probably left. And so, there are a lot of people in the Silicon Valley who probably are very Eight-ish. It's just that people who aren't Eight-ish aren't likely to stick around to actually go against them. So it sometimes ends up creating a very toxic environment because the Eight believes that their perception is the absolute capital T truth. Yeah, so it's not until they run into some situation where their body's collapsing from overworking that they then confront their own limitation and mortality. But it is not often a path that the Eight chooses voluntarily.

Enneagram Nine - The Harmonizer

Joanne Kim: And then ending it with Nines. I like the word harmonizer, even though some people use the word mediator or peacemaker, because even though peacemaking and mediating is what Nines often do, it's not necessarily for the sake of improving relationships with people.

It's really so that they feel comfortable. The deadly sin for nines is sloth and that doesn't mean laziness. It means falling asleep to oneself so that they don't have to make decisions and be an individual. So if they turn off their own attention towards themselves, they don't need to make decisions. They don't need to think hard about who they are as an individual. That takes too much work. And so an easy way of avoiding that is actually merging with other people or routines sometimes. Because if everything is set either as a schedule or by other people, then they just need to go with the flow and kind of coast along with it and they could just live more carefree.

And so often Nines look very soft, very gentle, kind of the opposite of Eights, but what they don't know is that they actually have more power and energy than Eights do. If only they would wake up. If only they would find out who they really are, what they really want. Nines, they're a force to be reckoned with. You cannot stop them once they wake up. It's just they prefer to be sleep. So yeah, all the nine types have themes that we all resonate with in some shape or form. Like at some point we've all felt vengeance. At some point we've all felt like the desire to be liked, but our type is where we've gotten stuck.

What we've identified ourselves with. And therefore, what celebrating our type is actually the opposite of what needs to happen. Otherwise, we're celebrating the trap we've put ourselves into. True freedom comes from recognizing the trap that we're in and finding the key to come out and live. Access the other parts of life that we already have ready access to.

Melissa Smith: Yeah, that makes sense. If we are wanting better relationships or that dream project, mission, career, and we're running into all these obstacles and things that we're sabotaging doing ourselves. I think that really shows us where, like for me, seeing my Four tendencies really help to see the way I hold myself back from those one or the ways I show up in relationships.

All right. Well, let's see. I have so many more questions, but I know we're basically out of time. I will end with… one of your mottos and you mentioned it too, at the beginning is growing beyond your enneagram type so that you live in love from your flow state. How did that journey look for you, like learning about the enneagram and then growing beyond it?

My Enneagram Journey

Joanne Kim: I mean, once I found out that I was creating my own suffering, it's like, I can continue living that way, but it wouldn't do me any good. It wouldn't do anyone else any good. And it's more suspending my type's belief system. It is like type four's main fear is the fear of goodness, especially my own goodness.

It's like, okay, I resonated with this whole thing. I recognize how I've painted myself into a corner. What if the things I believe in are actually only a piece of the bigger picture? What if I don't have all the information? What if instead of thinking that I'm always without something essential, what if it's actually available to me?

And that opened up the door for possibilities and opportunities kind of in a Seven-ish way, but less out of a sense of the need to be whole, but out of the out of the consideration that I might already be whole. The idea of a flow state versus a stress state is a flow state is something you engage in, you get super absorbent because the experience is itself its own reward. If great things happen at the end, that's bonus, but not the point. And the flow state is constantly generating more and more energy. And there's surplus to even be generous for other people, whereas a stress state is I have to do this or else something bad is going to happen or something good is not going to happen.

So it's like living with a guillotine or a carrot hanging out over our heads, right? That wears us down. It creates so much strife, so much stress for ourselves and other people. And this is usually where our Enneagram types live. So if we switch into flow state, it's like, okay, let me suspend what my type says I am and let me see what happens if I try something else.

Yeah. And that's kind of where my life kind of started changing in my personal life, my relationships, my businesses. And I practice just letting the data speak for itself instead of living from my interpretation of what the data means. So it's been a wild experience and I'm super thankful for the Enneagram because I don't think there's been any other resource that's brought as much healing for me.

Melissa Smith: Yeah. So that's awesome. I love that. Well, it'd be great to share a little bit, just an introduction. I know we can't go into this, but You have a freebie guide and you talk a lot about emotions as well to the Enneagram. So can you just give us a little bit of a introduction on how you do this work, how you integrate the Enneagram and emotion work and what that kind of looks like. So listeners can understand like what else they can get from the Enneagram.

Joanne Kim: Yeah. And so I have my hat as a therapist, Enneagram therapist, and my hat as a feelings coach. I like calling myself a feelings translator because in the same way we actually resonate with all nine Enneagram types, we also resonate with all the full range of emotions.

It's just that based on our type, partially, we tend to pick and choose certain emotions as good and think the rest of them as bad. And so we become very lopsided in that we overdo these supposedly good emotions and we underdo what's supposedly bad emotions. So that only reinforces our own patterns which keep us stuck and the way out of it basically one of the ways to grow beyond our type structure is to recognize what our own emotional habits are.

Finding out which feelings we've labeled as good and which is bad and dialing back what have been labeled as good. Because we're overdoing them and then summoning forth what we've underly practiced so that we can be more versatile, we could be more well rounded. So instead of feeling something because that's just what we feel, or that's what we've been trained to feel, it's like, let our emotions tell us what's actually happening in the situation and what we're needing.

And so I do think that our emotional space is one of the best sources of information, that if we shut that down, or if we only pick and choose certain data points, we end up coming up with a very distorted picture of ourselves, of other people, and of life. So I do have the freebie guide, the Emotional Habits of Enneagram types and that is with an extra emphasis on the Enneagram.

But aside from that, I also do my work as feelings translator in exploring each emotion because each emotion has a specific message about what our inherent and legitimate needs are. So whichever route you do exploration in, eventually all truth kind of ends up in the same place anyway. So it's more of, uh, what, what seems more immediately useful for now, and then you'll eventually tap into the other ones.

Melissa Smith: What are some of the tools, resources, routines, some of the things that you personally like to use to stay high vibe?

Next Steps + Resources

Joanne Kim: Yoga has been a fantastic option. As a Four, I've mostly been disconnected from my body my whole life and kind of poo pooed out like anything related to movement, exercise and things like that. So that I could resume my fetal position, navel gazing. But I started doing yoga a year ago and holy crap, it's been so good for me in staying very present and connected with my body and actually finding out what my body is capable of. And so that's been super helpful. I do that twice a week. I would do it more if I had the schedule for it, but, that's been fantastic. And also a very very good practice for focusing on the good that's available to me.

Melissa Smith: Is there a specific type of yoga that you like?

Joanne Kim: Yin yoga. Because I'm very productive and active in my typical week. And so yin yoga is super chill. Half the time it's like laying on the floor doing nothing. It's a very good remedy for me because I live my whole life, believing that I have to make things happen or else that's the stress state. And yin yoga it's like, what else is there for me to do except to just stay here and take in things from outside of myself.

Melissa Smith: Yeah, I think that's helpful too, because sometimes we can be really disconnected from our body kind of helping slow down. All the thoughts and just be present and just out. Yeah. Awesome. Love that recommendation. All right. So how can listeners work with you? Where do you want to send them to follow you and just kind of what you have going on right now?

Joanne Kim: Yeah. If you want to learn more about the Enneagram, you can follow me on Instagram at @olivemecounseling or my website olivemecounseling.com. That's where you can find the Emotional Habits of Each Enneagram Type Guide.

If you want to learn more about emotions, then I have my Instagram @intelligentemotions or intelligentemotions.com. And there you can find another freebie guide called the Big Feelers First Aid Kit. So basically when feelings show up at the wrong place, wrong time, in wrong ways, that's a good guide to pick up just so that you can take care of yourself.

What are the Emotional Habits of your Enneagram type?

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Enneagram Body Types - 8s, 9s, 1s

Joanne Kim (OliveMe Counseling) and Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) join Nikhil Sharma (AlignUs World) in a six part series to discuss the Enneagram.

In this six part series we give an introduction to each Enneagram Type, look at each of the Triads: Body, Heart, and Head, and discuss subtypes and instincts.

Watch the video below for Body Types (or keep scrolling past the downloadables for the transcript!)

• An Intro to the Enneagram (Part I)

• An Intro to the Enneagram (Part II)

• Body Types - 8s, 9s, 1s

• Head Types - 5s, 6s, 7s

• Heart Types - 2s, 3s, 4s

• Subtypes and Instincts

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Transcript

Nikhil: In today's topic, we'll be discussing the Enneagram Body Types, which are Types Eight, Nine, and One. We are lucky today to have our special guest, Ms. Joanne Kim, who is an Enneagram therapist at OliveMe Counseling and Feelings Translator at Intelligent Emotions. Joanne helps people discover their true self beyond their Enneagram Type and live out their Flow State. The Enneagram is an excellent resource for those who feel they're kind of stuck in the mud to help them awaken themselves, to be able to live their best life, and to pursue meaningful and loving connections as well as being able to pursue all of their professional hopes and dreams.

I'm a firm believer of the Enneagram as I became aware of this about a year ago when I was clearly at the lowest state of my life. Through the Enneagram, and through the entire process of understanding it better, it has allowed me to literally go from being a physician to being a tech entrepreneur. I truly feel without the Enneagram, as well as my support system, which also includes Joanne as she has worked a lot with me on my Enneagram Type, I would not have come this far. I'm truly grateful for her. And it's surely a pleasure to have her here today with us at the AlignUs Podcast. Welcome Joanne. Thank you for being with us.

Joanne: Glad to be here.

Nikhil: We hear this Enneagram word a lot or I’ve certainly asked a lot of people about it and there is some familiar with it. For those who are new to the podcast and haven't heard the previous episodes, can you give us a quick, 30 second elevator pitch about what the Enneagram is.

What is the Enneagram?

Joanne: Yeah, the Enneagram is an ancient personality framework that in a nutshell tells us nine different ways of seeing and interpreting and responding to life. So, the nine Types in the Enneagram are archetypes of the universal human experience in highlighting our reflexive autopilot patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing. Of course, there's a lot more diversity to the human race, but it helps us conceptualize things in a very compact yet comprehensive way.

I love it.

Nikhil: I'm with you on that. It's truly empowering. When I first picked up the Enneagram book that you gave me, I was like, wow, that's me right there. Like, how did you know all the way to like, knowing how my childhood was? I was just so taken back by how this system could literally know that much about you. From that I became an instant believer, and it truly is the best way, I feel, to have self-discovery.

Being that there's these nine Types, they break them down into the centers of intelligence or these three Triads, as they are often referred to. Can you describe for us the Triads and what emotions they are typically associated with?

Joanne: Yeah, so people think that we have one brain, we actually have three. We have the topmost brain, which is sometimes known as the human brain, the thinking brain. Then the middle brain, also known as the mammal brain. That's kind of the seat of all emotions. Then the lizard brain downstairs in the brainstem area. That's kind of where it manages everything that we do reflexively, without thinking, it just kind of happens, like pupil dilation, heart rate, things like that.

So, the Triads of the Enneagram. If you break the Enneagram diagram into three sections, there's the Gut Types, or sometimes known as the Body Types, and that corresponds with the brainstem. The Heart Types, Twos, Threes, and Fours correspond with the mammal brain or the limbic brain. Then the Head Types, Fives, Sixes, and Sevens correspond with the Head Types. Obviously, we have all three and so it's that we live as if we're only one of the nine or one of three centers, but we actually have the whole brain and the whole being. So, the point of the Enneagram is to find out our Type, not so that we can reinforce our Type, but for us to recognize that that's kind of, we assume that we are a lot less than we actually are. The point is to find out our Type as the starting point for us to learn how to grow beyond our patterns, namely, to take ourselves out of the box that we put ourselves into.

Nikhil: That makes a lot of sense. So, basically, when you find out what your Triad Type is, that is the Type that you are most comfortable with. The ones that we subconsciously revert to, our autopilot Type that comes out. But the important thing for our listeners and our audience to be aware of is to understand what all the different Types are, especially different Triads, so that you can use those as areas of growth. Especially because we're so commonly locked into what we are used to that need to be more aware of what can become and other aspects or how other people think. So, that's what I love about it.

Body Types

Joanne: Then you had a question about specifically Body Types. So, if you think about just generally in the Western world, there's a lot more room to focus on heady things like intellect, reason, logic, et cetera. Nowadays, we hear more about the more Heart Triad things like emotions, image, identity, relationships. But Body Types are probably the least familiar Triad out of all three, especially in the Western world, because the main currency or language of Body Types is energy. So, think about instincts, intuition, having a gut sense or a felt sense. Those are very nonverbal, but this is a very important arena by which we gather lots of information that would be hard to visibly pick out. It's kind of like an energetic experience, even animals sometimes will know when there's an earthquake or a hurricane coming. I think that's kind of a lot of what Body Types tend to live in more reflexively. It's not always a conscious experience.

Nikhil: Right. I feel as humans, we only think that we either react logically, with our brain or we react with our heart and our emotions. But there is a whole subset of individuals who process the information from the outside with their bodies and then react with that bodies’ or with that specific Type. So, it's really interesting to think that there really are three different ways of processing information. With the Body Triad I realized it's like you're reacting with your intuition and it's like instinctual.

Joanne: Yeah. So, I think with more openness towards things like yoga, or some of the Eastern traditions, we're now hearing more about it. But it's got to take, I think, several decades before it gets just as much airtime as like Brene Brown feeling type stuff, or obviously just like rationality and intellect like sciences and emphasis on things that are more concrete, more measurable, things like that.

Nikhil: Can you explain to us how there are emotions that are tied specifically to the Gut Type compared to the Heart Type and then the Head Type so that maybe our viewers and audience can see which Type they kind of mix with?

Joanne: Yeah. Let's start from the basic foundation that there are general groups of feelings, human basic emotions. If we just focus on the negative emotions, there's anger, sadness, and fear, and basically one per Triad. So, each of the Types within these Triads have a very specific relationship with those given emotions. So, the Gut Types, their main emotion center is around anger. Heart Types is around sadness, sometimes people call it shame. My good friend, Melinda, will be covering that in a different episode. And Head Types correspond with the fear center. Within each Triad one Type of the nine tends to go with the feeling, mainly they overdo the feeling. Another Type underdoes the feeling. The last one has a very complicated, sometimes chaotic, sometimes ambivalent relationship with that emotion. Obviously, we have the capacity to feel all the full range of emotions, but our specific Type will have a go-to-habit around that emotion that happens so instinctually that we won't even know that's what's driving us until like we get into trouble.

Nikhil: Right. So, with the Body Types, is it associated with rage and anger in the sense that they're not able to control a situation and that's what brings out the anger for them? Why is that specifically associated with the body?

Joanne: Well, I'm glad you use the word control because each Triad also has their corresponding themes and it just so happens that for Gut Types, the word control is one of the big ones. So, control, will, power, agency, action, a lot of forward movement or very active energies, that anger as an emotion tends to make possible. Anger as a negative emotion says that something I want or something I need isn't happening or there's something in the way. So, in a sense, it is a reaction to us not getting what we want or us being out of control and for some Types anger in its raw energy is the way to get past that.

Again, one of the Types within the Gut Triad tends to overdo anger. Type Eight will be the one that tends to overly rely on anger. Sometimes they're so expansive with their energy that they don't think that they feel angry. Everyone else feels like they are, but that one overdoes anger.

Type Nines underdo anger. They kind of disconnect themselves from it. And in the sense of control, they tend to be the ones who are so non-asserting of their own agenda.

Then Type Ones, that's the Type with the complicated relationship with anger. It's like they want to, but they don't want to. There's constant like back and forth.

Nikhil: It's kind of like Type Eights externalizes it. Type Nine, it's like they repress it or suppress it inside.

Joanne: They disconnect from it.

Nikhil: It's almost like when anger does come out, it sort of shocks them or it shocks others that it's all been repressed and disconnected with them.

Then Type One, they seem to internalize that, correct?

Joanne: Yeah. For Type Ones, I love this word, I think it's like a Spanish term called “ira”. My Enneagram teachers describe it as, I think that's probably where the word irate or irritation comes from. It's like the slow simmering behind the scenes anger, like this constant churning. Versus what people usually associate with the anger being like explosive, rageful, destructive. That's usually describing traits that come with a territory of Type Eight. And especially for Eights, they're not necessarily trying to be destructive, but they can forget what kind of actual impact that they have. Kind of like anger unleashed. That's what that is.

Nikhil: That's good. I like that. Anger unleashed.

We're having a great conversation here so far learning about the Body Types. We’re going to jump into just going over the different Types of the Body Types, Type Eight, Type Nine, Type One, and just learn a little bit about some of the good qualities about them. Some of the challenges that they have, especially when it comes to relationships as well as some of the areas we can use for growth.

Type Eight

Joanne: This will be a useful metaphor for all the Gut Types. I like to think about all Gut Types, with the emphasis on control and agency, as a car, just a different feature of a car.

I like describing Eights as cars with no breaks. It's all gas pedal and it's all go. It's all energy, all forward movement. How this shows up in life is that as soon as they want something Eights will go for it without even thinking about whether the delivery or the execution is appropriate or the intensity with which they seek something is helpful or useful or what asked for.

In a typical day to day situation of how that's very useful is that Eights tend to be very good at big picture, visionary thinking, like high CEO, big boss level. They don't like being stuck in the weeds. They don't have the patience or the time for that. What their strengths are is whenever there is a situation that requires big, effective, wide scale action you call Eight to come and take charge. The downside though is that they're not always in a situation where they are the rightful authority or the rightful person to take big effective actions.

One big arena where Eights get into trouble is, for example, at work. They might be working on a project with other people but whoever's above them, namely their boss or manager, if Eights don't think that the manager is doing a good job, sometimes they can actually take over because they might feel stifled or like they're being slowed down. There's a lot of impatience that can happen with coworkers. So, when Eights sense that the rightful authority is not doing their job correctly, according to the Eights perspective, Eights often can take over in their ego and end up steamrolling over other people.

From an energetic standpoint this is still very effective in that it gets a lot of work done, but there's a lot of dead bodies in their wake. I think relationships personally and professionally can suffer a lot when the Type Eight ego is not tamed because the Type Eight resists being tamed at all costs.

Nikhil: It's like when they feel like once they processed all the information and they have it in their mind that they're right. What they're going to do is the right way to do things. There's no other possible way of doing things. They're just going to move them forward with whatever their thought process is, and nothing can stop them.

Joanne: Right. It's like, my truth is the Truth. Capital “T” Truth. Also let my will be done. All y'all get out of the way otherwise, you're going to get stomped.

Nikhil: Like I’m coming through. You don't want to hear, your headphones are on, like you are just moving forward.

Joanne: Yeah. Like a bull sees red. Like you better get out of the way of Type Eight.

You know, a car without brakes, the only way for the car to stop is if it hits something. So, often that's what, like getting fired from a job, a relationship breakup, often those major life circumstances are what finally catches the Eights’ attention in getting them to stop because they didn't impose limits from within themselves.

Limits are imposed on them.

Nikhil: It seems like they can turn very toxic very quickly, those Types of relationships.

Joanne: Yeah. I mean, I will say all nine Types have their own way of being toxic. It's probably the easiest to peg Type Eights as being so because their patterns are the most obvious. They're the most expressive.

In that sense, the growth path for Type Eights is to recognize that brakes exist. Brakes are necessary. It's not all about the gas pedal and we need to learn how to use the brakes so that the car can function well.

Nikhil: I feel like it's important not just for Eights, but all types of personalities, but okay, yeah, definitely Eights, to once we start creating these thoughts and emotions into our head or especially thoughts it's good for us to do some self-reflection prior to us putting our action plan forward. I feel like practicing any type of self-reflective, whether it's meditation, journaling, just taking a moment to pause to make sure that, hey, these seem like the right thoughts. I've thought about this for some time and yes, all right. I think I'm going to need to move forward with this. There may be some naysayers about it, but I feel like I've taken the appropriate steps to make the best overall decision. So that was great. That's Type Eight. What about Type Nines?

Type Nine

Joanne: Type Nines would be like a car that is on neutral gear. Forgets that they have a gas pedal, forgets that they have brakes. Let's just keep things neutral, keep things chill. If someone pushes me from behind, I'll keep my momentum going. If something stops me from the outside, I'm just going to stop and stay stopped. So, Nines sometimes they're known as The Mediators, Peacemakers, Harmonizers, and it's easy to think that that's what they intentionally do. But again, it's all reflex. The main reason why Nines end up taking on those positions is so that they don't exert the gas or brake pedal. There's a resistance towards exercising choice, freedom, action, agency, and it's like it's too much work. It's too much energy. I want to just take whatever path of least resistance I can. A lot of that is to go along with someone else's agenda or an already established pattern. So, Nines in a lot of ways are the opposite of Eights. Eights tend to be very unleashed and unrestricted. Nines tend to just disconnect from their gas tank altogether and I'm just going to go with whatever has already been done. It's a very low energy, whereas Eights are sometimes known to be larger than life.

Nikhil: Very domineering Types, right?

Joanne: I guess the toxic trait of Nines, because often people think that they're super sweet and super mellow and they are, they're very chill. But often the people who will be complaining about Nines are partners and coworkers because there's an under exercising of one's voice. Nines are very good at seeing through the eyes of everyone else, except for them. That's one thing that makes them great team builders and mediators in helping smooth out the rough edges so that there's a lot more harmony within the group, but they often forget themselves and they don't include themselves in the picture. It'd be fine for a group project and whatever helps to move that forward. But when it comes to more individualized experiences, like marriage, it creates a lot of problems. It's like those who are in relationship with Nines are like, I feel like I'm married to a shell. There's no person here. I have a physical body, like the lights are on and no one's home. That would be a common source of stress in Nines underly exercising their rightful power.

Nikhil: So, what can they do specifically to help expand or really be a little more assertive?

Joanne: It's to recognize that they have a gas and a brake pedal. That there are some things that they actually do want as a reflection of their individuality. That they go for what they want, even if it means bumping up against other people and also recognizing when is the time to stop because of one's own voluntary decision instead of being stopped just because of momentum or circumstances. Sometimes Nines might procrastinate because they can't choose between all these different options. They all feel equal because they're so disconnected from their individual sense of self and their own values. So, the big growth step for Nines is to reconnect with one's own core, to see oneself as an individual, and to put forth the individual in the world instead of just being a wallflower.

Nikhil: Right, it's kind of like they need to establish or discover what their character strengths are, what their values are, and just spending more time in self-awareness and self-discovery. From those anchors and foundation, they can move forward and make decisions based on things that will actually benefit them in ways. I feel like a lot of them probably have a lot of built-up resentment in some ways because when you agree and you're this total people pleaser or making sure everyone is always feeling good and not in any argumentative ways I feel like there's a lot of anger that starts building up. Because you didn't have the guts to bring what you felt needed to be done to the forefront because you wanted to keep the peace.

Joanne: Yeah, I think Nines would probably have a hard time getting in touch with their resentment because it's like the anger is so locked up in there. It's like Pringles like, one, two, pop, you can't stop. So, there's that deep fear that once Nines get in touch with their anger, they won't know how deep that tank goes. So, before Nines think about just how resentful they are, it might be more of just how tired they feel, just how uncomfortable they feel with discomfort. How much it stresses them out when they think about talking to someone or bringing up a request or pushback. Starting from that fear place as a way of getting connected with the emotions and then how eventually coming across anger and then that takes a lot of deeper work.

Nikhil: It's amazing how any uncomfortability in most humans automatically resorts us to get scared and then run back to what makes us feel comfortable. We see that when people have difficulty leaving their marriages, leaving relationships, leaving jobs, it just goes on and on, but all that uncomfortability it can start presenting itself, it manifests itself on our body and we tend to start feeling and acting in erratic ways. So, we don't like that. Then we will just go back to what makes things peaceful and comfortable until we kind of explode.

What I've learned up in this process has been when my body is telling me something, whether I'm having neck pain or having issues in my stomach that means for me, hey, Nik, you're having some stress that's going on in your life. You need to kind of delve into what your body is telling you. It's important for us to not ignore the signs that our body lets us know. The body does keep the score. So, it's very important for us to be in tune with our body and have all Triads being in tune with each other. That's the ultimate success.

Joanne: They're called body ties for the reason that the physical body is itself one of the best ways to gather information and also to digest them. So, for both Eights and Nines and Ones, whenever they are feeling any kind of tension in their body, whatever the emotion is, eventually it's good to process and tease that out. But if right then and there is not the best time for them to be doing that kind of work, find some way to release that pent up energy. For Nines, especially because they can often go numb, in moving their body until they can feel connected with it again.

Nikhil: And then we have the Type Ones. How are they typically presenting themselves?

Type One

Joanne: Yes, Ones are the cars with the emergency brake on all the time. So, despite how much gas they push, there's a lot of precious energy that turns into heat and irritation because it's kind of chafing against the emergency brakes. The big thing about Ones is that kind of like Eights, they tend to be very outward focused in releasing their energy. Ones have that ambivalent connection with their anger. Which is an outcome of their repressed desire. It's like desire wants them to move forward, but then the Type One structure pulls them back into repression. There's a lot of energy, precious energy that gets lost in things like perfectionism, irritation, obsessing over details. Eights are like the big sledgehammers. They're like, I just want to focus on the big picture. I don't want to deal with the details. Ones are like scalpels, exactly the opposite. They overly focus on the details to the point of missing the big picture. Like with scalpels they're very delicate instruments that you use them a couple of times, and it gets very blunt very quickly. Ones need to recognize just how many opportunities they miss out on, because they're focusing on the fine tune details at their own expense and mistrusting their own desires, assuming that their own desires are impure or bad and repressing them so much that they're actually kind of extinguishing their own life force.

On the surface, Ones look very put together, focus on right or wrong type of stuff and often we judge them for being very judgy. But what people don't know about Ones is that there's a lot of pain and suffering they experience because they can't help it but to restrict themselves and also end up restricting others. So, Eights underdo control and they overdue anger or outward energy. Nines disconnect from their own sense of self control by going with other people's agendas or what's already been established. Ones overexert control and end up extinguishing their life force.

So, the growth path for Ones involves letting go of the emergency breaks because they still have breaks that they can voluntarily step on. Take turns pushing the gas, pushing the brakes, based on what's happening in that moment, instead of pre-establishing the brakes for forever.

Nikhil: Yeah, this is all amazing stuff here, Joanne. Hopefully our listeners and our audience have, despite if you're not a Body Type, that's the whole thing, it's for us to better understand the different Types that are out there and then being able to try to improve upon where we feel that we may not be the best in and especially being able to use this as a resource for that.

As we're kind of coming to the end of the conversation, is there a takeaway that you can give the audience and the viewers to go home with and then something that they can try to use starting this week to help them along in their personal growth journey?

Growth Tips

Joanne: As I mentioned earlier, all the nine Types are archetypes of the universal human experience. So, we're supposed to resonate with at least a little bit of everything, but one tends to stand out the most, because that's what we're used to. Often people can defend their own personality Types, but that actually is reinforcing the ego that's keeping us trapped.

So, if any of the three Types, Eights, Nines and Ones really triggered you today, then chances are it's either because that might be your Type or the Type of a close one, a loved one in your life. Sometimes that might be because that Type is in your shadow. So, if whatever I mentioned today does resonate with you, if you're an Eight, reinforce some of the breaks. If you're a Nine, practice pressing the gas and brake pedals. And then if you're Type One, let go of the emergency brakes.

If you're in relationship with any of those Types, recognize that a lot of our patterns are reflexive. We don't do this on purpose. We don't even know that we're doing it. So, instead of judging any of the Types, be curious and be more open about asking what each person's individual experience is.

Maybe the reason why any of those Types might be driving you crazy is because maybe that's what you're supposed to do yourself on purpose. So, maybe you can learn from whoever is of whichever Type.

Nikhil: And just remember, I think people don't realize, and I didn't realize this recently, is that our personality Types were developed at a very young age for us. Literally in childhood. They were developed as a survival method for us to be able to grow up in the environment that we were in. However there came a point in our life where we have grown up and that personality trait has kind of caged us in, whether the good parts of that personality and then the bad parts of it, and it's up to us to realize how to break ourselves free from that mold that was created for us at a very young age. That's why I love the Enneagram and the model, because it not only helps us, but you’re also giving us vital information about who we are, it helps us develop strategic plans of action that we can use to slowly start breaking ourselves from those shackles I want to say that were built throughout our whole entire life.

Joanne: There's enough suffering in the world as it is. Let us not reinforce that by going with our egos and summon whatever compassion we can for ourselves and also other people. This is hard work. And this may be one of the hardest things we ever do is to recognize our own autopilots that we don't even know is there and to grow beyond that. All that means is we are all venturing into very unfamiliar, scary territory and we can use all the support we can get.

Nikhil: That's right. Step by step. There will be people along this journey who, when you start changing, can say things to you out of projection because you're changing. That might make you feel a certain way inside and make you feel like you have to revert back to being who you were. But just remember, like Joanne said, personal growth is a journey. It can be very hard. It can be uncomfortable. But usually in that discomfort, you're usually going along the right path. It's just about surrounding yourself with the right people who will support you on that path. It's truly a beautiful journey. I can speak only for myself, but it has truly transformed who I am. It's because of the support system that I have surrounded myself with.

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About Dr. Nikhil Sharma & AlignUs

I’m Dr. Nikhil Sharma, founder of AlignUs and for the last 10 years I had dedicated my life to working with patients with liver failure due to alcohol or obesity, who suffer from addictions and was a part of their rehabilitation process and helping them to get to a new liver and a second chance at life. During that period, I thought to myself, what if we could prevent people from suffering major physical health issues by helping them heal from their traumas and improve their mental health?

So, I created AlignUs where our mission is to inspire a world of wellness and philanthropy through compassion, connection and competition.

AlignUs creates a high vibrational atmosphere that involves self-care, physical competition and charitable donations. AlignUs will revolutionize how we do philanthropy in this digital age, while making it fun and rewarding to help each other.

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What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

Enneagram Heart Types - 2s, 3s, 4s

Joanne Kim (OliveMe Counseling) and Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) join Nikhil Sharma (AlignUs World) in a six part series to discuss the Enneagram.

In this six-part series we give an introduction to each Enneagram Type, look at each of the Triads: Body, Heart, and Head, and discuss subtypes and instincts.

Watch the video below for Heart Types - Types 2s, 3s, and 4s (or keep scrolling past the downloadables for the transcript!)

• An Intro to the Enneagram (Part I)

• An Intro to the Enneagram (Part II)

• Body Types - 8s, 9s, 1s

• Head Types - 5s, 6s, 7s

• Heart Types - 2s, 3s, 4s

• Subtypes and Instincts

Downloadables

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Transcript

Nikhil: Today we have a great topic, the Enneagram Heart Triad. We are welcoming back a special guest, Melinda Olsen who is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, founder of Inviterra Counseling, and co-founder of Havenly Counseling Collective.

Welcome Melinda. Great to have you back here with us today.

Melinda: Thanks. So happy to be here.

Nikhil: Before we get started, do you mind just giving us a little bit of background about the work that you do?

Melinda: I'm an Enneagram Therapist. I'm an Enneagram obsessed person. Enneagram Two. So, I interweave that with all of my therapeutic work.

I like to bill myself as your resident Enneagram Therapist because I really love helping people go deeper into their Enneagram work beyond what the Types are. I really think that the Enneagram is just a transformative tool and I think it creates such a beautiful path toward transformation. When we're on that path we might not look the same as we did in the very beginning in terms of what our Type is. I love watching that process.

I'm also obsessed with creating community and care for helpers, for people who care for others and then just for my community at large. So that's what I'm obsessed with.

Nikhil: We can tell you’re very, very passionate. That's beautiful.

Thank you for being here with us today. Before we dive right into the Heart Triads for those that are new to the podcast and new to the Enneagram, do you mind giving us a quick overview of what the Enneagram is and what the Triads are?

What is the Enneagram?

Melinda: Yeah. In its most simple form, the Enneagram is just a personality descriptor. Numbers One through Nine. Every number describes a particular autopilot personality or particular coping mechanisms that we all do, constellations of coping mechanisms. So, when we talk about how we cope through life, get what we feel like we're needing, every Type does that differently. One of the ways that the Enneagram is divided, or split is into what you call Triads. We have three Types per Triad.

We have the Body Triad, which is Eights, Nines, and Ones. They tend to jam around anger, the emotion of anger.

We have Heart Types, which are Twos, Threes, and Fours. I'm a Two and we tend to deal with things like sadness and shame. That's what we tend to organize around.

Then you have the Head Types, which Nik, I know you are. We have Fives, Sixes, and Sevens. We call that the Fear Triad. That’s the Head Triad, the Fear Triad.

Every Triad has different themes that they have to navigate as they're on their transformational journey and different coping mechanisms that they lean into in order to get what their personality really thinks that they're needing. 

Nikhil: That's very well said.

I know you have such a great bond with this specific Triad. Like you said, you are a Type Two. Why don't we go over it? The Heart Triad, there are a lot of shame-based emotions. That shows up a little bit differently in each one of these Types. Why don't we start with Type Two and talk a little bit about how that goes with them?

Type Two

Melinda: I like to talk about shame and sadness, and that's a Beatrice Chestnut addition that I really support.

Type Two, they tend to be called “The Helpers”, but I like to kick that out the window because I think that that's a total stereotype. I think they're “Befrienders”. Two's autopilot is all about getting you to like me. Getting you on my side, getting you on board with loving me because I'm so great in whatever way I try to be great, so that people will love me. So that people will be on my side, give me what I'm needing. Twos really try to get what they're needing indirectly by making other people feel positively about them in whatever way that they organize around. That's really the theme of the Two.

One of the ways that happens is helping other people. But that's not the only way, and definitely not every type of Two does that. It could be through what we call seduction, like classic seduction. It could be through being nice and sweet and kind. It could be through bringing you a casserole. It could be through being very competent. It doesn't matter. But either way, we really are obsessed with making other people like us. We live our lives outside of ourselves, so we don't understand our own hearts and our own needs because we're so focused on other people's needs. That's really one of the issues of Enneagram Two.

Nikhil: So, you guys kind of have this feeling where if there's some sort of rejection or something along those lines where you don't feel you're good enough at times. Is that right?

Melinda: Yeah. All the time.

I feel like that might be almost in our shadow or subconscious. I think some of us are really aware of that but others of us are not. So, oftentimes we operate in the world thinking we know better how to help and care for other people. Sometimes we're operating in this pride space, but at the bottom of that, as we're trying to be in whatever way, more than who we are, more special, more significant, more likable, what we really don't come into much contact with, but definitely is running the show, is this feeling of not being good enough. Which is why sad and shame are something that Twos really struggle with.

Nikhil: I've gone through those feelings as well, that not feeling good enough. Again, for people that are out there, it doesn't matter what your Type is, you will likely experience something from each Type and each personality, each Triad. You’re supposed to, like an ideal version of somebody would be someone who has a balanced Head, Heart, and Body Type. So, anyone that's listening today, you could be likely picking up stuff like, that really resonates with me. Which is good because likely there's something that's going to be resonating with everybody.

I often think about, especially that or where I don't feel good enough then I think about not good enough for who, where is this good enough feeling coming from? What are we comparing this to and it's something that's been ingrained in us from a very young age that society has been structured. Like there's these “laws” that there aren't even real laws, right? But it's something that's just made up. What's great about this self-discovery journey is that when you realize that each individual is on their own little path and it's up to us to own that path and go your own way that's when the real awakening occurs. You start feeling different. That feeling of not feeling good enough, it starts to dissipate a little bit, I would say. There's a lot of parts of me that I do enjoy. So, it's nice to start understanding that.

But Twos, they really want to help please people. It makes them feel good.

Melinda: Yes. It makes them feel good and needed and significant.

Nikhil: How can Twos help balance that aspect out for themselves?

Melinda: Great question. Love that. That's the best.

One of the major themes, because Twos are such outward oriented Types, we focus on other people. The gravity of our existence is on others. So, if you think about gravity, almost like a blanket with something heavy on it. It's almost like we roll toward the thing that has the most gravity. Part of a Two's work is to flesh themselves out authentically, so they have more gravity. So, they start to focus more internally on themselves and what they need. Actually, I have this by my desk because like I said, I'm a Two. For viewers out there, I'm holding up a picture of a single dot and a very elaborate squibble. The single dot underneath says, “what I wanted to need” and the scribble is, “what I need”. Basically, it's just what we think we need is so simple but what we really need is incredibly elaborate and Twos are not in touch with that. So, shifting that gravity towards ourself, going internal, understanding our own feelings, dreams, thoughts, all of that is part of the work that I do with Twos. It's really shifting that gravity towards ourselves.

Nikhil: And it's like, again, when we feed more into ourselves, when we understand more of who we really are, we're better able to help others. You know what I mean? In a more sustained manner. It's really incredible when you can understand that, like the people start thinking, oh, you're being selfish or you're doing this. No, it's more like, hey, I'm trying to spend some time getting to know myself a little bit better so that I can show up better, not just for myself and for my family, for all those that are connected to me.

Melinda: Absolutely. And that's really the point. A lot of Twos do fear that this is such a selfish thing to do. But what I like to point out to them is in personality, like in your autopilot, the things that you're doing in order to care for other people, yeah, that's partially pure, but let's be honest. It's an indirect way of getting people to meet our needs and that's not actual generosity. Everybody thinks Twos are so generous. We are not, we are not. It's not because it's all a ploy to get our needs met when we don't know what they are. So, it's a very difficult web we weave.

Nikhil: Yeah, there's a little bit of manipulation maybe that's there.

Melinda: Yes, absolutely. That's a whole thing. I think when we shift our focus to understanding what we need, and that can be hard because Twos, experience our emotions like a roller coaster. It's a very chaotic experience inside. So, we feel feelings, but we don't tend to really know or understand why they come up or what's happening or when they're going to come up. So, the image I bring up for Twos that seems to really resonate is being on a roller coaster blindfolded. You experience all the feelings, but you don't know when the drop is or when all the turns are. We have to get to know our insides to get off the roller coaster, to really understand our feelings, and then understand what we need. And be direct about it instead of manipulating others to get that met when we might not even know what those needs are.

Nikhil: Well said.

So now, how does shame and these emotions show up for a Type Three?

Type Three

Melinda: Great question. Type Three. We can go over, just to talk a little bit about Type Three, if that's all right. Type Threes are outward oriented Types as well, just like Twos. Actually, there are a lot of similarities, but Threes are very “go-get-‘em”, action oriented because what they want is approval. They're going for success. They're going for applause. They're going for approval. Like, yeah, you're the best! Go Type Three! You rock! That's what they're living for. Whereas for Twos, that's really love, being liked, for Threes it really is more about being seen as successful.

What Beatrice Chestnut says around Threes is, emotions, they kind of get in the way for Threes to being that successful self. They like to be very efficient, to get stuff done, to be successful. So, they tend to shuck them out the window. Threes underdo emotion. They underdo sadness and shame. If you asked a Three what's your experience of shame and sadness, they'd be like, I don't know. That's what I find in my practice. You'll find Three is working really hard to get that approval.

Nikhil: They like to be admired. Is that what you would say?

Melinda: Yeah, yeah. It's like the admiration applause.

Nikhil: That’s kind of how they kind of show up. How can they better balance themselves to be able to feel some more emotion.

Melinda: I think first of all, because Threes work, they're the workaholics of the Enneagram. They're action oriented. They move quick, quick, quick. They want to make sure that they're getting shit done. They really need to start slowing down. Being unproductive for a Three, though hard, is incredibly important. Like, starting to slow down, because they can't even get in touch with their internals. They can't even get in touch with their insides if they're going so fast. That's torture for a Three, but all growth paths are torture. It really is about tuning inside to their actual desires instead of focusing so much on what will get them admired. Does that make sense?

Nikhil: It does make sense.

Melinda: So, I think slowing down to actually tune into themselves, asking questions like, do I really like this thing? Do I really like to do that? I don't know. What are my hates? What are my likes? What does that really mean? What is my true goal in life? How do I really want to live? Is it really for the admiration of others or doing these things? I might not even enjoy breaking my neck doing it, or is there a different way? And in that slowing down, they start to make more contact with their very sensitive hearts.

Nikhil: Again, it goes back to coming back into your inner self. Focusing on what it is that you want. Oftentimes our autopilot, as you said earlier, can be go, go, go, go. I want to be admired. This is the way it's supposed to be. Supposed to be for who? For what? There are times where I feel like I've been in that mode where I'd want some admiration and I think that's okay. It's okay to have some of that. It's all balanced. It's realizing is it coming truly from within that this is something that I've worked hard for and I am appreciating the admiration that I'm getting or am I doing everything just for admiration purposes.

Melinda: Yes, absolutely. And Threes are so good at tuning into whatever community they're a part of deems successful. Like either their family, or whatever communities there in, but do they actually think, the Three themselves, did they actually think that that's what success means or success looks like? Again, it is tuning into that inner self instead of working so hard to get that outside admiration.

Nikhil: All right.

Can we talk a little bit about the Type Four personality?

Type Four

Melinda: Yeah. Love Type Fours, as well. They’re all great. I love them all. I mean, I'm a Heart Type. I love them all.

Nikhil: Yeah, it's good. It's important because again, when we're most balanced, we have a little bit of each in us, right? So, you're just loving yourself. That's all.

Melinda: Yeah.

Fours, they cut a little different than Twos and Threes. Whereas Twos and Threes are outward oriented, Fours are very inward oriented. They tend to have a fairly good idea about how they feel, precisely how they feel. They tend to focus more on their internals, but not all of their internals, just the parts that they don't think are great, or the emotions that are suffering emotions. They tend to focus inward and really focus on things that might be wrong with them, ways that they're not good enough, or things that other people have that they wish they did but don’t. It's this longing. Fours experience this deep longing.

The internal experience for Fours, and that internal churn is very different than Twos and Threes. They shut out the outside world and focus inward. I think the reason that they do that is because they want to differentiate themselves. They feel different. They're “The Individualists”. So, they feel very different. They want to set themselves apart. Or often feel set apart.

Nikhil: What are some areas in there that that they can use or to try to help in their growth and development?

Melinda: The thing about Fours, Fours are probably the most therapized group of the Enneagram. First, I'm going to say that.

Nikhil: What are the Four known as?

Melinda: “The Individualists”.

Nikhil: That's exactly what I was thinking.

Melinda: I think. Does that resonate for any Fours you know?

Nikhil: Yeah, it does. That resonates with several Fours that I'm associated with, for sure.

Melinda: It makes sense, right? Every theme is around, if we think about that shame and sadness, it comes out in different ways. For Fours, and they're not thinking that they're good enough, they set themselves apart or aside and want to work to be special on an individual level. So, I'm special because I'm different, or me being different makes me special. That's kind of what they turn into. So, it can be really hard for a Four. They're the ones that have the most distinctive experiences of sadness and shame and probably the most direct experiences of sadness and shame, so much so that they have a hard time getting out of those feelings. They favor those feelings as opposed to maybe more positive feelings like hope or joy. They overdo those feelings.

To answer your question about growth, one of the first things that needs to happen is this recognition that their internals might not be 110% accurate in terms of how the world is and who they are in the world. They need to start balancing their internals with the people in their lives that care about them and what they say. There's a way in which the gravity needs to shift a little more balanced between external and internal feelings of who they are and how they define themselves because they think they're really negative. In fact, they're human beings and they're both beautiful and have issues like the rest of us and they tend to focus on the issues instead of the beauty. So, they need to start integrating that in.

Nikhil: I think we have a good understanding of the individuals, how each Type individually presents themselves.

A lot of our lives are based on relationships. Each individual at times, when we're in relationships, there's unhealthy qualities that can be exhibited. So, each one of these, especially being that they're part of the Heart Type and they're thinking with their emotions, what are some things that these Types need to be aware of when they're in relationships? That they can identify that, hey, there's something not right here, so that they can maybe take a step back, just being aware of some key factors or key traits that they tend to exhibit when they're unhealthy relationship patterns.

Unhealthy Relationship Patterns

Type Two

Melinda: Yeah. The biggest thing I see for Twos is just too much focus on their relationships. They will just focus all their energy on their partner or people and to the detriment of themselves. It can cause some issues. Because they're going to try to help people in ways that the person never asked for and then Twos start to get resentful. Like I helped you in all these ways and you're not even grateful. And I'm like, well, did they ask for that help? Resentment is something that you need to work on internally for yourself. It usually means you've overextended your boundaries or allowed somebody to cross your boundaries.

Nikhil: Can you say that again? Because that was beautiful.

Melinda: Resentment is something that you need to work on yourself because usually what that means is you've crossed your own boundaries or allowed somebody to cross your boundaries.

For Twos who live in resentment a lot, we need to understand that we need to create boundaries and not cross them to help others or care for others or go outside of ourselves. That happens so much in relationships. It's like you do it without even thinking. Then you look behind you and you're like, oh, that was a boundary. I only know that because I'm pissed that they didn't care for me right in the way that I wanted them to.

Nikhil: I think it's important like, we know when resentment starts building up in us and it's oftentimes that we just stuff it down inside. Then we think it's going to be okay or that happens in marriages or that's normal, you know what I mean. I was thinking about that.

It's like people just often think that it's normal. This is what goes on. The problem is what I've realized as I've grown up and I realized, no, Nik, that is only happening in your small subset group of friends and family that you're surrounding yourself with. There is a big world out there. There's 6 billion people. You realize that what you think is like that's okay to occur. Our thoughts are not necessarily true. We need to think about that for one second, realize all your thoughts aren't necessarily true. When we realize that, we can move forward with, hey, maybe something needs to change or, this isn't normal because I shouldn't be feeling like this for this prolonged period. Where did I learn that this is normal? Again, we learn what normal is through our immediate circle and our families and how we grew up. It doesn't mean it was the right way for you. We change and we're supposed to.

Melinda: That's the biggest thing I see with Twos, and I've experienced that too. So hopefully that helps some of your Two listeners.

Nikhil: Then how about our Type Threes?

Type Three

Melinda: So, usually I only see Threes in therapy for two reasons. One, they've either burned out or two, their partner, spouse, whatever has hauled them into therapy. When that happens it's usually because the Three is not really in contact with their feelings. They're working too much. They're really trying to be that successful person, but they're not tuned into their EQ, their emotional IQ in order to connect with their partner.

Usually, I'm seeing Threes have a really hard time, connecting relationally, even though they're Heart Types, even though they're so sensitive. They have a very hard time getting to that emotional nurturing level and that kind of emotional ability to hear their partner and connect in that way. That's usually what I find with my Threes and relationships. It's really hard.

Nikhil: That makes sense.

Then we have our Type Fours.

Type Four

Melinda: Type Fours, again, the most therapized Type on the Enneagram. I see them a lot in relationships when they're so focused inward it's hard for them to tune into their partner. Interestingly. So, if their partner has a different experience or something else going on, it's very hard for the Four to step outside of themselves enough to navigate that with them or to understand that experience. Now, Fours are great at not being judgmental. I think that's something I've noticed about Fours that I love. But it really is that piece about that lack of outward oriented-ness that tends to be an issue.

The other thing I see a lot is it's hard for them to step out of their own shame and their own sadness. That's usually what they're stuck in. Say a partner says, “Hey, I'm having a really hard time when you do X.” A Four could be like, “Oh, I did X? Oh, I'm a terrible person. There's something wrong with me. Why do I always do that?” Downward, downward, downward. What happens? The person who brought that need forward gets lost. They get lost in the Four just spiraling downward and inward. That is a dynamic I see a lot with Fours in relationships.

Nikhil: Relationships are a big deal. Obviously how we're showing up every day for ourselves it's important for us to have these tools of being aware of how our interactions are with others. It's important for our partners and others that we're associated with to understand who we are so we can better communicate, interact, and have more fulfilling conversations, more fulfilling relationships.

For all those that are listening out there, yes, it's important for you to understand who you are, but hopefully you're also picking up some traits of people that are around you and understanding like maybe that's why mom acts this way. Maybe I need to communicate with her like this or be more patient with her when she's stressed now, I know how she is at a certain type of way.

It's just all beautiful stuff I feel, the more we learn. It's not that you're necessarily going to learn every little detail. You're not going to necessarily figure out what your Enneagram Type is today per se, but hopefully you're figuring out some things about yourself and how you're showing up in a certain way. Then that just helps you progress and improve and helps balance yourself because that really is the goal. And these days, especially with poor mental health being on the rise. It's important to understand that the times and society is changing and there's something going on where more and more people are being affected in a negative kind of way.

Instead of us hoping for change to come from somewhere outside, it's never going to come, it's got to come within us. Each individual. It starts with yourself. And if you can optimize who you are, because you are the CEO of your own body, you can only control your thoughts, your emotions, your actions. That's it. There's nothing else that you can control. But if all of us started doing that that would amount to tremendous change. There's been more of a push now, right? For each individual to start focusing on their own mental health and their mental being. We often work out all the time. We get our muscles all big and do all that, but we're not focusing on mental fitness enough and that comes first with becoming more aware of who we are.

That's why all these self-discovery techniques, and obviously we are big homers of the Enneagram and that as a method for that. You probably see why we do love it so much and are passionate about it because it's very easy to see yourself in each one of these types of situations.

One other thing we wanted to touch on was because mental health has become more of a crisis, people are becoming more and more stressed. Each individual acts in a certain way when they are stressed. So, with each one of these Types, can you go over some of the traits that they need to be aware of when adversity hits them and how they tend to respond and maybe how they can improve that a little bit for themselves?

Enneagram Types & Stress

Melinda: What I've experienced is that every Type, they kind of experience some adversity until they hit a wall that makes change necessary. So, I'm going to describe how people look before they hit the wall.

Type Two

For Twos what happens is they grow in that resentment we were talking about. They get angrier and angrier. They're on that rollercoaster internally or number inside, sadder, or they kind of go into deflation with that shame. That starts to grow and grow and grow. And they're on that roller coaster with a blindfold. They're like, I have all these feelings and I'm so resentful. I read somewhere that Enneagram Twos can look like that nagging mother when they're in a very unhealthy state. That is definitely a space that Twos can get into. Then they tend to get into a lot of controlling behaviors, like controlling other people.

They tend into that Eight a little. They can tend into the Four as well, where they feel a lot, but they also go into the control of the Eight. Kind of manipulating people to do their will. When people aren't meeting their needs, the resentment grows until eventually something breaks. Then they end up in my office, or their kid is like, you need to go to therapy or we're cutting contact. It can get really dramatic depending on how long it takes for the Two to tune into themselves.

Nikhil: And Type Threes?

Type Three

Melinda: Type Threes, again, I find that they just numb out. They do more and more. The Threes that land in my office I find right beforehand, they've either experienced a hike in anxiety, which you've mentioned high anxiety, but they think that the way to deal with that is to just do more stuff. So even their vacations are productive. I could tell you so many stories about Threes that thought this vacation could have been improved by reading five self-help books or five self-improvement books and I'm going to have this schedule to make sure my vacation is as productively relaxing.

Nikhil: I like that. It's true. They can't just be.

Melinda: And it's very hard. So that gets picked up to a frenzied pace. The wall is usually burnout, debilitating panic attacks. Sometimes it's even health issues because they've somaticized all their emotions. They've taken all of their feelings into their body and it's causing issues. That's what I find, they become more and more numb out to that sensitive, sensitive heart they have.

Nikhil: Right. And just for people to understand that stress and internalizing stress and resentment, it will certainly show up in the physical aspect of things. I dealt with that a lot in my hospital training and liver failure, people overeating, then turning to other addictions, because that pain, those emotions internalizing that has to be channeled somewhere. Or if you're going to keep suppressing it you're using other substances or other devices to suppress that and that leads to poor health outcomes. People can certainly die from that. So, it is very important for you to understand the importance of not internalizing such emotion, pain, stress, there's certainly poor outcomes that will occur for all of us who do that. It's important to go to somebody like Melinda or your family or friend, whoever you feel comfortable with to discuss those things.

Threes don't hold it all in. You’ve got to let that out.

Then we have our Type Fours.

Type Four

Melinda: Type Fours, it really is just kind of leaning into that suffering and leaning into those emotions like anger, sadness, shame. Because Fours can also feel anger, depending on the Four, to a point in which it's almost like they have blinders on. They can't see anything else. That's all they see. They're looking down with blinders on and they're churning inside. So, they're caught in that downward spiral but they're aware that they're in that spiral and they're longing to get out, and they have no idea how to do it and then they beat themselves up for not doing it. That's a cycle that I see in Fours when they're in a very unhealthy place.

Now, the thing about it, when I say that Fours find themselves in therapy most right, usually therapists unknowingly reinforce this cycle. Because they're like, oh, you're so aware of your negative emotions. Let's talk about all your feelings. Let's talk about all these things. Which in some cases can further keep them stuck in those feelings. They can think about those feelings on their own for free. And they do. Before they hit that wall of realizing that they need to do something different. They're missing out on life staying stuck in this longing and shame and sadness. That's usually either that or somebody else gets them into therapy. That's what I find.

Nikhil: Well, so many amazing things that we discussed today. I feel like my mind's got a much better understanding of all these different Types, including myself. Again, when you talked about each Type, I felt like at least at some point in my life, whether that's currently, or a couple of years ago, I've felt those types of emotions or have acted those types of ways. I think people need to understand that we will go through different phases of life where we’ll resonate with each Type of personality, and we're supposed to. Or someone we know that does. So, it's important for us, the more we learn about the Enneagram, the more aware we're going to be, the better outcomes we're going to have. Not just personally or professionally, then most importantly, obviously in our relationships, which we need to show up every day for.

For our listeners out there, what are some key takeaways that you would you want them to take home from this podcast. Maybe giving each Type a little bit of a challenge to do for the week to start their self-discovery journey.

Growth Challenge

Melinda: I was really looking forward to this portion. I'm so looking forward to this portion of the podcast. Key takeaways are always awareness. So, if anything resonated with somebody and they think, oh, I might be a Heart Type. Just because you're a Heart Type doesn't mean you do feelings well. Let me just put that out there. We all have our feeling issues.

Kind of take a beat and reflect. Do you notice these themes in your life? Are they central? I think that's something that I would encourage anybody who's beginning an Enneagram journey to really lean into. I know you have some resources for people to figure out what Type they are. I know you're going to post those. I really think that's the first thing. Notice awareness is like you said, that's the first muscle that we can control. So really start to notice if you see resentment or leaning into suffering too much or numbness in your life. Those tend to be ways that Heart Types show up in their individual special ways. That's one thing.

I do have a challenge per Type, if that's okay for me to share.

Nikhil: I love it. No, that's perfect. Individualized each Type.

Type Two

Melinda: For Type Twos, I really want to challenge you. If you know that you're a Two within the next week or two to get some intentional solo time. So, you can't be around anyone else for maybe an hour or two. Ideally, get out of your environment, like your home environment, because there's too many things to do for other people in your home environment. Get out of your home environment. And then try to spend that time focused on your thoughts, emotions and dreams, like your internals. Notice how much you focus on other people, think about your relationships, or think about things outside of yourself. Like other people. Every time that happens, redirect, but just become aware of how often your thoughts go outside. It'll be a lot. Don't be discouraged. It's an awareness exercise. That's for Twos.

Nikhil: Be compassionate. Most importantly, be compassionate with yourselves. When you're starting to discover who you are there's a good side and there's obviously a shadow side that we all have and each one of us has this side. So, when we start becoming more aware of those aspects that we're not so proud of per se, it's important to be compassionate.

Melinda: Absolutely. And thank you because that's really important. Try to do this nonjudgmentally.

Type Three

So, for Threes, I want to encourage y'all to take maybe 30 minutes, because I think that's as much as they'll be able to hang with, challenge me if you think I'm wrong. Take about 30 minutes and do a mindful walk. You're not allowed to bring an iPod; you're not allowed to bring a Kindle. You're not allowed to bring anything productive, no podcasts, nothing. No music. I want you to just look around and try to be present, orient yourself to what you see, hear, smell, and feel during that 30-minute walk. Be present and notice what's in the present. Then Notice how hard that is, if it's hard for you.

Nikhil: I like that. Mindful walks are really, really helpful.

Melinda: Yeah. I think that's a helpful awareness tool for Threes specifically.

Type Four

For our Fours, and this is going to be a hard one, but I want them to start a small list of heart centered gratitude. I want them to keep a gratitude journal, like two or three things they're grateful for every day for a week. It doesn't have to take long, two to three minutes, but try to actively journal about what's good. Like two or three bullet points about what's good about you or what's good about your life right now.

It's going to feel very hard to actively notice what's good about especially yourself, but also the life you're in. This isn't to suppress or deny feelings, but it's actually to round out emotional experience for a Four. For them to notice how often they focus on suffering and how they need to work that muscle of rounding out their emotional experience to what's good and noticing what we call their golden shadow, which is the good things about them that tends to be in their blind spot. That's my challenge for Fours.

Nikhil: These are some great challenges, and we would love for the audience out there to come back next week in the comment section, or as the week's going on, let us know how these challenges are going for you. There is a lot of strength in community and to know that we're all doing this together and kind of like your own soul tribe that hey, change isn't easy. Growth is not easy, but it doesn't have to be done alone. The most important thing to understand is that we're all in this together. We're not meant to be doing everything in life by ourselves. That’s what's great about having a community, and a community of likeminded individuals.

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About Dr. Nikhil Sharma & AlignUs

I’m Dr. Nikhil Sharma, founder of AlignUs and for the last 10 years I had dedicated my life to working with patients with liver failure due to alcohol or obesity, who suffer from addictions and was a part of their rehabilitation process and helping them to get to a new liver and a second chance at life. During that period, I thought to myself, what if we could prevent people from suffering major physical health issues by helping them heal from their traumas and improve their mental health?

So, I created AlignUs where our mission is to inspire a world of wellness and philanthropy through compassion, connection and competition.

AlignUs creates a high vibrational atmosphere that involves self-care, physical competition and charitable donations. AlignUs will revolutionize how we do philanthropy in this digital age, while making it fun and rewarding to help each other.

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What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

An Intro to the Enneagram (Part II)

Joanne Kim (OliveMe Counseling) and Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) join Nikhil Sharma (AlignUs World) in a six part series to discuss the Enneagram.

In this six part series we give an introduction to each Enneagram Type, look at each of the Triads: Body, Heart, and Head, and discuss subtypes and instincts.

Watch the video below for Cracking the Code: An Introduction to the Enneagram (Part II) (or keep scrolling past the downloadables for the transcript!)

• An Introduction to the Enneagram (Part I)

• Body Types - 8s, 9s, 1s

• Head Types - 5s, 6s, 7s

• Heart Types - 2s, 3s, 4s

• Subtypes and Instincts

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Transcript

Continuing from “Cracking the Code: An Introduction to the Enneagram (Part 1)”…

Type Three

Nikhil: Let’s move on to Type Three.

Melinda: I like to call them “The Performers” because that's just how they do life. They want to be seen as successful, valuable. They want to be seen as sometimes even the best at what they do where they are. However, they do that in a way that's similar to Two, they shapeshift. Often, they'll take on what's valuable to the group around them and shapeshift into that and often become the most successful version of that in order to be admired. As opposed to Twos wanting to be loved, Threes want to be respected, admired, applauded. Loved is fine, but I think those other things are more paramount for Threes and they'll shapeshift in order to do it. But they don't know themselves. They lose touch with their own internals as well.

Joanne: I would say that if you overlay all the personality disorder descriptions, the diagnosis codes, you will see one or two or three personality disorders for every Type, except for Type Three. We're in a very Three-ish country. So, Three is just assumed to be the standard.

Melinda: It's all about success. Getting to the top, looking good, having other people think you're awesome.

Nikhil: Is that right? Have we found out that Type Three is the most common Enneagram Type in the US?

Melinda: No, I don’t think so. I think it's probably the most aspired to.

Joanne: I wouldn't say that there's more Threes in the population, but because their dynamics are just assumed to be the baseline. Threes, in addition to their deadly sin being self-deceit, have the hardest time recognizing themselves because the entire world basically applauds them for their ego patterns.

Melinda: They are so productive. They do things all the time. Even their rest is productive. Often, I run into Threes in my own practice because they've burned out. They’re like I’ve had a heart attack. My body's given out. I'm sick and my marriage is falling apart, my relationship, and I had no other choice but to go to therapy.

Joanne: They wear themselves out and they come in like, “Just tell me what the steps are. Let’s go!”

Melinda: And we’re like, “We’re going to have to get into your feelings.” And they're like, that's so unproductive.

Joanne: Inefficient.

Nikhil: That's interesting. Because they're a part of the Heart Type and I feel like that Type is a little bit vulnerable or they have a lot of emotions. They're emotional thinkers.

Melinda: I think what's interesting, and we'll talk about this more with the Heart Triad, but Threes underdo feeling. They underdo Heart. Fours overdo it. Twos tend to be in conflict or have a chaotic.

Joanne: In the Gut Types as well, that's the same case. Eights overdue anger, Nines under-do anger, and Ones are at odds with it. So, Nines in the Gut Triad are the ones that are like, huh, how are you in the Anger Triad?

Melinda: They're never angry.

Joanne: That would be Sixes for the Head Types.

Melinda: So, for Threes, exactly correct. They don't really have much to do or are in touch with their emotions.

Nikhil: Got it. Now, moving on to Type Four and we have our experts here in Joanne.

Type Four

Joanne: The resident Four.

One way of easily conceptualizing Fours is in opposition to Twos and Threes. In fact, Twos and Threes tend to seek connection at the expense of authenticity or connection with themselves. Fours go the opposite direction. They overly connect with themselves and lose connection with other people.

Sometimes the Fours are known as “The Romantics”, “The Artists”, “The Tragic”. That can happen but it kind of depends on the Four and the context that they're in. Whereas Nines try to find the common area and try to blend themselves in, Fours try to stand out. I think the term individualist is probably more useful and flexible in that they often live as if everyone else belongs with each other, but I stand out. I'm on the outside looking in. There's something different about me for better and for worse. Either I'm super special and awesome, or I'm the worst person on the planet or both.

Melinda: Sometimes they oscillate.

Joanne: It's still the sense of feeling disconnected, feeling disconnected from life, from other people and in their echo chamber they focus on their flaws. It's like there must be something essential in me that I'm missing and it's out there somewhere. What is it? I don't know, but it's probably something and it's probably out there somewhere. So, I got to go chase that instead of recognizing that we already have the essential thing in being present.

So, Fours end up being super emotionally expressive or emotionally motivated. They might not always show their feelings, but they tend to do according to how they feel. What they feel often tends to be negative emotions because they're living out of the sense of lack and out of the sense of not being enough.

So, they are very comfortable with negative feelings. Probably any movie or any TV drama has a lot of Fourishness. Because whatever doesn't involve drama is boring. Fours tend to live out their drama. They probably don't need TV drama.

Melinda: Probably not. Some of them might look down on TV dramas.

Joanne: Fours often have an easier time when things are actually going terribly. Like during Covid Fours were the calmest people.

Melinda: It was so crazy. I was freaking out and she's like, oh, well, things were already bad.

Joanne: Yeah, everyone's having an existential crisis, everyone’s freaking out and Fours were like, oh, you guys are now catching up.

Nikhil: I gotcha. So, kind of like the rocks of the situation, like in chaos you guys are the people to be able to depend upon and to help guide you through those tough situations that others may find very disruptive.

Joanne: I would say we're suffering junkies. It's like suffering and sadness is very delicious.

Melinda: Oh my gosh. And yet you mentioned anything like hope or joy. They're like, ahh!

Joanne: No, no, pass.

Nikhil: Mentioning about the lack and how people live, I feel like a lot of people live in that mentality where we are not good enough and we tend to dwell on the negative aspects of our being. It's almost like our brains are hardwired to try to figure out the one or two things that aren't going good in our life or that we feel we don't have and that's just a feeling. Again people, our feelings and our thoughts are not always true, but somehow, we believe that they are true because from a young age that's what we've been growing up to believe. I think it's something that a lot of us can resonate with and we feel like we need to gain validation externally for a lot of our feelings. But we realize once we sit down and do a little self-reflection that, hey, all that we need is right here, right inside of us. We don't need to be like others.

Joanne: You mentioned earlier that we probably resonate with a little bit of everything because these are universal human experiences. It's just that each Type identifies with one aspect of the human experience and makes it seem as if that's all of who they are. So, Fours identify themselves with their suffering. It's like their security blankie. We need to recognize that there's a lot more to us than just what we think we are. Whereas for everyone else, that’s not a Four, needs to get in touch with Four-ish experiences. That happens in like midlife crisis.

Melinda: I have a direct line to Four. So, it's been very helpful for me to get in touch with those things for sure.

Nikhil: That's a great explanation of Fours and the Heart Triads. Now, we're moving into my favorite Triad just because I'm a part of this Triad, which is the Head Triad. And that's Types Five, Six, and Seven. And this is the thinking Triad.

Head Triad

Type Five

Melinda: We'll start with Five. I'm married to a Five. Actually, Two and Five couples are really common. Fives are known to be “The Observers”. I live in Silicon Valley, a lot of mathematicians, software engineers, scientists, et cetera, end up being Fives, interestingly. It's a profession that has a lot to do with their brains. They rely on their thoughts and their heads in order to navigate life and remain in control. However, they have a very difficult time accessing their hearts and their bodies in order to input information. My hook with Fives is often you're not being as logical as you think you are because you deny two incredibly important ways of taking in information via your emotions and your body or your gut.

Fives are very top heavy and so head heavy. Out of fear of being overwhelmed, out of fear of being overtaken, they rely on their heads to get them through life, thinking, knowing things, and keeping a lock control on their energy. So, God forbid a Five doesn't know what they're going to do with their day because they're not going to be able to allocate their energy correctly so that they're not depleted, which is I think probably one of their biggest fears.

Anything you want to add?

Joanne: I like describing Fives as someone who's living in a fortress with an ivory tower. It's like heavily guarded walls with a drawbridge. On top of that, they're living in their ivory towers, looking down and observing everything else all the meanwhile feeling sad and lonely very deeply. Wanting to be connecting with others, but feeling very scared of possibly being overtaken if they were to let them in. But if others also move away, they're like peeking out the windows, where’d you go?

Melinda: I think that's the aspect that a lot of people don't really know about Fives. They're deeply sensitive. They have really deep feelings. It's just that they have a really hard time connecting with others and connecting with those emotions. If somebody identifies as Five and heard me say that they'd be like, do I? But they do.

Nikhil: Do they have a quality of being judgmental at times? Because they built up this tower and they're seeing things from this higher perspective or so they think.

Joanne: I think it's because they find their knowledge as a source of safety and security. It's like if they're more certain then they're less vulnerable but inadvertently they end up looking down on other people. That can often create a lot of tension in their life circumstances. At work they get praised for it because that's what they're paid to do in being the expert but in personal, nonprofessional arenas it's really hard.

The other part around the fortress is that because the gates are locked up, they only have a set number of materials, resources, et cetera. And if only they opened the doors to be connected with the rest of the world, they’d have more resources. But because of their fear of possibly being overtaken and seeing others as possible invaders, they keep their doors locked up and then they need to figure out how am I going to ration myself, my time, my energy, my money.

Melinda: All the things. Which is the passion of the Five, which is avarice. They need to make sure they have enough because they're not accepting other resources internally.

Nikhil: We need to get that drawbridge down for them, to their fortress.

Joanne: But they've also learned how to live on very little. They think they have enough with what they have because they've shrunk in their parts, and they decrease the size of their needs.

Scarcity is there.

Melinda: It's a huge thing.

Joanne: They don't know it's scarcity.

Nikhil: That's a great explanation of Type Fives.

And now we're moving to Type Sixes.

Type Six

Melinda: I have family members who are Sixes.

Nikhil: As we're going through this conversation, there's so many people who are popping into my head for each Type. It's just so beautiful. I'm hoping that's happening to those that are listening and viewing this podcast as well.

Melinda: Yeah. So, Type Six, also a Head Type. Type Sixes are interesting because they're “The Contrarian”. They have lots of terms, but “Contrarian” is good. They live in the world anticipating the worst. So, if Fives, Sixes and Sevens are on the Head Triad and the Fear Triad, Sixess are the ones that overdo fear.

They are constantly anticipating worst case scenarios. How they are going to get through them? What is going to happen? How they're going to survive in order to get through the day and through their lives. So, they have an over focuse on those things and their needs are around security. How can I be safe in this world that is so dangerous. Sixes go about that in different ways either finding somebody who is an authority to latch on to, but also, they're suspicious of them. Finding community and friends to find security in or conquering their fears. Going straight at them. Either way they tend to be controlled by fear.

They often find themselves paralyzed to know what to do in the midst of it, even though they're creating worst case scenarios, they often question themselves. Am I doing the right thing? I don't know. Should we be doing this? I don't know. They often have a very hard time landing on a way to be or go because they have a very hard time trusting themselves and others.

Joanne: Let's say the descriptions of Type Sixes from the outside would mimic a lot of PTSD symptoms. The main difference is that in terms of hyper vigilance, worst case scenario, scanning for signs of danger, mistrusting other people, all that stuff, Sixes do it as part of their defense mechanism. So, Sixes also can experience trauma, but a lot of their internal turmoil comes from them assuming that there's a threat and danger. Pre-traumatic stress disorder probably describes them as opposed to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Whereas Fives tend to find their security in accumulating knowledge, Sixes find the security in anticipating, being vigilant, and planning for things not knowing that they probably don't need to prepare as much. But Sixes, it's as if they need to have something that's dangerous to justify them preparing for it. So, Sixes have a really hard time owning their actual power and their own strength. These are folks who often can be stuck in imposter syndrome, a lot of self-questioning and self-doubt. Even though everyone else is like, what are you talking about? You’re so good at this! No, but what if?

Melinda: Yeah. They give away their power a lot and project it outward, which is another defense mechanism of the Six. They project their power outward. Like, oh, you know what you're doing. I'm going to trust you. But they’re not the contrarian for nothing. There's also a conflictual relationship.

Joanne: It’s a love, hate relationship with authority figures because Sixes have disowned their own power.      

Nikhil: For those who don't know what the Imposter Syndrome is, it's really when you tend to self-doubt your own abilities and beliefs when you're feeling you're not good enough or you don't belong here. That's typically known as Imposter Syndrome. I think that's a very good explanation of Sixes.

Moving forward to the last, but not least, clearly the best, and I'm clearly probably already exhibiting some of my characteristic traits for a Type Seven, which is like an Enthusiast or a Dreamer Type. How do Type Sevens typically show up?

Type Seven

Melinda: I'll say this one thing, and then I'll let Joanne take the helm.

Sevens are one of the only Types I know who, when they find their Type, they're ecstatic. They're like, this is clearly the best one. So fun. So exciting. Like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Wait until we get to that depth work.

Nikhil: Oh, I know.

Joanne: I like describing Sevens in comparison to Ones and Fours who are the other idealist Types. It's like a three-legged stool. I mentioned with Ones that they tend to compare reality to the ideal and fill the space in between with frustration, Fours fill it with sadness, and Sevens fill it with excitement and anticipation.

It's kind of counterintuitive, like how are they in the Head Type. Head Type’s easier to understand, how they are in the Fear Triad? Because they're so like positivity, like fun, excitement, etc. It's just that what we see on the outside is the fear showing up. It's the fear of being trapped, especially being trapped in pain and suffering, all the negative stuff in the world. By overly considering the world as being their oyster, and they're going to go out and have all these fun experiences so that they don't FOMO.

Nikhil: Yeah, that's it. It's the fear of FOMO for sure.

Melinda: Absolutely. It's like I'm doing this fun thing now, but what are the five other fun things that I could also be doing right now? It's all about what could be.

Nikhil: Exactly. And I'll tell the viewers and audience like how it shows up for me or how it used to show up for me was that I would have a large group of friends. I have many friends and different group circles. So, I would go out with one group of friends and while I'm there having dinner, I'm not really paying attention to what's going on there. I'm actually thinking about the club that we're going to be going to next where I'm going to meet my next group of friends, which are the more outgoing, like really want to get crazy, we're going to take shots. But I'm here at dinner because these are my resident friends and I still have a good community with them, but I can't wait for the next scene. Let's hurry up and finish up. I'm looking at the clock. I'm like, let's go, we're missing out. The party's about to start.

Melinda: Exactly.

Joanne: I think some ways that that shows up in the day to day is not wanting to lock down plans just in case something more exciting shows up. Often the Sevens can be very slippery in the way that they kind of get away from making decisions or making commitments all the meanwhile, rationalizing. This is what the Head Type kicks in. Really effectively rationalizing why that is good or why that's important. So, Sevens would be like the kids who talk the parents out of making sure that they do their chores because they justified some good reason, but it's really the defense mechanism at work so that they don't have to do the boring stuff.

Melinda: Something else I really want to emphasize with Sevens is that deep fear of being trapped or stuck in negative emotion is the thing. Negative emotion is the thing that drives them. There's huge fear of really being in the present and being in the present means accepting whatever comes, positive negative. It doesn't matter. Sevens avoid the negative. In fact, that I find so sad, they don't actually experience true joy because true joy is being fully in the present and accepting everything that is. All negative and positive experiences and then finding joy.

So, Sevens actually miss out.

Joanne: The other things is that Sevens accidentally end up creating suffering for themselves by avoiding it. So, Sevens are one of the Types that tend to only show up to therapy when they're dragged into couples therapy because their partner is so fed up.

Melinda: “We need to talk.”

“We're good. Everything's fine.”

Nikhil: I can confirm that. Yes, I've been in that situation.

Joanne: People who are in the splash zone are the ones who overly experience negativity because the person who's a Seven is underly dealing with themselves.

Nikhil: Right. I feel like we don't like routines and we don't like to be tied down for too long. We love our freedom. Anytime that there's pain, we cringe and run. I'd usually book a flight to Vegas as soon as I felt like I needed to escape any kind of tough situation, whether that was something that was going on with my family and my dad or whatever. It's just that the feeling of sitting in anything discomfort, I don't want to feel like that’s all that there can be. There always is a positive side or there's a “the grass is greener on the other side” type of situation. That’s why when I read about the Sevens I was like, oh, that's me. I fell right perfectly into that.

Now when you're explaining it like this, and obviously I've been doing the work for the past nine months, you see where the qualities that you think are good, but there is clearly a really bad side to being the way that you are, at least for a Seven. That not having any routine, nowadays, Joanne knows that I can't live without a routine, like I have to be up at six o'clock in the morning. I have to walk. I have to meditate. I have to journal. That's what's great about the Enneagram. It's about finding out who you are, what has worked for you and what hasn't worked for you to get to where you're at today. And then implement a plan of how you can move forward and do it.

Melinda: Follow it to its end. Go all the way, not just start a new project.

Nikhil: No, exactly. For people to really understand, this isn't easy. This is not an easy journey. It's not something that's going to happen overnight for you. I've been on this journey for nine and a half months and I feel like I'm just past the surface of what the potential is. But if you keep at it, despite numerous obstacles that will certainly come up, because you changing is going to trigger a lot of people. It's going to make you have to possibly change jobs. It's going to make you have to change your friends. It's going to bring a lot of change and change is very uncomfortable for people. It's uncomfortable. We're creatures of comfort. It's easy for us to fall back to our autopilot mode and to be back with the same friends that we grew up with. It's not to say that we can't be around these people, you just have to be cognizant about this journey. It's such a beautiful journey. You literally will empower yourself. You will take life by its horns and be able to control and actually dictate what most of the actions and outcomes that will happen in life. Whereas before I feel like you're just going through life and then, oh, something happens and you're shocked and you're not able to handle life's adversities when you're not as awake as you can be.

Joanne: Well said.

Melinda: Yes, there we are. I don’t think I can one-up that.

Nikhil: That's a perfect way I feel to wrap up this beautiful interview today.

Are there any key takeaways that you guys have for us about the Enneagram? Specifically, we'd love for our audience and viewers to be able to join on this journey and try to figure out what their Enneagram Types are. We try to have them do something this week and some sort of challenge.

How to Find Your Enneagram Type

Melinda: I think a key takeaway, which kind of leads into the challenge, and the challenges over the series is the Enneagram is not just a descriptor. It's not just a way of describing coping mechanisms and autopilot patterns. It is a mode and a tool for growth. Deep transformation. With that in mind, that's how I want us to take these challenges that we have for the week. Because this is about finding our essential selves.

Joanne: You really can't change what you don't know is already happening.

The very first step is find out what's happening. So, if you don't know your Type that will be the first place to start. You kind of get a sense of it when you're listening to the nine Types and you're like, ooh, that didn't feel good. Or that sounds so familiar. It might be because either that is your Type or you have a connection to that Type in your growth path, or it might be that some of the significant people in your life kind of embodies that Type, as well. So, just first point of explanation is as you listen to the different Types descriptions notice your internal reactions. If it really isn't likely your Type, you're not going to have much of a reaction to it because your behind-the-scenes defense mechanism isn't going to be put on blast.

Melinda: And if you're like, oh, that Type sounds cool. That's probably not your Type. That's described well, then it's not your Type.

Joanne: After you find out what your Type is, then it's for you to allow whatever reactions to come. It's very normal. It's kind of like the matrix. You take the pill, and you find out that life in reality is like totally different from what you thought it was. It's okay for you to feel disoriented and confused. I highly recommend you either work with a professional who can help walk you down that path or some really good, trusted friends who are also committed to doing their own personal work.

If you don't know your Type, we do have a blog that has like DIY, step by step instructions. Though, because the Enneagram is a description about why we do what we do instead of what we do, it can be a lot more slippery than Strengths Finders or Myers Briggs where you can just take an online test to find your Type.

Melinda: Exactly. There's another resource that we have that will describe probably a really good indicator that you found your correct Type. I would suggest reading both of those resources.

Nikhil: We'll certainly link and provide the descriptions of those websites in our comment section below.

Just one quick question. You're saying that the personality Type tests that are online for the Enneagram are not accurate or reliable sources? Because you know how it is these days, people pass along these little links and it's like, oh yeah, take the Enneagram test. How accurate are those tests just for everyone to understand that.

Joanne: If it helps eliminate some numbers, of the nine, fine.

Melinda: I would say they're not particularly accurate in finding your Core Type because a lot of those tests are going on what the Type can look like, not necessarily the motivator. People get mistyped very easily if they just rely on a test.

Joanne: The social context that we're in also matters too, because countries have their own Enneagram Types. Or specific families or specific organizations. So, sometimes there are some shapeshifting Types. They tend to look like whatever they are expected. So, we also can’t just rely on test results because of those other layers involved. It's also self-reporting and honestly, if we're not really self-aware already, how accurately can we really answer questions about what our core needs or core fears are?

Nikhil: Very true. Thank you guys for joining us on the AlignUs Podcast, where we inspire a world of wellness and philanthropy for more resources on today's events and to stay connected to AlignUs and our app release, visit our website. You can also follow us on all of our social media play pages at AlignUs World.

Until we meet again. Stay aligned. Stay connected and stay anchored in the power of unconditional love. Namaste.

Stay tuned for Subtypes and Insticts

---

About Dr. Nikhil Sharma & AlignUs

I’m Dr. Nikhil Sharma, founder of AlignUs and for the last 10 years I had dedicated my life to working with patients with liver failure due to alcohol or obesity, who suffer from addictions and was a part of their rehabilitation process and helping them to get to a new liver and a second chance at life. During that period, I thought to myself, what if we could prevent people from suffering major physical health issues by helping them heal from their traumas and improve their mental health?

So, I created AlignUs where our mission is to inspire a world of wellness and philanthropy through compassion, connection and competition.

AlignUs creates a high vibrational atmosphere that involves self-care, physical competition and charitable donations. AlignUs will revolutionize how we do philanthropy in this digital age, while making it fun and rewarding to help each other.

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Head Types

Joanne Kim (OliveMe Counseling) & Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) are Enneagram therapists who love helping people grow beyond their reactive patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing.

Our Enneagram type patterns used to be helpful when we were actually vulnerable and powerless (often in childhood), but when we grew up, our autopilot patterns didn't update accordingly. What used to be our greatest strengths eventually become some of our greatest liabilities.

In this 4-part series on The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types, learn about:

• The main themes of the Head Triad

• The central emotion for Head Types: Fear

• How Enneagram Fives, Sixes, and Sevens navigate fear

• Growth steps for each Enneagram Type

Watch the video below for Part 4: Head Types (or keep scrolling past the downloadables for the transcript!)

• Part 1: Introduction

• Part 2: Body Types (8s, 9s, 1s)

• Part 3: Heart Types (2s, 3s, 4s)

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Video Transcript

Joanne: Welcome to our part four in this four part series, “Enneagram Emotional Habits”.

Melinda: Hi, everybody. 

Today we're going to talk about Head Types, which interestingly are the Types that mystify us the most. But we love them. We've done a lot of study around them. I am married to a Head Type, so I have a little insight into Head Types.

Joanne: A  lot of our main coaches and therapists have been Sixes.

Melinda: We're super grateful for that because we really need that as people who tend to undervalue the head.

Joanne: Regarding all the Triads they have their own corresponding themes. The main themes for Head Types, in particular, are around safety, security, certainty, trust and mistrust, and making sure they're okay. The way that each Type goes about it is different. The central emotion for all Head Types is around fear.

I think Fives tend to be in conflict with their fear, Sixes tend to overdo fear, and Sevens tend to underdo fear. 

Would you like to share with us about our lovely Fives? 

Melinda: I really would. I love Fives, not just because I'm married to a Five, but because I feel like Fives are really misunderstood. As a Two, I relate to that because I think we're also misunderstood. 

Fives, like I mentioned, though they are cut off from their feelings, because of them being Head Types they tend to actually have a quite conflicted or chaotic relationship with sadness. They tend to be a Type that leans more toward depression than the other two Types, and that's because they tend to isolate themselves.

I love this metaphor that Joanne came up with. It's like Fives are in a fortress with doors that are barred and locked. They are looking out and sometimes feeling the sadness or longing, wanting to be included, but terrified of allowing that door to open because they don't want to be overtaken or overwhelmed.

The themes for Fives often are around feeling fear that they're going to be overwhelmed by others. Their energy is going to be depleted. They won't have enough resources to get through the day or get through their lives. So they tend to be very protective of their energy, their time, even their stuff, and their knowledge. They tend to be very locked in. 

If we take that metaphor of the fortress with the doors locked, unfortunately, what they don't realize is that if they were to just open the doors they might be able to get the resources they need to get through the day and the connections that they need. But unfortunately, fear keeps it locked.

Fives aren't really always in touch with their fear. They've cut off their heart and their bodies and tend to live in their heads because they protect themselves from this fear by  knowing things, through knowledge. Fives collect knowledge. They store it up. The one thing that they allow in through those doors is the knowledge of everything. The things that they're really passionate about, their jobs, certain subjects, whatever. They bulk up on knowledge to defend themselves against being insecure. To defend themselves against feeling afraid in the world and to make themselves safe. Unfortunately, that means that they miss out on their emotions and connections. Emotions are the things that connect us with other people and connect us with ourselves. Fives really have an experience of not being connected with themselves and others.

I actually think more than most people admit, Fives really on some level understand that, which is why they tend toward depression. They understand that they're cut off and they isolate and they have a very hard time reaching out. It's almost like they're frozen. This is why I feel so sad about Fives because they’re so beautiful and sensitive and they themselves don't know that and the people in their lives tend to not know that.

Joanne: Of the BIG Five emotions, MAD, SAD, GLAD, SCARED, NUMB, NUMB is probably their favorite emotion. Also in that they're very good at rationalizing why they should stay NUMB. Also pursuing things like careers that tend to be right in alignment with their giftings. It's like, in a lot of ways, it kind of is a mutually reinforcing echo chamber. 

Melinda: Yeah, I also find with Fives, much like Ones, they tend to somaticize their emotions. Like when you’re NUMB emotions have to come out. It means you're overwhelmed. Emotions have to come out some way. Often with Fives they come out with stiffness or issues with their back, feeling achy, sometimes nausea, and sometimes with depression. Fives are deeply sensitive people.

Joanne: That might be the growth step. You could actually use the body as a backdoor way of connecting with the heart. Noticing that you feel a certain ache or tension or whatnot and trying to translate that into corresponding to whatever feelings they might have. 

Melinda: You might want to ask a close friend, should you have that, or your partner, if they are more feelings conversant. It might be helpful to let them know like, “Hey, I have this ache or I have this nausea. Is there a corresponding feeling with that?” You might not be able to connect the two but they might be able to help you. That actually is a secondary growth step, which is asking for help, which I know is difficult for Fives, as well. 

Joanne: Let down that drawbridge, man. 

Melinda: Yeah, because there's so many resources that are there and ready for you if you allow things in. 

We love you Fives. Good luck with your challenge. Do we want to move on to Sixes?

Joanne: Sixes are hard to peg in a lot of ways and I think that comes to the territory of the Type itself. There's a lot of shifting going on on the vagrant side, especially in their heads.

Sometimes they're known as “The Contrarians” or “Devil's Advocate”, “The Questioner”, “The Loyalist”. All these contradictory terms, ironically. I think that also shows up when it comes to their own emotions, too. It’s just that there's always this questioning and never a settling. So, I would say that as a Head Type they're the feelers of the Head Type. They tend to be most driven or most obviously connected to fear as an emotion but they intellectualize it so much that they might not even register it as a feeling. 

Melinda: Yeah. It depends on the subtype usually. With Sixest there tends to be a pretty big stratification of how you experience the feeling based on your Subtype.

Sexual Instincts tend to face fear head on, so they might be the type that are less connected with their experience of fear. Though I've found that fear is still something pretty dominant for Sexual Subtypes and Sixes. It's just that they're like, “Fuck you fear, I'm gonna go at ya.” 

Joanne: Fight mode.

Melinda: Socials tend to be pretty removed from their fear. 

Joanne: More NUMB. 

Melinda: It's a more NUMB kind of feeling. They might do the things that the other two Types do in terms of fear. They might have some conscious understanding that they feel it, but I think they tend to withdraw from it a little more, tend to be a little more distant.

Self-preservation Sixes are the ones that we're kind of going to peg as the stereotypical Six. They tend to be very anxious. That's how we talk about Sixes. Overdoing fear. Self-pres Sixes are going to be the ones that are really obvious about it. Whichever one you identify with, we would say that you have kind of an over-active relationship with fear. That tends to show up for Sixes regardless of Type or Subtype as kind of the catastrophizing and the over preparation, just in case something bad happens. Would you say that's your experience with Sixes?

Joanne: Totally. Being more future oriented, they focus on what could happen and what could happen is more negative.

Mistrust is what leads the way and the emotion that I think Sixes have the hardest time connecting with is probably joy. And that like, “When's the other shoe going to drop?” as if there's always another shoe. Or like, “What does this person want from me? Are they being honest?” There's always like frenetic energy to them. 

I think even though Sixes are driven by fear they might not consciously be aware of it because they're so in their head and they're very good at justifying things. If you tell a Six they're being pessimistic, they would say, “I'm just being a realist.”

Across all Head Types they're so good at justifying their own position. I think that only reinforces the disconnect from the heart.

Melinda: For Sixes, I think one other thing to put out there is that the way that they try to find security, again is probably different per Subtype, but I think the thing that holds true with all of them is that they have a very difficult time finding security. Even when they either reach out, no matter how they try to do it, either finding security in their connections or other people, finding security in an authority or a dogma, or a way of viewing the world, or finding security and going at your fears, like balls to the wall. Whatever Sixes try to connect with and try to find security in, what remains true, is that they have a very hard time trusting and finding security within themselves.

The world out there is scary and the world in here is scary. I can't trust anybody out there and I can't trust anybody in here. That causes a huge, huge amount of insecurity and fear. Of course it would, because if you can't find safety anywhere, then you have to work really hard in order to make it happen. It's tenuous at best. Sixes kind of find themselves in a jam. I feel for them. That's really hard. Onto our growth step.

Joanne: I think being in touch with your fear. Being honest about it is one thing and allowing yourself to temper the questioning a little bit more, 5% less questioning than before. 

Melinda: Dialing it down just a tad.

Joanne: Because you might be creating your own anxiety, ironically. If that's the case it can also go the other direction. If you look for what is okay, even though things could go bad, then you might actually create another feedback loop where you start noticing things that are actually okay, even though it could be bad or it could be worse. So, giving more attention, more room towards things still being okay, being steady, being secure, that would be the recommendation. 

Melinda: We hope that you feel like you can engage that challenge Sixes. Good luck. We Heart Types love you. 

I think we're going to move on to Sevens.

Joanne: In a lot of ways, Sevens are the opposite of Sixes in that Sevens also focus on what could be, but towards the positive. I think whenever people find out what their Enneagram Types are, everyone else except for Sevens are like, “Oh, it's terrible. Why are you so negative?”

Sevens are like, “This is great. I love my Type.” 

Usually those who are in close relationships with Sevens are like, “Oh my god, I'm so tired. I feel so resentful and negative because Sevens tend to be positive.” 

GLAD for Sevens is a defense structure in that it's an overdoing of the positive emotion as a way of downplaying or ignoring the negative stuff. 

Melinda: Especially fear. Of the Triad, I think they underdo fear. 

Joanne: I don't think Sevens are as aware or conscious about their fear. One way to find out is they still look for the exits too when it comes to difficult conversations or whatnot. They just rationalize. That is the main defense mechanism, rationalization. They find their way to sweet talk their way out of focusing on difficult things, responsibilities, things that are boring, etc. Not knowing that they're weaseling out of things is actually what makes situations harder. 

Melinda: I think that's the way that Sevens actually act out their fear. If you're a Seven, think about things being sad, feeling trapped in that sadness, never being able to get out of your sadness. That's fear, right? Sevens have a fear of being trapped in negative emotions. Actually, Sevens have a fear of being trapped in general. 

Joanne: Keeping your options open, making sure you get to choose into the more fun or exciting or better thing.

Melinda: Exactly. What Sevens have a hard time doing, I think every Enneagram Type has a hard time with this, but being in the present. What they fail to understand, sadly, is that only when we're open to every emotion in the present and what's happening in the present do we actually connect with JOY. I think JOY is what Sevens are trying to connect with, but unfortunately, it doesn't happen if we're not connected with all of the feelings.

Joanne: Lower hanging fruit growth stuff for Sevens, because I'm not sure if y'all are eager to jump into the deep end just yet.

Melinda: And that's okay.

Joanne: Is to practice alternating between doing something exciting and something that is a little bit more blah. Just so that you still get the stuff going but you're not going to be completely trapped in it. There is an overemphasis on seeking freedom by resisting limits. But freedom and limits actually go hand in hand.

It's kind of like the fencing around a playground structure. Within the fencing you can go wild and do whatever you want, but you’ve got to make sure to stay within so that you're not at risk of danger. It’s the same thing with our life's experiences. There are responsibilities and things that must be done but that is actually what empowers you and frees you up to actually really engage things and enjoy the deeper things in life without this nagging thing in the back of your head. Like, “I know you shouldn't be doing this.” Make it easier on yourself. 

Someone said, “Swallow the frog.” 

Do the thing that you don't want to do first and then you can reward yourself with a fun thing.

Melinda: That's a great challenge. 

I think also remembering too, in the same way, engaging all your emotions eventually is the thing that leads to true JOY and freedom. I know it sounds very counterintuitive, especially for Sevens, but allowing yourself to be able to be present with what is, whether it be good or bad or neutral, is the thing that then frees you from actually being enslaved to positive or good vibes. Which actually is what Sevens are. You actually are trapped. That's the reality. 

Joanne: The bias of Head Types is that there's such a high emphasis on reasoning, rationale, the intellect, et cetera. Often all Head Types tend to think that they're just being mature, reasonable, grounded, and everyone else, especially those with feelings, are being immature, irrational, whatever. It's just that the ironic thing is, if our body and our heart are also other legitimate sources of really important information the irrational thing is to lop off or close off access to those other centers of intelligence. 

Melinda: How rational are you being if you lop off two incredibly important ways of viewing and interpreting the world. 

Joanne: It's actually irrational for you to only favor certain data and ignore everything else. 

High recommendation for all y'all Head Types to really get to know emotions and also your body experiences as a really important source of information. It seems irrational on the outside, but that's because no one really trained us on how to do feelings well. It is a huge, strong belief of mine that each of the BIG Five emotions, MAD, SAD, GLAD, SCARED, NUMB, and also SHAME as well, have their corresponding themes and messages about what we're needing and what we're wanting, who we are, et cetera. So, to close off the door to your heart space is a huge disadvantage for you because you're basically living life blind. It's a huge part of you. 

We have a couple of resources for everyone. We have a quick, at a glance view of how each Enneagram Type interacts with each of the BIG Five emotions. Also a more in-depth guide, because I know y'all want to do your research, right? This guide, “The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types”, has a more thorough look as to what's really going on, not just with the main emotion of the Triad, but what each emotion actually means and what they're for.

Melinda has created another guide for us, “Growth Tip of the Enneagram Types”.

Melinda: I made this especially for y'all who are really just wanting to get into the nitty gritty of growth and deep transformation. The Enneagram is amazing for that and it's so much more than just descriptors of our core Types. I hope that these tips and challenges will help you to get even deeper into knowing your essential self and fighting against and becoming more aware of your ego patterns. As you get to know your essential selves, I think you'll find that they actually look a lot different than your core Type, which is pretty surprising. I developed this guide with a few tips for y'all who are really wanting to grow more deeply in your Enneagram journey. These have been helpful for us so I wanted to pass this on to y'all with more to come. 

I think you're Big Feelers First Aid Kit might be a good thing for our Head Types, too.

Joanne: I also made a separate guide specifically for those whose feelings tend to show up sideways and show up at the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, like a lot of Fives tend to call out sick from work because they stuffed their feelings so much that the body somaticized it. In order to prevent people from just locking up their feelings, this is kind of an alternative where you can buy yourself time if your feelings are showing up in more sideways ways. The point is to actually dedicate a specific time and space for you to actually sit with and process your feelings, not just way after the fact because they get more confusing. I'm sure y'all don't like that. Also grab the Big Feelers First Aid Kit as an additional resource, a handy tool to put into your library.

In general Head Types, one of the main areas of challenge is around relationships. So, don't just study about your own specific Type patterns, but also listen in on the Body Types and the Heart Types, as well.

Thanks again for joining us here for our series and we'll catch you next time.

---

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types (Part 1: Introduction)

Joanne Kim (OliveMe Counseling) & Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) are Enneagram therapists who love helping people grow beyond their reactive patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing.

Our Enneagram type patterns used to be helpful when we were actually vulnerable and powerless (often in childhood), but when we grew up, our autopilot patterns didn't update accordingly. What used to be our greatest strengths eventually become some of our greatest liabilities.

In this 4-part series on The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types, learn about:

• Why emotions are important for personal growth, relationships, and professional development.

• What the BIG 5 Feelings are.

• Why feelings are important for Enneagram inner work.

• The main emotions for each of the three Centers of Intelligence (Body, Heart, Head)

• An overview of the three instincts (SP, SO, SX).

Watch the video below for Part 1: Introduction (or keep scrolling past the downloadables for the transcript!)

• Part 2: Body Types (8s, 9s, 1s)

• Part 3: Heart Types (2s, 3s, 4s)

• Part 4: Head Types (5s, 6s, 7s)

Downloadables

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Video Transcript

Melinda: Sup, everybody. What's up, Joanne? How are you doing today?

Joanne: Good! Good to see all of you on the other side of the screen. My name is Joanne from OliveMe Counseling, and this is my lovely BFF, work wife, Melinda Olsen from Inviterra Counseling. We are both Enneagram Therapists here in Silicon Valley, and we are super excited to share with you about our topic today which is the emotional habits of Enneagram Types.

Melinda: Wooh!

Why Feelings Matter for Personal Growth

Joanne: Generally, why emotions are important is that they're super important sources of information for us. They're essential for our personal growth, our relationships and also, surprisingly, our professional development in terms of you finding out what really matters to you, what trajectory you want to take in life.

A side product that I'm doing is called Intelligent Emotions. I do cover the basis of how feelings operate and actually that each feeling has its own corresponding themes, messages, action steps, etc. So, we're going to be integrating the Enneagram, the Nine Types of the Enneagram, with what I call the BIG 5 Feelings: MAD, SAD, GLAD, SCARED, and NUMB, and how each Type basically does each of these guys. For the sake of this particular video we're going to add one extra piece in the BIG 5 and it's SHAME.

If I had a sixth finger then it will be BIG 6 feelings with SHAME attached. It's super important of a topic, but it has some extra nuance information, especially when it comes to identity, authenticity, relationships, et cetera, which is a very central theme for the Heart Types, Twos, Threes, and Fours.

So I'm going to add, MAD, SAD, and SHAME, GLAD, SCARED, and NUMB. We're going to be covering each of the Nine Types in triads, Body Types, Heart Types, and then Head Types.

Why Emotions Matter for Enneagram Growth Work

Melinda: I don't think Enneagram work can happen without us exploring our feelings.

Every type does feelings in a different way, as Joanne mentioned. For example, y'all who are in the Heart Triad, Twos, Threes, and Fours, don't think you're getting out of this. Though we do feelings a lot, and we have our own relationships with feelings, it doesn't mean we do them well. We can attest to that.

Joanne: She's a Type Two. I'm a Type Four. We got a lot of feelings between the two of us.

Melinda: I say we're recovering types. So, don't think that we're letting you off the hook. In fact, all of us have a lot of work to do with emotions and the Enneagram. That's how we actually do the deeper work of the Enneagram, which is what I jam on. It's so important.

Let's talk about how each Type, or at least in the Triad, kind of engages emotions. What we've found is there's one Type that either overdoes the emotion, there's a Type that underdoes the emotion, and then there's a Type that has a conflicted relationship with the emotion and internally that can feel like a chaotic relationship with emotion.

So if we think about the Heart Triad, right? And we talk about sadness and shame, right? We have Type Fours that overdue sadness and shame. We have Type Threes that really don't keep in touch with sadness or shame. And we have Type Twos who, if I can say so myself, we have a conflicted relationship or a chaotic relationship with sadness and shame, and we found this similar pattern with every Triad. We think it's important to talk about that.

Joanne: One piece we forgot to mention is that each center of intelligence has its own corresponding thematic feeling. The Body Types, Eights, Nines and Ones have a particular relationship with anger. Heart Types, Twos, Threes, and Fours have a particular relationship with sadness and shame. Head Types, Fives, Sixes, and Sevens have a particular relationship with fear. As Melinda mentioned, one of the Types in that Triad one overdoes the feeling, one underdoes it, and the other one tends to have a complicated, mixed relationship.

Melinda: Absolutely. Then things can get even a little more complicated when we add in instinct and subtype. Everybody has an instinct or subtype. You might already know about that as you've engaged Joanne and my other materials and resources around that. What we found is that Self-preservation instincts tend to, if we're talking about the BIG 5 emotions that Joanne mentioned, they tend to favor SCARED or NUMB as emotions that they tend to go to automatically. This is Despite type, like your core Type.

Social Instincts tend to overdo maybe SAD or SHAME. SHAME being an emotion that's associated with social situations. That's kind of developed in society.

Then we have the Sexual Instinct. Which tends to favor, if I do say so myself, as a Sexual Instinct, the GLAD and MAD, which are kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum. We tend to go back and forth.

Joanne: Both very vibrant and expressive feelings.

Melinda: Yes. Self-preservations tend to shut down and be more internal. Social Instincts tend to be more external, but diffused as they try to engage and fit in to the larger social context.

Joanne: All of us have one of the Nine Types. Within the Nine Types we have three different versions according to the three instincts, Self-preservation, Social and Sexual Instinct.

One tends to be the dominant emotion. So regardless of your type, if you happen to be a specific dominant instinct, it's as Melinda mentioned. There's also a repressed instinct as well. So, one that's in the top of the stack, one that's at the bottom of the list and the repressed Instinct also has its own corresponding emotional patterns as well.

Basically, the feelings attached to that instinct, when it's repressed, tend to take the most amount of energy and deliberate effort for you to summon that forth.

To give you an example, Melinda and I, we're different types, also our instincts are the exact opposite. Sometimes just between our two stackings, because of the opposite, she tends to be really good at what I suck at and then vice versa.

Being Self-preservation dominant, that means that I tend to be very practical, steady, focused. So, leading with anxiety and numbness, which happens to be in Melinda's repressed, and saying it's something that takes a little bit more dedicated effort for her to summon. In the opposite way for her being Sexual dominant, very easy attunement to joy and anger. That took a lot of work for me, not just because I'm a Four, but because the Sexual instinct is also my last place, too.

For you, regardless of where you are in your Enneagram journey if you don't know your Type, then we'll add a link as to the step-by-step approach of how you can identify yours. Even if you do know your Type, the next step might be for you to find out what your instinct sequence is. Then coming back to the subsequent videos we'll be releasing in knowing what your type and your particular instincts and emotional habit is because our Enneagram Type, our autopilot, are ways that used to be helpful before but are now what's creating problems for us.

Melinda: Causing our suffering.

Joanne: So, whatever emotions we tend to overdo, we need to reign it back. Whatever emotions seen most foreign or repulsive to us are what we need to dial up so that we can be more well-rounded, more balanced, more integrated, instead of being lopsided and getting caught on things.

Melinda: I think it's really important too to just mention that every emotion, whether it's labeled positive or negative, they're important. They contribute to a vibrant life. If we shut down or overdue any of these feelings, it leads to suffering. It's really important to mention even something like scared or sad is really important in our journey of understanding who we are and who we are in the world and our essential selves.

With all of that said, let's talk a little bit about our upcoming episodes that I hope that y'all tune in to. We are going to be going over every Triad and talking about the emotional habits of every Triad. Starting with the Gut Triad, Eights, Nines, and Ones. The Heart Triad would be next, Twos, Threes, and Fours. Then rounding us out with the Head Triad, Fives, Sixes, and Sevens. We're really excited!

Joanne, of course, has made a chart because she is a Self-preservation dominant person, that she shall be sharing with you. And we have some more resources as well.

Joanne: This is what it looks like. We have the BIG 5 emotions on the side that shows up differently for each Type and also some variations depending on the dominant instinct. That will be available in the section below this video.

Melinda: We want to call you to watch all of our videos on the Types, find out more about your Type and the Types of your loved ones. Then I think we have a few other things for you to explore.

Joanne: If you want to learn more about emotions in general, I have what's called the Big Feelers First Aid Kit. So, especially if you're the emotionally expressive types, either the Heart Types, especially Twos and Fours, or Sexually dominant, Sexual repressed.

Basically, if you tend to have emotions that show up when you least expect it, because you might've repressed it, I’m calling out to Ones and Twos, this will come in super handy because not every situation is safe or the best time for you to be actively processing those feelings. Grab one of these and you'll be able to learn a little bit more about the nature of each specific emotion.

Melinda also has given us a fantastic guide as well, "The Growth Tips of Each Enneagram Type".  

Melinda: "The Growth Tips of Each Enneagram Type", I'm going to hold my own because I designed it, it’s so pretty! I'm very proud. Basically, I found that in the Enneagram work that we do we don't tend to push past understanding the habits of our Type. I think it's really important to use the Enneagram to do the depth work, the growth work.

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So, I have developed this handy dandy little guide for you to get a bite size, just a taste of the things that you can do to grow more deeply out of your Enneagram Type and get to know your essential true self, which interestingly might not look a lot like your core Type. Pick this up!

Joanne: Thanks again for joining in today on the introduction. Tune in, the next episode up will be about the Body Types, Eights, Nines, and Ones, and the others will follow, just in suit.

Melinda: Looking forward to it!

---

What are the emotional habits of your Enneagram type?

Grab this free guide that highlights the patterns that keep you stuck and the next steps to grow beyond your type!

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

Working with Enneagram Clients in Therapy

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Elizabeth Irias on the podcast Light Up The Couch. Beth and I talked about all nine Enneagram Types as well as how therapists can integrate the Enneagram into their practice.

Listen to the podcast or scroll down for the transcript.

My Start With The Enneagram

Beth: Hello to our listeners. My name is Beth Irias and today I am quite excited to be talking with Joanne Kim. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California, and she has a number of specializations but one of them is the use of the Enneagram. Not only just in therapy but the Enneagram as a tool for self-understanding and growth. I'm just stoked having this conversation with her.

Thank you so much for joining us, Joanne.

Joanne: Thank you for having me.

Beth: Before we dive into what I think is a very interesting topic, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and how you came to have this specialization with the Enneagram.

Joanne: Unlike a lot of people recently who discovered the Enneagram through the Instagrams or Facebooks and all that stuff, I've actually discovered the Enneagram in my own associate practice. So as a therapist in supervision. I've heard it through the framework of talking about defense mechanisms and core motivations, core needs, fears, et cetera.

I've come in learning about the Enneagram at the heart of it as a resource to use for personal growth, for healing, to integrate quite well with our other therapy approaches.

I use a lot of Brainspotting and parts work and helping people who are big feelers but have grown up with a lot of emotional neglect or abuse, a lot of invisible traumas that people experience. Instead of making assumptions about what people's experiences are based on the life circumstances that they've been through, really going behind the scenes and understanding how they personally experienced it. That's been kind of the way that I've learned about the Enneagram.

At first, I had a lot of resistance to it because it sounded super hokey and I found out that part of it was some difficulties with typing, which I might describe more later.

Once I found out what my own type was I was like, “Holy crap, this is amazing! How can they know with such detail, the kinds of things that I've never told anybody? There must be a lot more to this.”

That's how I came to discover the Enneagram.

The History of the Enneagram

Beth: Very interesting.

This topic is a very interesting one, and as you and I have discussed having this conversation, this overlap about the Enneagram and psychotherapy, and even my consideration and our board's consideration about the Enneagram really as a cultural element.

It first came to my attention almost a decade ago. Then a number of years ago a friend of mine said, “Do you know what your Enneagram type is?”

I said, “No, I don't. I don't know.”

He said, “I really want to understand that part of you.”

I realized that it was this language that he was speaking that I didn't know.

My curiosity of like, what is this language? Then with social media, more conversation about the Enneagram and more exposure to it. Now you can Google it and come up with podcasts and books and courses and all of these resources that didn't exist 20 or 30 years ago. It's now become kind of this cultural phenomenon, and I think that's part of why it's important to have this conversation so that therapists who are hearing it from their clients understand the framework and the language. So that we're not doing this kind of, “I'm sorry, what?” To kind of get the 101.

With that in mind, why don't we start by you giving us the quick and dirty history about the Enneagram, where it comes from, what we need to know about it. Obviously, there's much more than we can cover in an hour, but get us started and set the scene as you and I jump into this conversation about how it intersects with psychotherapy.

Joanne: First off, I'll say I don't know if anyone can ever find out who created the Enneagram. A lot of the value that the Enneagram gives us, we've seen glimpses of it throughout history in various traditions all across the world. It's been used as a spiritual or personal development framework but passed on mostly through oral tradition across different sects or with teachers with their students, et cetera.

The way that we know the Enneagram today is based on it having been written down since the 1970s and on. In Berkeley, because Berkeley students do what they do best, they go against their teacher's instructions in not writing down about the Enneagram because the teachers knew just how powerful this would be as a framework to do good or to do harm.

Students wrote it down anyway, and from the 70s and on, all the things that we read about, even like books, social media, etc. Anything that's basically written in English probably has been from that point on. So, it seems like it's a recent phenomenon, but it's actually been around for thousands of years.

We see hints of it woven throughout even the ancient traditions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam. If you think about the seven deadly sins like lust or pride, et cetera, and you tack on two more, those nine passions or deadly sins overlap exactly with the Nine Enneagram Types. We can try to find out who discovered the Enneagram but at this point I'm kind of thinking, does it really matter? There has been so much confirmation that these principles have been very helpful for people's personal development.

From then and on the people who introduced the Enneagram to the United States more formally would be Claudio Naranjo, who is an American trained psychiatrist who studied under Oscar Ichazo, one of the big spiritual personal development leaders in South America.

Claudio Naranjo brought it to the States and that's kind of where we see the Enneagram of Personality. The framework that we see today is from that point on. From him there are lots of teachers who've taken that on, including in Palo Alto, we have our local Dr. David Daniels, who recently passed, who was a trained psychiatrist, who was also on the faculty for Stanford's Department of Psychiatry. He is actually a trained therapist and Claudio Naranjo also was the successor to Fritz Perls. He's actually been trained a lot with integrating the Enneagram and therapy for personal development.

My own teacher, Beatrice Chestnut, is one of David Daniel’s pupils or one of his successors as well.

That's how I've come to learn the Enneagram.

I've come from this lineage of having seen the Enneagram through the lens of integration with personal development and psychology.

The Enneagram that you might see on social media has probably been a spinoff of what got sparked in the 1970s because it's fun. It's quick. It's easy. It makes for a quick cocktail party conversation. But I would say that there's a huge difference, maybe even a contrast, of what the Enneagram is meant to be used for versus what how it's generally used or seen nowadays. How it's generally seen nowadays is, “Let's find out what your type is. Therefore, I can stereotype you, put you in a box. And this is why you tend to do the things you do.”

That goes the opposite direction of what it was originally meant for, which is to say that the Enneagram describes the ways that we've put ourselves in a box. And I've lived in a box that we don't even know that the box exists. We need to find out what our box is so that we can grow beyond it.

There are two different branches that go in opposite directions. And that's probably the main warning I would give to people who are learning about the Enneagram. Are you learning from a source that says this is who you are and this is all of who you are? Or are you reading about the Enneagram saying this is how you've been stuck this entire time and how you can grow beyond it?

Beth: That's really interesting.

For you, it's recognizing the potential for misuse. And I could see, “Well, I do this because I'm a type two, and that's just who I am.” And you're saying that's the misuse of it versus the conceptualization of, “This is this habit I learned, this pattern that I've gotten into, and the things that I'm working on for my personal growth.”

Joanne: Yes, absolutely. We see in couples with conflicts, both of them doubling down on their respective perceptions or patterns, not knowing that a whole other way of interpreting a situation exists. And unless each participant recognizes that the ways that they specifically are feeding into this chaotic feedback loop, they're not going to be able to make much headway.

Beth: Very interesting. You're saying that, in fact, the Enneagram has 50 years of history in abuse by psychological professionals, if you will, whether that's psychiatry or therapy.

Why is it that we as therapists haven't been talking about this more?

Joanne: Because it sounds very “woo woo”. Because the Western world, since the Enlightenment period, puts a heavy emphasis on what's visible, “objective”, what's measurable.

It's my personal opinion that science is operating off of its own confirmation biases, picking and choosing whichever data points it finds valid according to what it knows how to use. And then tossing out the rest.

Even within the other cultural pockets of society, there are certain elements that can't quite be measured objectively, like microaggressions. But it's important for people to learn about it because these are the realities for a good number of our clients. There are tons of things about the human experience that can't quite be measured or written down or described. It's kind of more of an intuitive or instinctual experience.

I work with a lot of people who've grown up with emotional neglect. One of the key experiences to describe what they tend to go through is alexithymia, which means the inability to put into words what their emotional experience is. It's these terms like alexithymia that has come up in describing the absence of something that's very amorphous and vague.

I don't know if a lot of scientific research approaches are geared towards validating those experiences. So it's easy for those who have a lot of experience in academia to dismiss a lot of what the Enneagram has to offer because it's talking about the use of intuition and energy and gut types. It can sometimes sound very religiousy, sometimes it can sound very spiritual. It’s kind of tossing out the baby with the bathwater.

Beth: It's interesting. I'm sure you've given this a great deal of thought before. Here we are using things like the MMPI which has been updated through time, and I had the opportunity not too long ago to see not the most recent revision of the MMPI, but the version before. I was reading it and looking at the questions and going, “Oh my gosh, this is so culturally unaware.”

There were so many questions in it that were just loaded and you could read it and essentially know who wrote the question and what they were trying to evaluate about you and what your difference was from the person who wrote that question. Particularly as it related to any kind of marginalization or societal way that one “should be”.

How do you bring together those concepts.

Here you have the Enneagram based in thousands of years of oral and now written tradition. Then you have things that are actually relatively new on the scene, like the MMPI, but are coming at personality historically from a very Eurocentric, white male, cis, heteronormative perspective.

How do you bring together those ideas because they're so different?

Joanne: I would say it's to recognize that our culture itself has a bias and that we're not in a vacuum. Even the things that we learn about in grad school have been filtered through systemic biases and preferences about which things are considered valid and whatever isn't.

Interesting you bring up the MMPI. I had to take the MMPI as part of my graduate school application process and the clinical director at the time sat me down for our interview and said, “Your MMPI is showing that you have Paranoid Schizophrenia? What is that?”

Granted, I went to a Christian graduate school, so there was an opening for the spirituality piece, and that there's a need to translate some things over into science.

I was like, “Yeah, because I'm a very innovative and visual person. So, I see things, not like literally as if the object is there, but that's kind of how I internally process things.”

She was like, “Oh, okay. That makes sense.” Because coming from a charismatic church background.

Since then I knew that yes, some of these questionnaires and inventories are super helpful. But the authors of these inventories, they themselves are introducing their own personal biases. So I don't put absolute weight into these scientifically validated frameworks. But I also make room that there are some things in the human experience that cannot be written on paper. It would be arrogant for us as finite, limited, human beings to assume that we know all of reality when science is constantly inventing itself anyway.

In terms of the Enneagram, just allowing for that openness that we might not have all the answers, and maybe that's okay, allows for a much richer experience. We don't have to, like a certain way according to what science prescribes. We don't have to box our clients in either in dismissing them as having some mental disorder when it actually might be a very personal and culturally specific experience.

Nine Enneagram Types

Beth: Thank you for going over in that little jaunt with me. Just because it is interesting how some of these things are considered valid and some are not. Yet these conversations are happening just as you and I are having it right now. Where it's like, let's look at this as a tool that is used to understand the human experience and a framework for us, I'm going to use very specific language here, to work toward enlightenment, individuation, growth, whatever the wording is, of what any of us are doing when we're sitting on a couch trying to do something in psychotherapy.

Now that we have a little bit of understanding of the history of the Enneagram and its origins, tell me about the nine Types, knowing again that there is a lot here and there's no way that you can cover it all. Give us kind of an overview of these nine Types. How they came to be. You've already introduced some language, but just to understand what the language is around the Enneagram and how it's conceptualizing personality.

Joanne: Sometimes knowing the nine Types helps and sometimes it doesn't help. We're not trying to find out what the nine Types are so that we can reinforce our own autopilot tendencies.

All of the nine Types are archetypes of the universal human experience. So, when a person reads the description of the nine Types, they're like, “Oh, yeah, that sounds like me. And that sounds like me.” Yeah, because they're supposed to describe people's experiences in general. It's just that the nine Types are the ways that each person gets stuck thinking that that experience is everything that life has to offer to them. We're trying to find out what our Type is so that we can grow beyond that Type and into integrate the rest of the eight. I'll start there.

The nine Types, what the Enneagram symbol is, if you look it up on Google, it's a circle with a bunch of triangles and angles inside. If you think about the nine Types as starting from Type Nine down to Type One. If you go in that order, it does overlap with the general human development process.

I'm going to start with Type Nine and I'm going to go around to Type One.

Enneagram Nine
The Harmonizer

Type Nine is known as a Peacemaker or Mediator. The main theme is around fusion. Kind of like a baby in the womb merged with mama. There's no distinct sense of self. It is about union. It's about being together. So when the baby is in the womb, baby cannot tell the difference between themselves and mom. There is no other because there's just one.

Type Nine, that archetype describes that experience, but a person who's Type Nine lives all of life as if that's what's supposed to be the case. There's this merging experience that happens where, let's say, a person who's Type Nine sits in front of another person, they might not be able to tell who's who. So, someone else asked them a question and they reflect back with, “Well, what do you want to do? Or how do you want to be?”

There's this blurring of individuality. There's a core resistance against being one distinct self. Being one's own distinct self. Generally, Nines have a hard time with making decisions, narrow things down with pursuing and even pushing forth their own agenda. They tend to go with the flow because it's more comfortable, it's easier, it doesn't involve energy, and there's this very chill nature about them.

Social media's version or description of Type Nine is they're the peacemakers. They're the ones that go with the flow. They're the ones that are super easy to get along with. And that's not untrue, but what's really going on behind the scenes is the deadly sin of Type Nine, which is sloth. That experience speaks to a person's ability to fall asleep to oneself.

The main defense mechanism of Type Nine is narcotization. Anything that involves them disconnecting with themselves. It might be through eating or watching TV or whatever, but can also be merging with one's own routines. Having the same routine every single day, so that they don't have to make the decision about what to wear differently. Or merging with another person in absorbing their own agendas to make things flow easier.

They tend to be very conflict resistant. So, part of their growth work is to recognize that they are a distinct self. To find out who they are. Find out what they want. Find out what their agendas are, and actually to summon that on purpose, which goes opposite of the peacemaker framework.

They start causing conflict. They start causing problems. Nines think that's like a death sentence, but in actuality, they've had a sense of self this entire time. The proof of that is resentment. They tend to actually push back against other people opposing their agenda.

Beth: I know you have eight more to go through, a question I have just as I'm trying to conceptualize and understand the Nine Types. How do they function over a lifespan? From an adaptive standpoint, what does it mean if somebody came into the world and they tend to approach things like a Nine and let’s just say suddenly they act more like a Four. Is that considered adaptation or are we basically trying to, again stealing language from other models, if our goal is to individuate and have a healthy, whatever healthy is, whoever's describing that, between self and other past, present, future. Are we moving flexibly between these Nine Types and then would be able to see, “I did a little bit more of this over here. And then this thing happened and I did a little bit more of that. And now I see myself kind of not one of the types.”

Joanne: That would come with self-awareness.

I will say up front that a person's likely going to be their Type throughout their whole lives. There's no way to change one's Type. However, how rigid and how stubborn the Type shows up, that can change with personal work.

For the Type Nine, in some moments, they might be summoned to respond in a very Type Three way, in terms of self-promoting themselves. Or in Type 8, in imposing their own agendas, even going against other people, breaching other people's boundaries, instead of making themselves easy and accommodating other people at their own expense.

They will still be a Nine, but in doing their personal work at the extreme, once a person has actually gone towards, I don't know how else to say it, but to say enlightenment, a person who's Type Nine, who's typically known to be the person with the least amount of energy out of all nine Types will actually be the person with the greatest amount of energy in what we call their essence.

There's essence and then there's ego. Essence is what we're born with, how we come into the world, but life happens and so our ego kicks in to protect ourselves. This very ego structure is like a cage. When a bird is small, it helps protect the bird from the outside. At some point, the bird outgrows the cage, and the walls of the cage start cutting into its wings. And that applies to all nine Types. They just, they just have different cages.

Beth: Very interesting. Thank you.

Type Nine, Peacemaker, of the seven deadly sins most associated with a capacity for sloth.

Tell me about Type Eight.

Enneagram Eight
The Challenger

Joanne: Type Eight is the opposite of Type Nine in a lot of ways.

Unlike Type Nine, which is very chill, go with the flow, let's go for whatever's the easiest. Eight is like let me cause stuff. Let me make things happen. It's called The Challenger or sometimes known as The Boss.

Think about a baby, who's really young, but not quite yet ready to walk. They just want things. Boss baby, king baby, like everything the baby wants, the baby will have. Eights tend to live in the world like that in that whatever their instincts or whatever desire, they move straight towards making that happen. Even though there are lots of reasons why a person maybe shouldn't go according to their impulses and desire. The deadly sin of Type Eight is lust, and I don't mean in the sexual sense per se, though that is included. It's like insatiability, needing to fulfill their desires. Even if it goes against other people or against rules, etc.

Eights tend to disrupt things, Nines tend to like to go with the flow. They are extreme opposites.

Type Eight core fear that, by the way, all the core fears the nine Types don't really know that they have. The fear still drives a person, but it's operating in the unconscious, subconscious level. Eights tend to show up with big energy and they tend to go against other people because there's this core fear behind the scenes that says, “I need to make sure that I am not vulnerable.”

They end up becoming very strong, not to be strong per se. They don't necessarily need to be the boss, but they don't want someone else telling them what to do. They don't want to be vulnerable or at the risk of being hurt. Eights are generally those who think that their perception of reality is the ultimate reality, the capital T truth.

Often Eights won't really come into therapy unless they're dragged into a couples session. Because they've steamrolled other people. There's also a lot of projection that happens with each Type and what the Type Eight projects out is vulnerability.  They see themselves as more powerful, more strong than they actually are, invincible even. Like a person being able to walk in front of cars and thinking that the cars are just going to stop.

What they outsource is vulnerability, so they see other people as weaker than other people actually are. A lot of the Type Eights work is to reconcile that picture. Recognizing, my own version of reality is my own version of reality, but it's not the ultimate reality. Other people's experiences actually also exist.

So let me get to know what my partner's experience is instead of steamrolling over them. That is a lot of the Type Eight struggle.

The growth for Type Eights, when they've really done their work, they actually become the exact opposite. Instead of lust and fulfilling their own cravings and desires, they move towards what's called innocence.

It's like they're a young baby that's very tender, very vulnerable, very soft, and, they can access a very nurtured side of them, not just being the ones to protect and advocate on behalf of other people.

Beth: Very interesting. As you're talking about it, I can already almost start to see a shuffling of the DSM in relation to what we're talking about.

I'm sure that that would be a whole separate conversation for another time, but even just going through Type Nine and Type Eight, I can see that I would imagine that this personality type would have a propensity toward anxiety disorders. This personality type may be more prone toward codependence.

Joanne: Let me insert here, I was going to bring it up later, but heads up eight out of the nine Types in their extreme sense overlap with eight or nine of the personality disorders in the DSM. The one Type that's not described is Type Three, because we happen to be in a very Type Three culture, and that is in our shadow.

Beth: That's very interesting.

So you're saying because we've basically determined that Type Three is the most culturally acceptable?

Joanne: It's not standard.

Beth: Interesting. Okay, keep going. I want to get through Type Seven so I get to Type Three. Go.

Enneagram Seven
The Enthusiast

Joanne: Let me just say the main defense mechanism of Type Eight first, just because I mentioned Type Nine is narcotization, Type Eight's defense mechanism or main one is denial. They deny reality. Their reality is the ultimate reality.

Type Seven is the little kiddo who's finally been able to crawl and walk and so the world is their oyster and they're going about and experiencing all the fun things in life. Pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain and that is the Type Seven’s motto.

It's about experiencing all kinds of things in life and not being limited. So, a toddler starts crying when parents say, “No”, and the toddler just wants to somehow make their way around these restrictions and limits that authority figures set.

The person who has a Type Seven autopilot tends to see the positive things in life and ignore the negatives. Really as a way of avoiding the fear of being trapped and being trapped in pain, specifically.

The person who's Type Seven on the surface, they're very fun, very exciting, they're very lively. Really the heart of a lot of parties. However, the people who are most driven crazy by a person who's Seven is often their partners or the parents because they underly take responsibility for their actions. They're always seeking the fun thing and trying to avoid anything that seems uncomfortable or boring, mundane, et cetera.

The defense mechanism of Type Seven is rationalization. They're very good at charming other people and talking themselves out of being limited.

How a Seven often shows up in work, because they have this very tense relationship with authority figures, they tend to smooth that out by befriending authority figures. When they are interacting with a boss, they somehow try to find a chummy way of getting around doing their responsibilities because they don't like being told what to do. When it comes to their own subordinates, they tend to collapse the authority hierarchy and befringe those who are also under their authority, because to be an authority or to be under someone else's authority is very limiting. Limit is like the kryptonite of Type Seven.

The deadly sin of Type Seven is gluttony. It's about having a little bit of everything. And naturally that would lead a person to not want to make a commitment, not want to make decisions. Because what if there's something else that comes up that seems more exciting or fun?

They are super strongly driven by FOMO. Not wanting to make decisions because making decisions gives them the impression that they're going to be stuck and trapped in that. When a Seven has done a lot of work, they reach what's called sobriety, which is the opposite of their deadly sin of gluttony. It’s to be very honest with themselves and about their limitations and how that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's knowing that life is to be engaged by seeing reality for what it is, not what they would like to see it as.

A person who's really done a lot of their work as a Seven becomes very chill, very grounded, very anchored. Compared to their egoed counterpart, which is bouncing from one thing to the next. So that will be a Type Seven.

Beth: Again, I can hear things line up in my mind about certain personality types and if we were going to put somebody in a diagnostic box where you can see there's a vulnerability, if you will.

Type Six, tell me.

Enneagram Six
The Questioner

Joanne: Type six is the kiddo who has grown up enough, is now ready to go to school and all of a sudden has stranger danger and separation anxiety. This is a kid who has explored the world and has found out there's actually very painful things or scary things involved. “There's something that's looming over the surface. I don't really know exactly what it is.” It's the kid that is spinning in a lot of anxiety of not what is, but what things could be, towards the negative.

Sevens and Sixes are the opposite. Sevens think of what things could be towards the positive. Sixes are what things could be towards the negative. The worst case scenario. Sometimes they are called The Questioners or The Loyalists. The main central theme for Sixes is safety, trust, security. The way that that plays out is they're very mental. They have this big mind map of all the things that could possibly go wrong to then prepare for every single scenario.

If you have a Six on your team, they're the best person to troubleshoot things with because they can anticipate when a product is going to go wrong so that you can find out how to bypass it up front.

Sevens are usually like, “That's fine. It'll be fine. We'll figure it out as we go.” Sixes tend to do a lot of that mental churning up front so much so that they get stuck in analysis paralysis. They shut down. With all the nine Types it could be a love or hate relationship in being partners or working with them.

Sixes way of doing so is to ask a bunch of questions like, “Well, what if this goes wrong, what if that goes wrong?” Often, they're labeled as being very negative. But their intention, at least on the surface, is to make sure that they're safe and that everyone's okay.

In terms of relationship with authority figures, since Sixes tend to see authority figures as all good or all bad, their main defense mechanism is projection. They project out their strengths to bring about safety to other authority figures. Either authority figures are the person to give them security and safety, so they align with them, or they follow the rules, or this is called the Counter Type Six, they go against the authority figure.

There's a fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Some of the Sixes take one of those approaches. Instead of them owning their own authority and saying, I can bring about my own safety and security, they tend to project that outwards and then cower in fear. And that fear is what drives them forward.

If you were to associate Type Six with a personality disorder and the DSM measures a lot of dependent personality disorders, maybe.

Beth: Is there a Seven Deadly Sin type associated with Type Six?

Joanne: Type Six and Type Three are the ones where you add the two. So, it's not part of the Seven Deadly Sins, it's part of the nine. The deadly sin that's been added in is cowardice. The opposite of that deadly sin is courage.

Ironically, Sixes in ego are known as the most fearful types. But when a person who's Type Six has really done their work, they can be more courageous than anyone.

Enneagram Five
The Observer

Type 5 are known as The Observers. They tend to be the ones who experience life through observing from afar. I like describing them as living in fortresses where they're very boundary from the rest of the world, and they live up in their ivory tower overlooking everything.

These are the people, at an extreme, who tend to not really be connected with the rest of the world. They tend to be more detached, and that is the main defense mechanism, detachment. Instead of being in the world, they look at the world.

Fives are likely to be one of the people who come to therapy because they're dragged into therapy for family therapy or couple's counseling.

They tend to assume that the solution to life is to have more knowledge. They tend to overly rely on the intellect, etc. But compared to Sevens and Sixes, Sevens lean more towards positive data. Sixes lean towards more negative data. Fives see data as more neutral. But, they do so by overly relying on their head and then cutting off their connection to their heart center.

Emotions are really difficult for those who are Fives. The personality disorder might be schizoid personality disorder. That's part of their difficulty in that in this Western world that places so much emphasis on rational and intellectualization, Fives are seen as the golden standard in some ways. People don't know that they too are operating out of very reactive patterns because those patterns happen to be what people think is the way to go.

This is also all the more of the case where I am. I'm in the Silicon Valley. Lots of techie people, lots of engineers, but who tend to experience the most stress in their personal relationships because they've closed off their emotion center. They justify that thinking that they need to be the rational one and the partner is the irrational, emotional, sensitive one.

The Deadly Sin of Type Five is called avarice. Sometimes it's known as greed, but it's not greed like hoarding. It's avarice like squeezing and extinguishing out life and living from a scarcity mindset.

It's like, I only have this much energy to start off the day. And because I only start off with 20% battery life, I need to upfront decide how much percent I'm going to allocate to each activity in my day ahead and live with a sense of constriction. So, partners are frustrated because they're like, “Dude, you have more than enough energy to go with.” But, Fives like, “No, I only have this much and I need to make sure to be very careful and stingy with my resources because everyone else is a threat. Everyone else is trying to take my resources from me.”

Beth: I'm guessing if a Five has done their work and understands their Type and then work in the flexibility, then it's more of a standpoint of abundance, like less scarcity, more abundance, more generosity.

Joanne: The virtue of Type Five, where they go when they've done a lot of their work is nonattachment. Not being attached to their resources but recognizing that they are connected with the rest of the world, fully not just from a distance with their head. They're connected with all the ample resources that are in life. So, they don't need to be attached to anything. They can let things move very smoothly because compared to other types Fives are probably the most boundaried one.

And we think that boundaries are good, but in this case, they've done it way too much. So, they need to learn how to loosen up and let people come in and let themselves go out of the fortress.

Beth: The more you talk about this, the more I can hear the overlap with other methods in psychology. That it's like the development of distress tolerance or where's wise mind. It's like I can hear the language start to bubble up and kind of overlap with these things.

Joanne: I hope that when people really connect or explore the Enneagram, that they would come to those conclusions themselves, instead of hearing from someone else. “Oh, yeah, the Enneagram is like the best or it integrates well with psychology.” and then resisting against it.

Beth: It's an interesting consideration, going back to what you said at the beginning, kind of the misuse of the model to walk around the world and say, “You fit in this category and therefore I can basically use that information strategically to control.” Which would probably be its own Type the propensity to do so.

Joanne: I would say in a lot of governing agencies there will probably be more of an emphasis on Types One, Three, and Five. Those are known as the Competency Types and they ignore the other aspects that the other types tend to emphasize.

So, Type Five would be the kid who has recognized that the world is not a very trustworthy place to pass Type Six and then it's like, “Oh I can be my own safety. I just need to learn more things. I just need to know how to do more things.”

Fives are born into the world with that framework and assume that that's the only way to live life. Then they get boggled when it comes to their personal relationships because they can't figure out feelings. And they get super triggered. They double down. So, they reemphasize, “Oh, you're just being irrational. I'm the one who's making a lot of sense here.”

Beth: Interesting. So with Fives it's about finding balance instead of living so strongly in logic and rationality. It's finding balance.

Joanne: We're recognizing that there are lots of things in life that are also rational and have their own rules. Like feelings have their own rules. Fives have determined themselves as the authority in dictating what is good knowledge and bad knowledge.

Beth: That's valid. Interesting. Okay, Type Four.

Enneagram Four
The Individualists

Joanne: Type Fours are the moody, angsty teenagers who are super self-conscious. Like in middle school, when the body's changing, a lot of things are fluctuating, lots of hormones raging. The attention goes towards themselves as an individual, towards shame. Their thinking, “Oh my gosh, what's wrong with me? There’s all these things changing. I have so many feelings on the inside. Other people seem to be doing okay, but I'm swirling on the inside here and everyone seems to be getting along really well with each other. But I feel like I'm the outsider.”

Type Four is sometimes known as The Romantics, I like calling them The Individualists because not every Four has a romantic bent to them. It's more of like The Tragic Artists. Everything is really hard for them, but is really good for everyone else.

The Deadly Sin of Type Four is envy. And I don't mean envy like wanting what someone else has. It's thinking something good in me is missing from me. I don't know what it is, but it's as if something is missing in me. It's out there somewhere. I need to go find it. Anything that's super close right in front of the person, they get bored by, it loses its luster. Anything that's far away is super shiny.

The Four is like a horse with a carrot dangling in front of it. It might actually catch the carrot, but then it's not satisfied, thinking it needs to have another carrot to chase. It's addicted to the chase and it resists being satisfied. So that would be the Type Four mechanism. Hence, Fours are known to be very moody, very emotional. There's always something wrong, woe is me and whatever.

They tend to have a loud emphasis on the theme of suffering, that they are the suffering ones. It's as if Fours and Fives are super existential Types, the rest of the nine need to learn how to be more like Fours and Fives in considering the meaning of life. Fours and Fives overly do that. They need to learn how to be in normal everyday life.

Fours tend to be very philosophical, focusing on the meaning of, who am I? Is there any purpose to what I do? Do I matter? Their ego drives them to try to make themselves distinct, or unique, or special, or whatever. It’s as if, if I'm not special, it’s as if I was never here.

I will say therapy is built for Fours. It's a Four’s playground. Because a lot of therapy is about, “Go out, go inward, know yourself better. Find out what happened in your past about why you are the way you are right now. You just need more insight and to connect with your emotions.” All that stuff Fours can do outside of therapy for free. So, Fours can come into therapy thinking, “Maybe this thing will help me.” Only to find out the therapist thinks that the client is the best client ever because they're already doing what the therapist wants them to do. Then the Four’s ego structure is only reinforced.

Fours need to learn how to not do that, and therapists need to recognize that this field has a bent towards Fours and recognize that the reason why Fours are in suffering is not always because of some trauma that happened in the past. It's sometimes because of the person's own making.

The Four has identified themselves with their own suffering as if this is my trauma therefore, this is who I am. These are my feelings. Therefore this is who I am. That is not the case. Therapy tends to emphasize or tends to want to help people move in that direction. So, with every other Type therapists need to learn how to help people connect with the Four-ish way of living because we all underdo the other nine Types. But, Fours overdo that, so they need to have something different. They need to have more of a coaching style, more action oriented, more focusing on the present, on how things are good. How they have things that are readily available instead of thinking that it's out there somewhere.

Beth: Really interesting. And what's the Sin associated with Four?

Joanne: Envy.

The opposite of the envy passion would be equanimity. Which basically means a person recognizes that they have feelings but they aren't their feelings. It's seeing emotions in a very neutral sense, not picking and choosing negative ones to over identify themselves with and then ignoring all the positive things of life.

Fours and Sevens can be opposites in a lot of ways.

Beth: Really interesting.

Okay, Threes. You've referenced Threes repeatedly. Now I want to hear about Threes.

Enneagram Three
The Performers

Joanne: Threes are sometimes known as The Performers or The Achievers. They're the ones who overidentify with their image and the image they project out into the rest of the world.

Threes and Fours are opposites. Fours identify with one's own shadow, what's not so great about a person. Threes tend to identify with what's good about a person. But not good in like morally, objectively good, good in the eyes of other people. Threes tend to identify with the image of success in other people's eyes.

Their Deadly Sin, which is not part of the seven, this is the one that's been added in, is self-deceit. Like, Harry Potter, the metaphor that comes up is a Boggart, a shapeshifter, the one who keeps shifting its form based on whoever it's in front of in the moment. That is what Threes do reflexively without even knowing. So much so that they’ve forgotten who they actually are and what really matters to them.

Threes are very much rewarded for being the image of success because they get things done and everyone thinks that they're having an easy time. Because of that reinforcement, especially in this culture, and again, I'm in the Silicon Valley, so there's a lot of Threes in this environment who somehow know how to convert even a failure into success to the point where they don't get in touch with their own emotions. Often it's frustrating for those who are in relationships with Threes because of that shape shifting nature. Because they themselves don't know, because of self-deceit, that they've gotten disconnected with themselves.

When a Three has really done their work, the opposite of self-deceit is veracity, which means a person is their true self and not some image that they put out into the rest of the world. In living out veracity, it means that a person might disappoint other people because they're living out their truth.

Beth: Interesting.

 So, Type Three is really the chameleon. And to go off what you've said before, Type Three is the one that's most culturally sanctioned.

Joanne: The United States, in the eyes of the rest of the world, is very image focused. It's all about looking good or being successful and then looking good while being successful.

Anything that stirs up shame or how it's failed, the United States doubles down. It's like, “No, we're not. The rest of you are bad.” Three-ish, Eight-ish elements in this culture.

Beth: I was thinking about that kind of overlap when you were saying it.

One of my questions, and I'm just going to ask it now, knowing that we still have a few more types. What about folks who are listening to you introducing this idea of Enneagram, they're not familiar with it before. And we'll get to the last two, but they're listening and they're going, I'm none of those.

What does that mean?

Joanne: It could mean a bunch of things. I can go in a bunch of different directions but, I'll say this. There are nine Types that are universal archetypes of the human experience.

However, each of the nine Types have three versions, according to a dominant instinct. And when I say dominant instinct, this is the stuff that lives in our lizard brain. Anything that in our primal stressed state moves us towards survival through one of three approaches, self-preservation, social, or sexual. These are the three instincts involved. And I can describe each of those instincts a little bit more later. What that means is that there are nine Types about the why people do what they do. Then there are the instincts that show people how they do the why of what they do.

When you combine these two together, this is called the subtype. Nine times three, there are 27 subtypes in all. One of the subtypes per line is called the Counter Type, which is the type that goes the opposite direction of what I just described.

Just to give you an example, I happen to be a Counter Type. I am a Type Four, but I am a self-preservation Four. So anything that I just described about the Four, I've described some of what Fours are known for. Self-pressed Fours tend to resonate with the behind the scenes motivations, but how that shows up, it goes the opposite direction.

Fours are known to be very overly emotional, dramatic, like they pull everyone into their mess and all that kind of stuff. Those are really describing the other two kinds of Fours. The Counter Type of Type Four, like myself, you wouldn't be able to tell that I'm a Four on the outside.

This is one of the main difficulties with using the Enneagram in that people have a harder time finding out their type because, unlike Strengths Finders or Myers Briggs, you can't just take a test. A test tends to focus on what people do, less so the why. The why really depends on the person's self-awareness, whether they've done their work, whether they know what's in their blind spots, etc.

Beth: I appreciate that explanation. I think that's a really helpful way to describe it.

Okay. Two and One go!

Enneagram Two
The Befrienders

Two sometimes they’re call The Givers. I like calling them The Befrienders because their main objective in life is to be loved. Out of all nine Types, these are the ones that are the most obsessed about relationships, all things relationships. But it's connecting with another person by becoming what the other person wants and needs.

Twos are also shapeshifters, but Threes tend to shapeshift towards the image of success. Twos shapeshift towards what they think the other person wants and needs. I would say that Twos are often the Types that are described the least accurately when we read about the Enneagram because Twos are very disconnected from themselves.

They don't even know that they're doing this. They disconnect with themselves to be so outwardly focused on other people to shapeshift into what the other person wants and needs.

Whereas Fours are the opposite. Fours are very connected to their inner world and they kind of ignore everyone else, like teenagers. Fours need to learn how to be more outward and consider the experiences of other people.

Twos tend to overly do that and they have difficulty connecting with themselves. You ask someone who's Type Two, “What do you need or what do you want?” It's like they go into brain glitch. It feels like they're fumbling through a very, very dark room inside.

We often think of Twos according to what they do for other people, hence they're known as The Givers, The Helpers, The Servants, etc. That is a very shallow understanding of Type Two. What's really going on is, and why I call them The Befrienders, they connect with someone so that they get something in return. This part is what Twos are often unaware of. Any Two that's listening to this will have a very visceral, allergic reaction. They're going to want to throw up.

The Deadly Sin of Type Two is pride. And it's not pride as in, “I'm being very obviously better than other people.” It's the very quiet version of, “I know what you need more than you know what you need, and I'm going to be that.” But they hate finding out what they need because in order for them to have needs means that they are unlovable. Which goes against everything that they want to happen.

You'll find a lot of therapists who are Twos, but they really get their own needs met indirectly and they don't even know that they're doing it. Often they tend to have a hard time spending time in solitude with themselves. It's like a death sentence to them. If you tell them that they really need to get in touch with themselves, they're like, I don't even know what that means.

The main defense mechanism of Type Two is repression. They repress their own needs and they repress their own emotions because to have either of those things makes one less lovable.

This is the, the kid who's grown up in the family who to be loved, they've become what everyone else wanted at the expense of their own experiences. Similar to Type Nine in a lot of ways, but Nines disconnect from themselves so that they don't have to spend energy. Twos do so to be loved and all heart types, Twos, Threes, and Fours tend to be very image conscious.

The main themes are around their relationships with other people. Nines can have that, in some ways, but it's still more about energy and the flow of energy. Like, I want to take the path of least resistance, independently of how they're seen by other people. Unless there's some conflict brewing, then they'll double down and they'll shut down.

Twos, it's about how they're seen. They swell up with pride when they find out that another person likes them, and then they're devastated when they find out another person doesn't like them.

Beth: Interesting. Okay, Type One.

Enneagram Ones
The Improvers

Joanne: Type One, I like calling them The Improvers. Other people call them The Perfectionists, but the reason why I resist against that definition is because not all Ones, because there are three versions of each type, not all Ones are very perfectionistic, and how the perfectionism shows up is very different per subtype.

Type One, I call them The Improvers because their main engine, their way of perceiving the world is that there's good and there's bad. Only the two. There's nothing in between. No shades of gray. And what's good is this lofty, ideal standard of perfection, that they sense that reality right now isn't there. So, in that gap between ideal and actual, they fill that gap with frustration. They're so irritable because their anger is a form of energy. Anger propels us towards making things happen, but Ones do so in a very slow and simmering resentful kind of way. Whereas Eights tend to be very outburst-y, and they make things happen with big action. Ones, I like calling Ones The Scalpel, whereas Eights are The Sledgehammer.

Ones tend to direct their improver energy in a very methodical, very precise way, but they're constantly doing so, so that they have a really hard time taking it easy. And allowing things to be and recognizing that how things are, yeah, it's imperfect, but imperfection isn't a bad thing. Ones feel as if you have to be perfect or else you're automatically bad and therefore unworthy.

A lot of people will experience Ones as being very critical and judgmental, and I wouldn't say that they aren't that, but that's not the point. The point isn't to be critical or judgmental. The point is that Ones are really trying to be good. So, they're very sincere in thinking that what they're saying is really to help another person or help improve things. Because of their assumption that there's always something that needs to be improved and them voicing it out, other people tend to take it very personally. So, a lot of relationship conflict between Ones and other people.

The Type One's Deadly Sin is Anger, sometimes called wrath. The definition or the term that my teachers say is, I think it's kind of like a Spanish version, it's called “ira”. So it's not like anger, like, “Oh, I'm so angry and like actually making that happen.” But it's like the slow and simmering version behind the scenes where no one really knows about it. It's seething.

The main defense mechanism of Type One is reaction formation. Meanding what a person presents on the outside is the opposite of what they really feel on the inside.

When Ones are really pissed off, you might actually see them smiling more. Because they also have a way of disconnecting from their own emotions and needs. Because they think that it's about making sure that the thing, the task happens, independently of how I think or feel about it, independently of how other people think or feel about it.

They tend to not be as focused on image, like the heart types do. They are more focused on this is the decision we made, this is how we're going to follow through with it, and we need to stick to our commitments. Ones can be overly rigid because they're living life needing to be the good kid.

The virtue of Type One would be serenity. Because the Type One engine is driving one towards assuming that they ought to have control over everything and restricting the flow of life. Serenity is, there's some things that you can control, do those things. There are some things you can't control, let them be. And finding out what's the difference between the two.

When Ones have done their work, they're very chill. And they're very easy and, enjoyable to be around because they've recognized that not everything needs to be changed. And yes, there are imperfections in life, but there's still a lot of beauty and a lot of good.

That'll be the nine Types in a nutshell.

The Enneagram & Psychotherapy

Beth: Your brain holds an incredible amount of material, and then I can hear how you kind of play within it to understand and put together or separate these different ideas. Thank you so much for that. I think it was so interesting and I want to listen again just to learn it inn the way that you just presented it.

Knowing that our conversation today: number one, we don't have too much time left and number two also is really just kind of scratching the surface, but introducing the Enneagram really as a cultural guidepost that could be used in psychotherapy. You and I had talked before we started recording about some of the pros and cons of the Enneagram and psychotherapy.

Can you speak to that a little bit before we end our conversation today?

Joanne: Yes. Though the Enneagram is a very powerful framework that can help people do their personal work at warp speed. It is not a good fit for every client because it involves a lot of deep personal work and it involves defense mechanisms and ego structures and all kinds of things that people are very viscerally resistant against.

So, the Enneagram is not good for when a client is in actual crisis. There are houses on fire. We need to put out those fires, not philosophize about why those fires came to speed. Not yet at least. You've put out the fire first and do some repair work. Once the dust has settled and the client recognizes, “Hey, there have been burning houses before. I wonder what that's about.” That might be a good time to introduce the Enneagram.

Because the nature of using the Enneagram involves ego structures. The client has to be open to observing themselves in a neutral way. Or at least entertaining the idea that maybe I made this happen. If they're very defensive and they're very rigid, it's probably not a good idea to introduce the Enneagram because that might spin off into, “The therapist is not understanding me, or they're telling me what to do, or they're just trying to find out what's wrong with me.” It can go sideways really quickly.

The way that I work in my practice is I market myself as an Enneagram Therapist. So, people who find me, a good number of them know about the Enneagram. It's a self-filtering process where they've heard about this. They resonated with it. They're wanting to grow using this approach specifically. I have a lot more leverage to be able to interweave the Enneagram, but that doesn't mean that the Enneagram can't be used in therapy. You just might not share with clients about what that is. But it can be very informational for you as a clinician in knowing what is going on behind the scenes for someone and being able to calibrate and attune to them.

For example, if I'm working with a person who's Type Two, who's very others referencing and has a lot of disconnection from themselves, who shapeshifts to be what they think the other person wants and needs. A person who's Type Two will come into therapy because they want to work on how to improve their relationships. So, I cannot just start off with saying, “You need to know your own internal experiences and your own traumas and stuff like that.”

They're going to be like, “This therapist doesn't get me at all.” And they're going to leave.

But a person who's Type Two, who has done some ego work will recognize, “I don't know why I keep finding myself in one sided relationships and I'd like to find out what it is about me, maybe, that is constantly putting me in these situations.” That would be a good time to integrate the Enneagram as a framework. Not saying that there's something wrong about that person. All of us have an autopilot, so it normalizes it. Different people have different autopilot structures, so it helps with self-awareness and putting words to things that were invisible so that the client can go back out into their week and observe, “This is what I heard in therapy about what Two’s tend to do. How about I pay attention to what goes on in my mind when I'm sitting in front of another person?” So the Enneagram can be very helpful in providing a very neutral, nonjudgmental way of focusing on specific key dynamics.

Whereas if I were working with someone who is Type Four where they're overly inside themselves, I might ask, “Did you remember what the other person said in this conversation?” So I might gently nudged them to go outside of themselves.

What I would recommend to each client would be the opposite, depending on what their type structure is. It's even if I never talk about the Enneagram with those clients, I might still be noticing how to gently nudge them to focus on certain things.

Beth: I imagine that therapists, even without the knowledge of Enneagram, are often doing that. We're just using different language to describe it.

For therapists who are listening that want to learn more about the Enneagram and improve their knowledge about how perspective clients might be seeing it or using it or their own utilization in psychotherapy. What do you recommend? Where do they go to do that?

Enneagram Resources

Buy on Amazon

Joanne: This is probably the number one book I recommend to everyone who wants to do personal growth, especially with the Enneagram. It's a book called “The Enneagram: Guide to Waking Up”. This is written by my Enneagram teachers, Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes.

Beatrice herself is a licensed therapist and she is one of the main people from whom I read up on all the behind the scenes defense mechanisms in her other book called “The Complete Enneagram”. That book is very hefty, but I think for clinicians it'd be super helpful of a read.

This book here, “The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up”, it's like a permanent shelfer as a quick manual guide in how each Type shows up, including the three instincts and the specific growth steps. For each Type, the chapter is about 20-25 pages long. Not too long.

If you want a more in depth perspective, “The Complete Enneagram”, will be great. This is what I recommend to clients, what I recommend to other therapists, because it captures things in a nutshell. Not what people do, but why they do the what they do in some concrete.

Beatrice and Uranio also have a podcast called Enneagram 2.0. It's fantastic. People who want to hear about how the Enneagram is supposed to be used, that will be a good place to begin as well.

For those therapists or helping professionals who really want to learn formally how to incorporate the Enneagram into your practice, I highly recommend the Professional Certification Track at Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy. They have the Professional Certification Track and the Personal Mastery Track. Both involve very experiential approaches to the Enneagram aside from just learning head knowledge about it. Because again, we are in a time in history where there's heavy emphasis on the intellect at the expense of other things. So heavy emphasis on the head center at the expense of the heart and the body center.

I highly recommend that you check out at least one of the workshops or retreats with CP Enneagram. It's like a five-day retreat. That's been very transformational for me. And it will give you all the downlow that you need.

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What are the emotional habits of your Enneagram type?

Grab this free guide that highlights the patterns that keep you stuck and the next steps to grow beyond your type!

Don't know your Enneagram type? Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

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© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”

Enneagram Type Eight: What It's Like

My therapist colleague Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) and I are writing several blog series about the Enneagram, a comprehensive yet compact personality framework that reveals our reactive, “autopilot” patterns of thinking, feeling, doing, and relating.

In this series, someone from each Enneagram Type (Types One through Nine) will be sharing about their own journey of discovering and using the Enneagram for deep healing and personal growth.

In this post, Marianna Torres, shares what it’s like to be an Enneagram Type Eight. Marianna is a person who has worked extremely hard to overcome adversity and find self worth!  She is proud of the work done to get this far.  Marianna is gay, a latina, a veteran, a police woman, a mother, a friend, a mentor, a daughter, and a lifetime seeker of spiritual, and emotional growth.

Here are the other posts in this series that are published so far:

• Type 1 - Josh Chan

• Type 2 - Melinda Olsen, LMFT

• Type 3 - Morgan Hancock, LMFT

• Type 4 - Joanne Kim, LMFT

• Type 5 - Alyssa Harris

• Type 6 - Jonathan Siu

• Type 7 - Stefie Dominguez

• Type 9 - Lorren Siu, LMFT

What is it like to be an Enneagram Type 8?

Being an Eight feels a bit like a blessing and a curse, depending on how healthy I’m feeling emotionally.  When I’m at my best, I can be positive, loyal, generous, and supportive.  On the other hand, when I’m not operating at my best, I can quickly turn arrogant, demanding and rigid. 

In my professional life, being an Eight is what makes me very effective at my job in law enforcement.  In my close intimate relationships, Type Eight is not so great (at least in my experience). 

What I love most about being an Eight is that I have a soft side and hard side.  I have the ability to take charge and assert myself when I need to, yet be tender and loving.  I believe this is the ultimate superpower of being an Eight! 

When Did You Realize You Were Ennegram Type Eight?

I was newly married and became a step-mother to five children when I turned 41 years old.  I quickly realized that I had stepped into one of the greatest challenges of my life!  Nothing could have prepared me for what lay ahead. 

My marriage started to fall apart shortly after the wedding and my relationship problems became more evident as time passed.  I had done years of 12 step recovery work, talk therapy, EMDR, and read countless self help books, but I still felt completely lost with who I was at my core. 

In early 2021, I decided to explore myself in a way that I never had before. 

Intuitively, I booked a solo trip to Sedona, Arizona and enrolled in a three-day holistic retreat that I found on an internet search.  Thankfully I had total faith that my retreat was going to be exactly what I needed. 

My very first session was with a founding member of the Arizona Enneagram Association.  This lovely woman helped me to understand myself on a much deeper level and introduced me to my Eight’ness.    

What do you wish people knew about Enneagram Type Eights?

I wish people knew how to understand my assertive nature and to not take it like a personal attack.  I want people to know just how incredibly soft and gentle Eights are on the inside.  Eights are strong but they definitely need a soft place to land after they’ve been holding it together all day.   

One thing you’re working on to grow beyond your Type

I am continuously reminding myself to lead with my heart first.  I am working towards being more open and vulnerable with other people and becoming more gentle.  This doesn’t come easy to this 8 but I’m proud of the strides I’m making. 

---

What are the emotional habits of your Enneagram type?

Grab this free guide that highlights the patterns that keep you stuck and the next steps to grow beyond your type!

Don't know your Enneagram type? Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

Loading...

Woo hoo!!

Check your inbox for your free gift guide,

"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

© Copyright 2023 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.

Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)

The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:

“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”

“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”