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5 Minutes to Grow Beyond Your Autopilot
How "The Mask" is the Perfect Metaphor for the Enneagram
“The Mask”, featuring Jim Carrey, is a great movie that illustrates what the Enneagram types are like: masks (or personas) we don until we become so “fused” with them that we forget our true selves. Read this blog to learn about your mask!
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:
There are more masks than just our type — 8 whole other ones!
None of these masks are supposed to replace who we really are
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:
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!
© 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
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.
(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!”
How Enneagram Type-Specific Retreats Help You Dive Deep into Your Personality
If you're eager and intentional about personal growth, here are 5 reasons why I think you def should consider attending one of Beatrice Chestnut & Uranio Paes' type-specific Enneagram retreats.
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:
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:
Everyone wears masks
We each wear a specific mask
Our specific mask looks like XYZ
Here is how the mask stays on
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:
translation issues
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:
Less = More
Get Straight to the Point of TAKING ACTION
See Yourself Reflected in Others
Focus on Your Type’s Passion
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!
© 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.
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.
What are the emotional habits of your Enneagram type?
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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 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 introduce the Enneagram - a personality framework that reveals our subconscious patterns. Check out the sixth part of this series here on the Enneagram Body Types!
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!)
Body Types - 8s, 9s, 1s
Head Types - 5s, 6s, 7s
Heart Types - 2s, 3s, 4s
Downloadables
Grab each of these guides separately!
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.
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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© 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.
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
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.
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!
© 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!”
What is Self-Referencing + Others-Referencing?
All of us have the capacity of being self-referencing or others-referencing - using ourselves and others as reference points for life, respectively. But what’s the difference between being self-referencing and being selfish, and being others-referencing and being generous? How can we grow beyond our Enneagram type by practicing both options?
What is Self-Referencing?
Self-referencing means using your own perceptions and experiences as the main - sometimes even final - reference point with which you process through things or make decisions. Other reference points (like other people's experiences or perspectives) often don't even occur - an afterthought if it occurs to them at all.
The Enneagram types most likely to do this are Types 4, 5, 7.
Enneagram 4s often get into such chaotic, push-pull dynamics is because they're basically living out a relationship with their IDEA/fantasy of someone instead of the actual person.
Enneagram 5s often take on a passive observer, gathering information of the outside world from their ivory tower within their fortress for them to then process (and come to conclusions) on their own without others' actual input.
Enneagram 7s are often focusing on pursuing pleasure/avoiding pain, and in doing so, they are often less likely to give much weight to other people's experiences.
Self-referencing ≠ selfish.
It's just that those who are self-referencing are more likely to go through life thinking that they're the main character and that everyone else is a NPC (non-playing character) or a faceless, storyless extra.
Someone can be incredibly caring of others, while still seeing life through (mostly) their own lens (ex: Self-pres 4s or Social 7s).
GROWTH TIP for Self-Referencing types:
Practice OTHERS-referencing by asking other people questions (and NOT answering for them!). Practice living as if what others are saying are true and see what happens.
What is Others-Referencing?
Others-referencing means using other people's perceptions and experiences as the main (sometimes final) reference point. Enneagram 2s, 3s, and 9s are generally others-referencing that they often have a difficult time knowing their own perspectives, opinions, wants, and needs.
Others-referencing ≠ generous.
Thinking about other people's feelings and needs does not automatically mean that someone is considering their well-being over one's own. There are instances where someone can be thinking about others as a way to fill one's own needs (Type 2s & 3s are more likely to do this by shapeshifting.)
Type 9s would think about others as a way of not thinking about themselves - this seems selfless, but more in the ego-driven sense and not the actual selfless sense. Nines need to actually reconnect with SELF.
GROWTH TIP for Others-Referencing types:
Practice SELF-referencing by NOT asking other people questions about what they think but making decisions for yourself. Notice the outcomes and your reactions.
What did you learn from that experience about yourself - your wants, needs, opinions, and values?
What about Types 1s, 6s, and 8s?
Types 1, 6, and 8 are a mix of both self-referencing and others-referencing. It depends more on their dominant instincts (see below).
How does Enneagram subtype play into self- or others-referencing?
A person's subtype (Enneagram type + dominant instinct) is likely to impact how strong someone is self- or others-referencing.
Self-preservation dominant folks are more likely to be self-referencing than other instincts of that type.
Social dominant folks are more likely to consider group dynamics, agendas, and perspectives.
Sexual dominant folks are more likely to give weight to their significant people's experiences and preferences (e.g., parents, partners, children, best friends, etc.)
Of course, we have all three instincts, so this is not a prescriptive rule, just an observation.
Part of using the Enneagram for personal growth means dialing back the dominant instinct and practicing more of the repressed instinct so that we would be more rounded out and holistic in how we see life, ourselves, and others.
Why is this important?
A car with only gas OR brake pedal is no good - it needs BOTH pedals to function to its full potential.
The goal is to have ready access to BOTH self- AND others-referencing, instead of being stuck on just one OR the other.
Wherever your Enneagram autopilot leans, take some steps this week to balance yourself out!
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!
© 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!”
Growth Tips for Each Enneagram Type (Part II)
Read this blog for another set of growth tips for your Enneagram type.
In a previous blog, I gave one exercise for each Enneagram type to try as a way to grow BEYOND your type.
Have you tried yours?
Here's another set of growth steps.
Type 1 (The Improver)
When I'm on vacation, am I in:
Work mode - optimizing your schedule, trying to be efficient, doing what you think you "should" do, etc.
Play mode - being present with how things actually are (instead of what they SHOULD be), relaxing, and enjoying the moment
What feelings, sensations, or reactions come up when you reflect on relaxing/taking a break?
Type 2 (The Befriender)
Set aside 1-2 hours each week doing something BY yourself, FOR yourself, and WITH yourself - something that doesn't benefit anyone else but you. Some examples:
go to the library and read a book
take yourself out to a coffee shop or restaurant on a solo date
do what you used to enjoy as a kid (or always wanted to do but never got around to it)
get a massage
If these ideas sound AWFUL, what feelings, thoughts, or reactions come up? Why do you suppose that is?
Type 3 (The Achiever)
Ask 5 people from different parts of your life to describe you with 3 words.
How varied or similar are the responses? Do others see the same version of you from place to place, or do they see different versions of you? Why do you suppose that is?
Type 4 (The Individualist)
How often do you feel bored? How often do you lose interest in something or someone you've been chasing for so long and you actually manage to attain? Why do you suppose this reaction is?
Type 5 (The Observer)
How would you describe your relationships with a diagram? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this relationship setup? How does this relationship style impact your stress levels -- for better and for worse?
Type 6 (The Questionner)
When have there been moments where something terrible DID happen and that you were able to survive (maybe even excel in) that moment? How can you give yourself more credit for your STRENGTHS?
Type 7 (The Enthusiast)
What have been some ways that your pursuit of positives/downplay of negatives has led you to LESS positives and MORE negatives? How can you practice connecting with the negative side of life a bit more than before SO THAT you can have fuller, deeper access to the truly joyful things in life?
Type 8 (The Challenger)
Write down the impact you think you have on others. Ask 3 people you trust for feedback. Read the feedback when you're alone -- the point is for you to gather & sit with new information, not to react in front of others. Allow whatever reactions to come up (move your body as you need), and when you're more grounded, then use your head & heart to really consider the gravity of the content. Make 5% more room in your life to accommodate the feedback.
Type 9 (The Peacemaker)
Practice initiating hangouts with other people, rather than only waiting for someone else to initiate. It's okay for them to say no -- if so, go ask someone else!
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?
© 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 Does Each Enneagram Type Self-Sabotage?
Each Enneagram Type has a way that they self-sabotage their own personal growth, relationships, and professional development. Read this blog to learn your Type’s self-sabotage strategies.
Type 1 (The Improver)
Ones believe that they must BECOME good by constantly improving themselves, the world, and/or others, not knowing that they are ALREADY good though imperfect (bc good ≠ perfect).
Ones sabotage knowing their own goodness by refusing to acknowledge their inherent goodness and constantly looking for something to "fix".
Type 2 (The Befriender)
Twos believe that they must constantly make themselves lovable by shapeshifting into what (they think) others need, not knowing that they are ALREADY lovable as they are.
Twos sabotage themselves in refusing to take in love they do get because they're so used to transactional support. If they get love, it's as if they need to do something to "pay back the debt" because love isn't free.
Type 3 (The Performer)
Threes believe that they must constantly make themselves more worthy & admirable by seeming more successful, not knowing that they are ALREADY worthy and admirable in their true selves.
Threes sabotage themselves by shapeshifting so much according to others' definition of success that they forget who they actually are. They forget that success is defined by who THEY themselves are and what they WANT, not what others think.
Type 4 (The Individualist)
Fours believe that there's something inherently wrong with or missing from them that makes them worthy, not knowing that they are ALREADY whole and enough.
Fours sabotage themselves from connecting with goodness by assuming they're already disqualified from it. They desperately want to be understood, but also (unknowingly) make themselves un-understandable by constantly making themselves the exception to the rule. (slippery weasels, we are!)
Type 5 (The Observer)
Fives believe that they don't have enough resources, time, and energy to deal with the world's demands, not knowing that they ALREADY have more than enough resources (because the world provides for what they need).
Fives sabotage themselves by cutting themselves off from the world, living in their fortress behind impenetrable walls and up the ivory tower, assuming everyone else is a potential invader who would take their resources, while obsessing over their diminishing supply and getting depressed because they're disconnected from everything.
Type 6 (The Contrarian)
Sixes believe that they're unsafe in this scary world, not knowing that they ALREADY have enough strength, authority, and ability to take care of themselves IF they need to.
Sixes sabotage themselves by starting to create threats because they don't know how to (or don't want to) live in peacetime mode. (Pre-traumatic stress disorder!!)
Type 7 (The Enthusiast)
Sevens believe that they need to avoid being trapped in neverending pain/negativity by pursuing as many fun experiences as they can, not knowing that they are ALREADY capable of navigating (and surviving) the darker waters that actually give them deeper joy.
Sevens sabotage themselves by avoiding responsibilities, painting themselves into a corner when the consequences of those decisions pile up and shit (still) hits the fan.
Type 8 (The Challenger)
Eights believe that they need to constantly be powerful or else they'll be vulnerable or betrayed, not knowing that they are ALREADY vulnerable and it's okay to be comforted and protected by others.
Eights sabotage themselves by making so many risky and chaotic impulsive decisions that actually strip them of their power and make them vulnerable to rejection and betrayal.
Type 9 (The Harmonizer)
Nines believe that they need to blend themselves into the background so as to not rock the boat, not knowing that they ALREADY matter and belong as a unique individual.
Nines sabotage themselves by avoiding upsetting others so much that this itself causes tension in their relationships and life.
What reactions come up for you when reading about your types self-sabotage strategies?
Did I go for the jugular...? Sorry, not sorry!! I do want GOODNESS, WHOLENESS, & FREEDOM for you.
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!
© 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!”
Growth Tips for Each Enneagram Type (Part I)
The Enneagram tells us 9 different ways of seeing/responding to life that used to be helpful coping strategies when we were younger that now keep us stuck in painful situations. Read this blog to learn two growth tips for your Enneagram type.
The Enneagram tells us 9 different ways of seeing/responding to life that USED TO be helpful coping strategies when we were younger that NOW keep us stuck in painful situations.
(If you don’t know your Enneagram type, here’s a blog to help you find it.)
Here is one quick growth tip to help you grow BEYOND your Enneagram type!
Type 1 (The Improver)
Go out in nature and observe how the trees & wildlife are imperfect AND YET are still worthy.
Entertain the idea that the same might also apply to you.
Type 2 (The Befriender)
What percentage of your time this week did you spend focusing on or doing something for other people?
What's your guess as to what percentage of time non-Twos spend on others?
Go gather info - ask 3 people you know (ideally non-Twos) this question and hear what they say.
Notice the difference - What are the BENEFITS of spending less attention on others and more on themselves?
Type 3 (The Achiever)
How often have you felt the emotions of impatience or frustration this week around tasks?
What might be the BENEFITS of things moving at a different speed or way that you would like?
Type 4 (The Individualist)
(Without judging yourself) What is your guess as to the kind of impact you have on other people? (positive? negative? big? small? neutral?) Write the guess down.
Ask 3 other people this question, then compare their answer to yours. Do their answers align with yours?
If yes, what's that like having accurate self-assessment?
If no, why do you suppose their responses are so different from yours?
Type 5 (The Observer)
What's your reaction when you find out that you DON'T know something? How comfortable are you with the state of not knowing about a topic or not knowing how to do something?
Does it matter whether other people know whether you do or don't have knowledge in an area? Are there ever moments when it's okay that you don't have all the information or know-how?
Type 6 (The Questionner)
At the beginning of the day, write down what you anticipate happening in the day. At the end of the day, write down what actually happened.
Focus on the ACTUAL, not HYPOTHETICALS.
Type 7 (The Enthusiast)
When thinking about what to do over the weekend, write down 5-6 options of activities, put them in a jar, then draw one card.
Consider what else remains in the jar as irrelevant until the following weekend.
This one option is the adventure of the weekend!
Type 8 (The Challenger)
When has your reliance on your power and strength backfired?
When something goes wrong, how likely are you to assume that it must automatically be because someone else messed up?
How often do you take ownership of your own impact on the outcome or on relationships?
Type 9 (The Peacemaker)
Coin Flip - When making a decision, flip a coin. When the coin lands with its assigned outcomes, notice your immediate reaction. Did you feel relief or tension?
Relief means go with the outcome of the coin toss.
Tension/dread means go with the other option.
After you try this, leave a comment letting me know what you think! Since I only have firsthand familiarity with the ways of Type 4, I would love any feedback from those of other types!
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!
© 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!”
What My Birthday Has Taught Me
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.
March 30 is my birthday!
Several years ago, I would have never imagined announcing this 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 five 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 ulterior 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:
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.
Nines generally feel uncomfortable being the center of attention (though they feel hurt when they're ignored or not included)
Self-preservation 1s might be so obsessed in noticing their imperfections that they have a hard time acknowledging that they, too, are good.
Social 7s might want to focus on making things fun for everyone else and put their own wants last.
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.
Interested in learning more about the Enneagram? Join the waitlist for the online webinar that I'm running with Melinda Olsen, another Enneagram therapist.
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!
© 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 to Set Boundaries over the Holidays
If you're feeling DREAD around seeing some people over the holidays learn some questions to ask yourself to help set boundaries.
"I KNOW I need to set boundaries, but I CAN'T."
This is what I hear often when I'm working with people who learned how to people please, placate, and repress their own feelings/needs to survive their significant relationships. All of these are examples of "FAWN" responses (in addition to FIGHT, FLIGHT, and FREEZE) to (even anticipated) scary or risky situations.
Why the resistance to setting boundaries? Here are some reasons:
I don't know how.
I feel guilty/bad. (BTW - "bad" is not a feeling, but you get the idea)
I don't want to because it's too scary.
I don't want to because I don't think I'm worth it.
I don't want to make them mad.
The majority of the people I work with have some strained relationship with family members. Unlike friends, whom you can choose or leave at will, family is what you're born into without any say.
As the holiday season rolls around (and also around family holidays like Mother's Day or Father's Day), old wounds are poked, stirring up feelings of anxiety, guilt, overwhelm, shame, irritation, resentment, etc.
Even relatively healthy relationships with family might stir up stress as people navigate spoken or unspoken expectations, travel plans, financial strain, and limited time.
Questions to prepare for the holidays
If you're feeling DREAD around seeing some people over the holidays, consider up front:
How can you keep from overextending yourself?
What are your realistic limits in terms of mental, emotional, physical, or financial energy? How can you build more down time into your schedule?
During the harder times of the year, plan to do 70% of what you usually do so that you have a greater buffer. Operating at the full 100% makes it so that any extra pain starts depleting the resources you need to just get by a “normal” week.
When things are harder, make it EASIER on yourself. DO NOT TRY TO TOUGH IT OUT - YOU’VE ALREADY DEALT WITH PLENTY OF SHIT.
Who are some people who drain energy?
What's the maximum amount of time you can hang around someone without becoming reactive?
PRO TIP: Schedule 1-2 hours with that person and schedule something ELSE at the end of that time period.
Give the person a head's up that you have something afterwards ("I have other things I gotta do while I'm here" or "I have other people I need to also meet up with"), and when time's up, say "I gotta go!"
How can YOU initiate an activity?
You might have some people you’re not super excited to see but feel like you HAVE to (like a nagging relative who keeps saying, “Why don’t we ever see you?”).
They keep reaching out to you, and you feel like you have to either maneuver your way out of that invite (and feel guilty) or endure that experience (and feel trapped, anxious, and ashamed).
PRO TIP: Sometimes, if YOU initiate an activity you feel better or safer about (bowling, watching a sports game, or shopping), then THEY would be in a position to say yes or no. If they say yes, it’s at least on YOUR terms and timeline. If no, oh well! At least you tried.
Who are people you need to steer clear of completely?
Or hang out only in public spaces? Or only when other people are around?
Don’t force yourself to hang out with them. You don’t owe anyone your time, energy, or sanity.
Let them throw a tantrum or get upset. You’re not the asshole for not making their drama your drama.
Who keeps asking inappropriate or uncomfortable questions?
Some people are freakin nosy, digging for deets about whether/who you're dating, whether/when you'll have kids, how much money you're making, etc.
PRO TIP: Pick some neutral/shallow topics you can purposefully redirect the conversation to. Not everyone deserves to have access to you. YOU get to choose - not letting others into your life does NOT make you a bad person.
Who are some safe people who can care for you?
Who can you ask keep you company during those scarier situations?
Who can help you decompress afterwards?
Here’s a blog that describes who’s a safe vs. unsafe person.
PRO TIP: Ask one of them ahead of time to call you with some urgent matter partway through if you need an out of an unpleasant meetup.
If you’re feeling guilty
Obviously, some of these things I'm encouraging you isn’t 100% ethical. Save your ethics and morality for situations where you actually have SAFETY and FREEDOM - not when you're pressured, bullied, or guilt-tripped.
When you're dealing with unhealthy, manipulative people, you do NOT need to expose yourself to being exploited or hurt again. YOU ARE NOT A BAD PERSON FOR KEEPING YOURSELF SAFE.
If you’re playing a game where the other parties keep cheating or changing the rules, there’s no fair play. No need to follow the rules; you may stop playing the game altogether.
To butcher a Henry Cloud quote: If you set boundaries and the other person gets mad, it's NOT a sign that you're doing something WRONG. In fact, it's CONFIRMATION that boundaries were necessary in the first place, because this person has been benefitting at your expense this whole time.
MAD: The Emotion of Boundaries
ANGER is a good self-protecting and self-honoring emotion right about now. Not all anger is bad, and not all love is good. The healthy versions of both create relationships where there's enough room for BOTH parties, not just one at the other's expense.
If you're wanting to know more about the HOW-TOs of boundary setting and assertiveness, check out the following:
A blog I wrote about Radical Candor (from Kim Scott's book).
An interview I had about toxic relationships
A blog about safe people (from Henry Cloud and John Townsend's book)
These Instagram posts about anger (bio page > “MAD” highlights)
I’m really rooting for you. Hang in there.
After this season is over, I encourage you to use the non-holiday months next year to build towards a year-end time that suits and honors you. Perhaps it might be time for you to find yourself a therapist.
Do your BIG Feelings always TAKE OVER, ruining important moments or derailing your goals?
Grab this free guide that helps you handle feelings like a pro when they show up at the "wrong place" or "wrong time"!
© Copyright 2022 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!”
Two Quick Tips to Be Assertive
Empathetic people struggle to put their needs before others, but practicing assertiveness is a necessary part of every relationship. Read these quick tips on how to be assertive and create BALANCED relationships.
The Value of Assertiveness in Relationships
Many of the people I work with (myself included) have trouble being assertive in relationships. We tend to focus our connections on empathy and meeting the needs of others, but that focus on the other OVER the self can really impact the relationship and yourself. Such a dynamic is what Kim Scott calls “Ruinous Empathy,” a dynamic that takes empathy so far that the relationship no longer has room for the self. Such relationships cultivate resentment and lead to easy burnout. (You can read more about Ruinous Empathy in my blog post on Radical Candor.) Practicing assertiveness is a tool for building BALANCED relationships where both YOU and OTHERS matter.
Tip #1: Use the Sentence: I am open to “____”; I am not open to “____.”
One way to be assertive is to use the sentence, "I am open to 'blank;' I am not open to 'blank.'" Sometimes when someone else makes a request or a demand of us, we might find ourselves feeling stuck between the options of:
Saying YES, going along with their demand or request, OR
Saying NO, where we're in the position of rejecting.
So, the template, "I am open to blank, I'm not open to blank," provides an alternative option. An example is if someone asks, "Hey, can we go to San Francisco and do X Y Z things." I might not be up to that because I tend to have low energy, so I may say, "Hey, I'm open to grabbing coffee for a couple of hours with you; I'm not open to spending the whole day in SF." That might be enough.
Instead of you being in a position of going with the other person's request exactly as it is or denying their request completely, you pitch a THIRD OPTION. Now there's room for negotiation here and that's totally okay. The idea is that you're not stuck in an all-or-nothing arrangement.
The converse can happen as well when you're making a request to someone else, and they're in a position of saying yes or no. If they say no, you can follow up with, "Well, what are you available to do?" You give them an opportunity to speak for themselves. That way, you don't just have two options. It opens up that conversation.
Tip #2: Don’t Over-Explain
The second way of being assertive is to NOT over-explain yourself. Now if you're like me and a lot of people that I work with, we tend to feel bad about putting forth our needs. We feel guilty or we're scared that the other person may say no or get mad, and when we finally muster up the courage to make a request, we provide this lengthy explanation as to why that request needs to happen or why it's a good idea.
It's totally understandable why people might feel the need to over-explain. The downside is the more you explain yourself, the more you actually dilute down the effect of your request. You water it down. So sometimes when you over-explain, the listener may have a harder time keeping track of what your initial request is. An example might be instead of saying "I'm not available on Friday,” you say something like "I'm not available on Friday because I need to go to the grocery store, because I need to gather all this food to prepare because my in-laws are coming tomorrow and they have high expectations.” The other person is like, well, that's way more much information than I needed.
The over-explanation might not be necessary and sometimes it's just generally good practice, especially if you have a hard time with boundaries, to hold back on sharing more than is actually concretely necessary for the question at hand. The main question is, "Are you available on Friday or not?" So instead of over-explaining yourself, stick to the point. Stick to the action item saying, "I am available on Friday," or "I'm not available on Friday," and notice how often you do over-explain and see what tends to happen in those conversations. More likely, the other person you're talking to may feel or sense that you are more defensive or you are more insecure because in effect you're kind of backtracking.
So, state the request very clearly or state the boundary very clearly. You don't owe anyone an explanation for anything, for any of your decisions. If you happen to be interacting with someone who tends to push boundaries, like they say, "Well, why?" Well, that might actually be a reflection of them being a less safe person than you thought they were, and that might be a signal for you to start dialing back for that very reason. If you're interacting with someone who demands to know the very reasons or justifications for your actions, that's kind of a sign that they don't really respect you all that much. So, to develop respect, instead of giving more of yourself, you give them less access to you; that's generally a good practice.
Being Assertive in Your Connections
So in summary, there are two quick ways of being assertive.
One is for you to say the sentence, "I am open to blank; I am not open to blank."
The second one is to watch when you over-explain yourself and practice dialing back.
You don't have to do a full 180; just practice dialing back 5% and then see what happens. Sometimes people might be okay with a simple yes or no. We don't know. So go test out these assertiveness tips and see how they might improve your relationships.
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!
© Copyright 2021 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
Does this resonate?
Concentric Circles of Connection
Use the Concentric Circles of Connection chart to plot how your current relationships are and make adjustments so that the closeness and distinction is just right.
Shifting Relationships
Every time we go through any major life event (positive or negative), it's good to check in with the nature of our current connections.
Such shifting points include:
Getting a new job
Starting or ending a relationship
Upgrading to the “next level” of relationships
Moving to another city, state, country
The pandemic
Losing (or gaining) a job
Sometimes we find out through life experience that our connections maybe aren't as sustainable as we might think of them to be. With some people, we may not actually be as close to as we would like.
Instead of constantly putting yourself out there and then feeling disappointed, or hurt, or realizing that your relationships are super imbalanced, it's good to do a check-in every now and then.
Ask yourself, "Is my connection with someone able to sustain the level of intimacy as I would like?"
The Concentric Circles of Connection
There are many different kinds of friendships. It's not a matter of “Yes, I have friends” or “No, I don’t have friends,” but “What kind of friends do I have?”
Imagine that there are several levels or tiers of friendships.
(The number of levels may change over time, but here’s one way of distinguishing them.)
+: Positive experiences
—: Negative experiences
Tier 1: BFFs (+++———)
At the innermost circle are those who are our Ride-or-Die people. These are the people who know ourselves the best, those with whom we can share our deepest darkest secrets with and they will show up.
The relationship is consistent day after day. They're going to be there for you, no matter what. They’ve explicitly made that commitment clear.
You've cultivated a lot of connection and trust and rapport, and they're also able to sustain the difficult emotions. So, it doesn't mean that you have an equal amount of positive and negative interactions with each other, but this is the depth of experiences that you share with them.
When the best and worst things happen, these are the people you call first.
Tier 2: Close Friends (++——)
These folks have demonstrated that they're trustworthy. They share in your personal hardships and also celebrate your wins. You can have great dinners and heart-to-heart talks.
You're still close to them and deeply enjoy their company, but they're not the first people you would call if something happens. (You’ll eventually catch them up when you do meet.)
Tier 3: Fun Friends (++—)
These are people with whom you have mutual interests and have fun. You might like going to concerts, play board games, or do wine tastings, but when something hard goes on in your life, they're nowhere to be found.
That doesn't mean that they're necessarily a bad friend, but they're just not in your inner circles. That’s okay.
It's important when we come across these kinds of connections that we release them from any expectations for us to rely on them, so that THEY don't feel trapped about what we're going through, and WE don't rely on people who are not readily available for us.
But we can still have a good time! Relationships don’t have to be all-or-nothing, eggs-in-one-basket, intensity-or-bust (Take heed, Enneagram Fours! Not all experiences we have in life are super serious and it's good to learn how to lighten up and to enjoy things.).
It’s good to have a wide range of relationships, even ones where surface-level convos are the norm and where activities serve as the core.
Tier 4: Neighbors (+—)
These people can be co-workers or literal neighbors—people you see pretty often. You know each other's names, how many kids or pets y’all have, generally what might be going on in each others’ lives, but you're not necessarily going to call them up to hang out all the time.
You might share, "Someone hit my car bumper last night, and I'm kind of feeling frustrated," or "Yeah, like my kid is about to do a major performance and super excited about it."
Sometimes, to avoid repercussions in your daily life, you may opt NOT to share things.
You might connect every once in a while, but mostly you see each other in passing, say hello, be polite, be gentle. Other than that, they're not necessarily involved in your lives.
Tier 5: Acquaintances (~)
These are people who are neutral and you don’t share much with at all, good or bad. You know of each other, from a distance. If you don’t hit it off, oh well. It’s not (necessarily) a problem.
Tier 6: Blacklisters (——)
These are people who have demonstrated over and over again that they are NOT trustworthy, and they hurt more than help. They often take way too taking up way too much space in the relationship. It’s all about them, and there’s little room for your own feelings or your experiences.
When you try to speak up for what you need, you get shot down or you get dismissed, minimized, gaslit, etc. As these people are toxic, it's generally good to have strong walls up and give them minimal information.
Sometimes these people are those who used to be your closest friends, and sometimes they're family members. It's really really hard and painful in those situations, but the cost for not putting up those boundaries is that you get more and more diminished.
Emotions like resentment, guilt, shame, anxiety are all evidence that someone who belongs in the outer tiers are too close to you. Sometimes they barge in, sometimes you give them an inch and they take a mile.
They may still be valuable as human beings, so they deserve a base level of human dignity (don't be mean to them), but don't give out your personal information (including what’s going on in your life) because they might use it against you.
These are people you interact with where afterwards you feel bad about yourself or your life. THESE ARE NOT YOUR PEOPLE; GTFO.
Is everyone in their rightful tiers?
To maintain health and longevity, do an audit of your current relationships. List 10 people you often see these days, and indicate what your general interaction is like with + and —.
Tier 1 (BFFs): +++——— (can handle both strong positive and strong negative experiences):
Tier 2 (Close Friends): ++—— (similar as BFF, but not first pick)
Tier 3 (Fun Friends): ++— (mostly pleasant, but not as deep)
Tier 4 (Neighbors): +— (neutral, frequent but surface level)
Tier 5 (Acquaintances): ~ (neutral, little sharing)
Tier 6 (Blacklist): ——— (consistently negative)
Plot these individuals onto the Concentric Circles chart (download here). What do you notice?
Some questions to think of:
Are there people who have more access to you than they deserve?
If you keep experiencing more pain than good with someone (and they refuse to change), it might be time for you to bump them into outer tiers.
This does not make them lesser of a person, but just relocates them to where the relationship can actually handle the level of intimacy. When people stay closer than they’re supposed to, that increases the risk that the relationship will implode or explode, resulting in that person being sent to the Blacklist.
Find the right amount of intimacy that is sustainable.Are there some people who have demonstrated trustworthiness that you can give more access to?
Sometimes, those you never expected to be close to may become some of your closest people. Be open to trying out new levels of intimacy until you hit a limit - that might be the new equilibrium point for the next season of your life.
Changing Needs, Shifting Tiers
You may find that there are some people who kind of move back and forth between different tiers—that's totally okay!
Be open to having relationships of varying mobility. Remember, it’s not all-or-nothing.
As we change and grow in life, our needs and wants change. We need to shift our connections to match the new level of personal growth.
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!
© Copyright 2021 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
Does this resonate?
Enneagram Type Nine: What It's Like
Enneagram Type Nines (Type 9s) are other-centered people who seek comfort and focus on pleasing others, aiming to ease conflict in their lives. This tendency can lead Nines to fall out of touch with their own emotions, especially with anger. Read about what it’s like being a Type Nine from therapist Lorren Penner.
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, fellow therapist, Lorren Penner, shares what it’s like to be a Type Nine.
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 8 - Marianna Torres
What does it mean to be an Enneagram Nine?
Lovers of Comfort
My “happy place” is a crystal-clear, glass-smooth lake surrounded by tall redwood trees that block out the noise from the rest of the world, making for a quiet, truly serene environment. I want so badly for my entire life experience to match that tranquil lake scene.
This leads me to do things such as ignore my own anger in an attempt to keep my inner lake from turning into a boiling hot spring. I might also stick my head underwater for a bit when I feel something unpleasant arising, in hopes that the disturbance will have passed by when I resurface.
Other times, I might stuff my desires away when they contradict someone else’s so that a stone of conflict is not thrown into my lake, causing ripples to spread across the entire surface. I like my life to be comfortable and peaceful, making any change difficult, even when it is something that I strongly desire.
Tendency to Merge
As a peacekeeper, it is so easy for me as an Enneagram 9 to go along with everyone one else in order to not stir the pot. It is so easy that I often forget to even stop and ask myself what I want - I tell myself that all I want is for those around me to be comfortable. If they are comfortable and at peace, I am comfortable and at peace.
It’s like that saying, “happy wife - happy life,” except for 9’s it’s more like, “happy partner, family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, grocer at the supermarket, and guy passing you on the street - happy life.” Just writing that out feels a bit exhausting, but that is how I can tend to spend most of my time if I am not making an effort to tune into my own experience.
It can feel so essential to me that the people around me are taken care of that I forget about the fact that I have feelings and needs as well. If how I feel or what I want goes against the feelings or desires of those I care about it feels incredibly risky to make that fact known.
What if I upset them when I disagree?
What if they cannot accept how I feel?
What if we cannot come to a compromise?
Will this state of disagreement/conflict last forever?
Can I handle that?
If I am completely honest, it is so easy for me to go to this space. And that is when I tend to merge with everyone else because possible negative consequences of being different feel too overwhelming.
Learning how to be more authentic myself, especially when that involves disagreeing with others has taken a lot of practice. Having safe people in my life to practice with has allowed me to discover the gift of being loved and accepted.
Passive Resistance
Just thinking about my own passive resistance makes me cringe! Enneagram 9’s are generally thought of as easy-going, understanding, patient, accommodating, and the like - which we are! But, we also have a very stubborn side to us, and it usually shows up in passive resistance.
Passive resistance is my way of not being controlled by others or made to do something that I do not want to do. I might not tell you “no” outright, but you will soon come to find out that whatever it is you were hoping to have me do is NOT going to happen. Just ask my husband, he’s unfortunately been on the receiving end of this behavior more than I would like to admit.
For me, this tends to show up as taking my time to respond to a question or situation, or not giving an answer at all. On the occasion that I do have to (or choose to) do whatever it is, it looks like carrying out the task in a way that will make you regret that you even asked. See why I cringed? It’s not easy admitting to this stuff!
It is so easy to tell myself that I am a loving person because I do so much to keep others happy. But all of the things I do or do not do in order to keep the peace are for my own selfish gain - to avoid facing uncomfortable feelings.
Living authentically and being in a true community with others very often requires facing uncomfortable things. I have had to learn how to do this first for myself before I could extend this gift to others in my life. Admitting when I feel angry, sad, hurt, embarrassed, or ashamed is so hard for me to do. But it is necessary if I want to avoid inflicting those same feelings on others, intentionally or not. Being honest about my “negative” feelings with myself first gives me the freedom to choose not to act out of passive aggression and instead choose authenticity.
When did you first learn you were Enneagram 9?
I became aware of the Enneagram about four years ago while I was working at a therapy center. Everyone there seemed to be talking about it and knew exactly what they were. It was hard for me to figure out my number at first. I took a few online tests and came up with different results at first, similar to other personality tests I had taken before such a Myers-Briggs. I could identify with aspects of each number and did not really know which one was most “me.”
Once I learned that 9’s tend to identify with all of the other numbers before they identify with themselves, I was pretty sure I was a 9 since that was exactly what I had been doing. I also strongly related to being a peacekeeper and could see that throughout my life I had taken on that role in almost every setting I had been a part of, sometimes at the expense of my own sense of self.
It really hit home for me that I was, in fact, a 9 when I learned about the 9’s tendency to avoid their own anger in order to maintain a sense of inner peace. I really did not want to admit that this is something that I do. “I am accepting of everyone and every feeling,” I told myself, but when I took a deeper look I saw that anger was actually something that I avoided like the plague. Whether it was my own anger, or someone else’s, I had convenient ways of tuning out or just removing myself from the situation.
I had heard that it is often through a dislike or denial of certain aspects of your number that you can confirm what you are. The 9’s relationship with anger and tendency toward sloth did that for me. The sloth part is still something I am in a bit of denial about!
What do you wish people knew about Enneagram Type Nine?
Any little thing you do that might brush aside our preferences or ideas feels 10 times stronger than it may have been intended. Because we tend to live in a space of denying ourselves, when we are brushed aside it feels as if it really is best for the world that we do not have our own thoughts/feelings/desires. We need constant invitations and reminders to show up as ourselves and share our gifts/ideas/talents with the world. And we need you to be ok with us showing up as different than you.
We are not trying to be difficult when we say we don’t know - if we haven’t taken the time to really check in with ourselves we honestly don’t know how we are feeling or what we want or need. Our default mode is to be aware of all other perspectives and go along with everyone else. It is what feels like the best way to keep things calm and steady. We are not used to having our own agenda, so please be patient with us as we figure out what we want or how we feel.
It can be hard for us to recognize when we are tuning out our anger or acting in sloth, and we need you to be gentle with us when you call it out. It takes effort for us to connect with our own experience, and we can easily feel overwhelmed.
When we tune out or stop doing the things we need to do, we need a safe space to connect with ourselves and figure out the source of our overwhelm. A gentle acknowledgment of our experience when you see us acting out our overwhelm can help us move into processing it - harsh words will likely cause us to spiral deeper.
One Thing You’re Working on to Grow Beyond Your Type
I am working on being more tuned into myself so that I can live more authentically. I am trying to see this as a gift, not only to myself but to the world around me. When I can hold space for all of my feelings, including anger, I can choose how I want to show up in the world. When I can admit my feelings to myself and others I can have honest conversations that deepen and strengthen relationships rather than passively sabotaging them. If I am to be truly present as myself I have to include all of my feelings and desires.
Keeping the peace at the cost of showing up authentically with all of me is not really keeping the peace, it is putting up a facade. Things might look peaceful, and they might even feel that way for a bit, but the turmoil is still there.
In order to create true peace, I have to be brave and face the things that scare me. I have to accept that peace does not mean my inner lake is never disturbed, but that I can be ok even when the water gets rough.
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?
© Copyright 2021 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
Does this resonate?
Juggling Too Many Balls? Which to Keep and Which to Drop
Juggling many tasks and responsibilities is HARD. Prioritize tasks before making irreparable mistakes by identifying which of these juggled “balls” are made of rubber, glass, or wood.
Two Hands, but Too Many Responsibilities
As a solopreneur private practice therapist, running my own business while redesigning my website, branding, and attending to other to-dos can be overwhelming. Having so much to juggle, I find myself confused about priorities and which tasks need my attention first.
LOTS of my clients have the same problem—so much to juggle! From working moms, single parents, full-time workers, ministry leaders, and more, attending to all of these responsibilities is HARD, especially for people who serve as the main pillars of their home and supporting the whole family. It can be so so easy to forget yourself in the midst of all the hurry.
Many of my clients are particularly susceptible to neglecting themselves when the responsibilities pile on. As mostly Enneagram Types 1, 2, 4, and 9, Highly Sensitive People (HSP), and caretakers, my clients have a tendency of attending to the needs of OTHERS before their own, until they hit burnout or build a lot of resentment.
Sound like you?
This brief mind exercise can help you assess all you have to juggle and quickly determine which items will break or bounce and which ones to drop altogether — giving you the tool to prioritize what matters most and tend to your own needs.
Juggling in a Crisis
In times of crisis, juggling responsibilities can be even harder. If you’ve been having a harder time managing everything during COVID-19, you are NOT alone. During the pandemic, we’ve encountered numerous changes to our daily lives, adding more balls for us to juggle. And the pandemic is NOT the only crisis.
A crisis can be any drastic change to stress levels, such as a death in the family, a new baby, loss of a job, putting more on your plate. When we encounter a crisis, we MUST switch gears on how we operate. We can’t keep running at the same speed while taking on more tasks and making more adjustments.
If you try to juggle all the balls, you WILL drop some (or most). Decide which ones you could afford to drop before the juggling decides FOR you.
Rubber, Glass, or Wood?
Imagine that you are a juggler handling lots of balls, where each ball reflects a particular task or responsibility. More and more balls get added to the act when you encounter a crisis. Some things that get added don’t matter as much, but since there is so much movement in the mix, you don’t notice exactly which ones hold less importance.
Discerning whether a ball is made of RUBBER, GLASS, or WOOD is key.
RUBBER BALLS
These are tasks or aspects that DO matter, but they have some resilience/sturdiness or are able to be outsourced. Even if you drop these, they’ll bounce back and be fine.
Example #1: your kids’ grades during the pandemic.
In normal times, you might help your kids with homework, sign them up for extra-curricular activities, etc., but during a crisis, academics may be less urgent. Their grades are STILL important, but there are ways to attend to them LATER; they can afford to wait.
When the dust settles with the pandemic, you can catch up on these needs through tutoring or remedial work.
Example #2: FINANCES
So many people I’ve worked with have built an emergency fund only to NOT use it, because they’re so used to minimizing their own struggles and downplaying their own needs.
Emergency funds are useless if you’re dead. If you feel like you’re DROWNING, perhaps NOW is precisely the time to tap into that! When you feel like you can BREATHE again, then replenish that rainy day fund.
Example #3: WORK
I work in the Silicon Valley with tons of people who put their careers center stage. I’ve seen people make huge sacrifices for their career goals and become miserable.
Work may SEEM like work is absolutely essential, but what good is making a lot of money if you can’t ever use it? WHY are you working? What are you working FOR?
Do check to see whether you’re pushing yourself so hard because you feel like there’s no other option. Panic brain is a TERRIBLE consultant in isolation (think “Fear” from Inside Out). Your industry or professional field may also have vested interests in telling you, “You better _____, OR ELSE.”
When your body shuts down from slaving away for 60+ hours a week and you’re lying on a hospital bed, don’t be surprised if your coworkers and boss (who are slaves themselves) don’t show up. Show up for the people in your life who will ALSO show up for YOU.
GLASS BALLS
Glass balls are tasks that really matter and will NOT bounce back if dropped; they are not resilient and sturdy, and they are irreplaceable. They might get scuffed up or scratched, sometimes cracking, other times shattering altogether.
It is extremely difficult (and costly) if not impossible to repair damaged glass balls. Best to never drop them at all.
Example #1: Your Health
You have ONE body, ONE brain, and ONE heart. Take care of your physical, mental, and emotional health. When any of these give out, you’re DONE.
Don’t think you’re saving money by not paying the copay for physical check-ups. You might miss the chance to do something about a condition that’s totally treatable early on, but that might become severe or terminal when left unaddressed.
(The same applies to your mental/emotional health, btw. The consequences of burnout, depression, or anxiety is MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE than therapy, y’all.)
Example #2: Your RELATIONSHIPS
No one ever PLANS on getting divorced when they get married. It HAPPENS because many signs were ignored. Statistically speaking, most couples reach out for couples therapy SEVEN YEARS TOO LATE. By the time they sit down on the therapist’s couch, their relationship is so far gone that it’ll take a miracle for them to work through all the pain, strain, and blame.
Don’t assume your loved ones will continue to give you a break when you cancel on them. Don’t make it so that NO ONE shows up while you’re lying on a hospital bed except to maybe ask you for the Netflix password.
WOOD BALLS
Rubber balls are important, but NOT urgent. Glass balls are BOTH important AND urgent. Wood balls are neither important NOR urgent. They’re just CLUTTER - things that got thrown into your juggle cycle because you couldn’t pay attention to what it was and didn’t screen for it.
Examples?
Helping a friend gather signatures for a petition that doesn’t matter to you but you didn’t want to hurt their feelings by saying no.
The third book club that you signed up for because you had FOMO.
Responding to every single email to get the satisfaction of hitting email zero.
Spending hours on Amazon because it’s Prime Day.
What do you do with wood balls? If you feel overwhelmed and frenetic, this is not the time to also juggle wood balls. DROP THEM. NOW.
When you feel rested and are able to move at a leisurely pace - that’s the time for you to (consider) playing with wood balls again.
DISTINGUISH THE THREE!
Take some time to discern what you’re juggling. Here’s a past blog to help prioritize tasks and some reflection questions.
HOW MANY balls are you juggling right now? Write a list of all the things that you’re carrying.
How many balls are RUBBER? (Which are resilient - can afford to take a hit and can bounce back)? (color: pink)
How many balls are GLASS? (Which could be permanently impacted if dropped or are difficult to repair?) (color: blue)
How many balls are WOOD? (Which don’t make a difference if you forget them?) (color: brown)
What are some glass balls that fell to the floor and need to be repaired?
Which rubber or wood balls SEEM like glass? Which can you drop NOW?
If you find that most/all of them seem like glass balls, decide which 3 things are absolutely essential - these are your glass balls. Treat the rest as if they’re rubber. If you carry too many grocery bags at once, you WILL drop them. So PICK which two bags to carry FIRST.
The BIG Feelings First Aid Kit
Messy feelings spilling out at the WRONG TIME, WRONG PLACE, WRONG WAY?
Grab this free PDF guide that shows you how to handle feelings like a pro so that you can keep moving forward in life!
© Copyright 2021 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
Does this resonate?
Reverse Bucket List: Recording Wins to Build Momentum
You’ve heard of the Bucket List. How often do you look at such a list and think, “I’ll never get there”? Well, we can actually BUILD motivation and momentum by going the opposite direction with the REVERSE Bucket List!
Only Noticing the Disappointments?
As we stray further and further from the start of the year, we might find ourselves reflecting on the goals we set—a new job, stronger relationships—you name it. If you’ve kept up with that—congrats! But the majority of us fizzle out quickly, losing energy with every new complication life throws at us.
When we lose energy with our goals, it can be easy to fall into routine thoughts. “I’ll never change” or “I don’t even know why I try.”
Sound familiar? That cycle of shame feeds off of this feeling of being “stuck,” unable to make changes and reach our goals. Some ways we’ve talked about healing this thought process is to view your “cycle” as an upward-moving spiral or to set new intentions rather than goals. Today’s post will work a little like this. It’s all about recognizing changes you’ve already made with a Reverse Bucket List.
What’s on Your Reverse Bucket List?
You probably know the bucket list—it’s that list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket.” We’re all familiar with it, but most people don’t check off their bucket list items. Those goals are FAR-OFF, UNCLEAR, DISTANT, or NOT ACTIONABLE—all factors that make it hard to take action and make changes.
Bucket lists aren’t very helpful because they’re based in a DISTANT future—so distant that we might not have any intention to take the necessary steps to attain these things.
Instead, the REVERSE bucket list goes in the other direction. While the bucket list points to the future, the reverse bucket list points to the PAST up into the present. It helps us RECOGNIZE our past achievements and moments we are proud of so we can notice changes. When we work on acknowledging small change, it helps us appreciate our forward movement, even when life feels at a standstill.
How to Use the Reverse Bucket List
Follow these instructions to help you get started on your reverse bucket list and use the example as a guide!
Divide a piece of paper into two columns where the right column is wider than the left column.
Pick a starting point in the past. (A standard starting point is from one year ago.) Write the month and year at the top of the left column.
Fill in the rest of the left column with the month and year working from the starting point all the way back to this month and year.
As best as you can remember, jot down all the things you achieved and all the things you are proud of for each month. Nothing is too small to include here! (E.g., “I declined extra work from my boss this month” or “I expressed my anxiety by writing a poem.”)
You don’t have to follow this list chronologically. Jump around and fill in the months you recall easily, bounce back and forth between months, fill in the reverse bucket list whichever way fits you best.
Keep adding to this list every month! As this month comes to a close, ask yourself, “What did I accomplish this month? What am I PROUD of? What CHANGES did I make? What did I do well? What good habits did I maintain?”
I keep a reverse bucket list in my phone’s “Notes” app and add to it continuously. That way, I can recall the list as a reminder anytime I need to—highly recommended!
Drawing Strength from the Reverse Bucket List
Most of my clients have a habit of giving credit to OTHERS without giving much credit to THEMSELVES. They are self-critical individuals who struggle to recognize their own changes and accomplishments. The reverse bucket list intends to remind such people that you have had a lot of FORWARD movement even when things feel like they are the same.
When you make small (even unconscious) changes throughout life, it can be hard to notice the impact they have, and you can still get caught in that “shame cycle” mindset. But the reverse bucket list helps record those micromovements and can serve as a reminder of changes when you feel stuck at different points in life.
Want help with your emotions?
Grab your 9-page free guide, “How to Work with BIG Feelings: Anger, Sadness, & Fear”
© Copyright 2021 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
Does this resonate?
Bridge Exercise: Escaping "Stuckness"
Feeling stuck in life? Not sure how to get to where you want to be? Tap into your brain's ability to ideate solutions through the Bridge Exercise!
Feeling Stuck and Uninspired?
In another blog, I talked about feeling STUCK and discontent with life, wanting to make changes but not sure where to start. To combat it, we focused on taking ACTION through concrete steps and deadlines, but that might be an overwhelming starting point for some people.
Instead, the Bridge Exercise provides a new way to push for changes by VISUALIZING challenges we face and what can help us overcome them.
The Bridge Exercise
The Bridge Exercise is a tool to help you quickly understand where you are now, where you’d like to be, and what’s in the way of that, similar to the post on Taking Action. Instead of focusing on bite-sized steps though, the Bridge Exercise functions VISUALLY, encouraging you to tap into your emotions to find your challenges.
To complete the activity, divide a landscape piece of paper into the sections like the following image, or download and print the PDF handout.
Bridge Exercise Steps
Without using words or symbols, you will depict different areas of your life on the piece of paper. Use anything you have on hand—markers, watercolors, pens—feel free to get as creative as you want!
In part 1, depict where you are in the PRESENT. In which areas of life do you feel stuck? What does this look like? What does it feel like? What might that look like visually? (Remember: there are no wrong answers!)
(E.g., a person may feel stuck in their current relationship. Maybe they fight often, leaving them ridden with anxiety and guilt, or that their sensitivity is not respected, leaving them unfulfilled.)
In part 2, envision where you’d like to be in the future. What does that vision hold for you? What does it have that your present does not have? What emotions does this future evoke?
(E.g., that same person may envision a relationship with balance and reciprocation where both parties matter.)
In part 3, picture what seems to be in the way of the future you envision. What are the obstacles, blocks, and gaps from reaching this future?
(E.g., this person might be stuck in a one-sided relationship, feeling stuck in a shame cycle, and finding it difficult to find balance.)
Lastly, in part 4, “the bridge,” think about what connects part 1 (where you are now) to part 2 (where you want to be) by getting over part 3 (the blockade). Are there SOLUTIONS to overcoming these obstacles? What might those solutions look like?
(E.g., the solution could be a new relationship or building boundaries that work towards radical candor or a strong, balanced relationship.
Applying the Bridge Exercise
This exercise helps us think about our obstacles and solutions without overwhelming us with tasks. It works as a preliminary step to finding the reasons for feeling stuck and the changes needed to find solutions and take action. Visualizing obstacles and solutions is a vital step for improving relationships, identifying idleness in work lives, and realizing other uninspiring aspects of life that can use your attention and recharging. When you’re ready to take action, head over to the Taking Action post to help you get started.
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!
© Copyright 2022 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
Does this resonate?
How to Get UNSTUCK from DISCONTENT
Feeling stuck and dissatisfied with life? Use this vision exercise so that you can break out of the swamp of discontent and break down big, abstract dreams into concrete, bite-sized actionable steps.
Complacent with Feeling Dissatisfied?
Have you found yourself settling for your current job or relationship? Maybe you feel detached but not quite unhappy enough to make a change.
You might be STUCK in a sense of idleness, comfortable with the security even when you feel uninspired or dissatisfied.
You might get stuck in the meaningless monotony because you undervalue your own talent or capacity for meaningful life or overly accept messages that you don’t matter or don’t deserve better or can’t do great things.
You might escape or get lost in fantasy rather than actually taking concrete action steps to make these ideals a reality. You may sigh wistfully and think, “That must be nice,” and then chug away at the same-old, same-old.
Your fear of the unknown might overwhelm you and tell you to play it safe. What’s toxic but familiar might feel more manageable than what’s awesome but unfamiliar. Even though the current situation sucks, at least you know what’s coming.
You might have tried taking action in the past, but were told, “It’s unrealistic.” “How are you going to make a living?" “Grow up. You can’t always do things you like.” (Not realizing that sometimes other people project their OWN bitterness, head trash, and grief,) You fold up that bright vision board, tuck it inside a journal, place it back on the shelf. After a few years, your mind forgets, but your heart doesn’t, and every once in a while you feel the agitated pull towards that SOMETHING that seems so distant but oh so lovely and familiar.
You may not know exactly WHAT to change in your life and HOW, but THAT you long for something different - that’s a great place to be! I’ll walk you through an exercise I do with my clients in therapy to help you crystalize your grand ideals, make them concrete and actionable, and map out your quest to make it all happen.
Spoiler Alert: the condensed version of this exercise is FEEL, then THINK, then DO.
CONTAIN: Set a Final Deadline.
When I’m working with someone who is so stuck in their life, work, or relationships, I start with one simple question:
Can you see yourself being in the exact same place TWO YEARS from now?
If the answer is, “Meh, I think I can hang in there for a few more years,” then it’s as if they can AFFORD to settle and putter around for longer. Then my follow up question is:
Can you see yourself being in the exact same place FIVE YEARS from now?
If the answer is, “HELL NO!!” to either of the two questions, then we have a final deadline - the absolute point of no return they NEVER, EVER want to reach if they can do anything about it.
Bump up the timeline from five years to three years, etc. until you find the threshold of dissatisfaction, the point at which you notice negative emotions. (Contrary to public opinion, emotions like nausea 🤢🤮, anger 🤬, fear/dread 😨 are very useful signals to what the hard deadline is.)
Once there’s a hard deadline, NOW you can reverse engineer to defining the concrete, doable action steps you can start taking in present day.
NOTE: If the answer is even the five-year question is still “Meh, yes,” we might have a different issue altogether. Maybe emotions of shame 😞, guilt 😔, or numbness 😑 might be on hyperdrive, so that those might have to get addressed first before doing this exercise. Maybe your outlook on life is one where you’re supposed to just “hang in there” or not have any desires or needs. If this is the case, professional therapy would be a good call.
DREAM BIG. Like, REAL BIG.
Now that you have a deadline, let’s figure out the destination.
If _______ years from now you were EXACTLY where you WANT to be, what would your ideal life/job/relationship look like?
Brainstorm a list of words (in no particular order) or scribble with colors until you run out of things to put on paper. These could even be things that seem silly or “out there” - that’s the point!!
For the purposes of this exercise, DON’T put any restrictions on yourself. Too often, people prematurely judge, censor, or edit their dreams and vision so that they shoot the baby in the cradle.
Don’t settle and do more of the same (you’ll end up in the same spot). Give yourself PERMISSION to imagine BEYOND what seems within your reach, what’s DIFFERENT from how things are now.
If you’re feeling stuck, practice connecting with your EMOTIONS, which are directly connected to your deepest, legitimate needs. What needs to show up in your life so that you feel FREE? INVIGORATED? BELONGING? AT PEACE?
NOTE: Sometimes our daydreams and fantasies reveal what we need in ways that our thinking brain won’t allow ourselves to connect with. What scenarios or images do you tend to daydream or fantasize about?
Pull that vision chart you tucked into your shelf. Ignore all other critics - they’ve gotten a lot of airtime already.
Map Out Your Path
After you’ve exhausted your imagination and ideas, pick 1-3 things that you really want (these may be abstract or concrete). On a new sheet of paper (sometimes I use a big whiteboard) write:
Destination (2-5 years)
In ____ YEARS, I want:
To live in a city that’s close to national parks.
To upgrade my friendships (1-2 close friends, 5-7 social friends)
To choose a career path where I get to be energized and creative, not monotonous and meaningless.
Milestone (1 year)
The vision is set and nonnegotiable, but HOW you practically get there is still up in the air. NOW is the time to bring back the critics (treat them as CONSULTANTS - ultimately, you’re the boss!) so that they can help you build a concrete action plan around these visions.
In order to implement my visions, ONE YEAR from now, I need to:
Create a list of 2-4 different cities in the US that might be potential places to live, visiting at least one of them.
Create distance/boundaries with Friends X and Y. Create 1-2 new friendships.
Research 3-5 career options that involve creativity and spontaneity. Narrow list down to 1-2 options at the end of the year.
Consider SMART goals, or goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Sensitive.
Create Actionable Steps
Keep breaking these down into smaller and more manageable steps.
Checkpoint (3 Months - 1 quarter)
In order to implement my goals, THREE MONTHS from now, I need to:
Book a 1-week trip sometime this year to one of these cities.
Find a therapist who’s a great fit and learn more about my relationship patterns.
Pick one career option and do extensive research on what’s involved (grad school, relocation, etc.).
Benchmark (1 Month)
In order to implement my projects, ONE MONTH from now, I need to:
Pick a city I’ve always dreamed about living in and research what it’s like to live there (cost of living, public transportation, demographics).
Try at least 2-3 sessions with a new therapist.
Meet up with 1-2 people who’ve successfully changed their careers and are happy and thriving. Reach out to a career coach.
Step (1 week)
Don’t include these items on the board, but rather on sticky notes, since you’ll be going through a LOT of them over the year. Tasks should be bite-sized no-brainers, actions you can take within 5-10 minutes.
In order to implement my assignments, ONE WEEK from now, I need to:
Start saving $300 per month in a travel fund. Brainstorm some cities I’m intrigued in.
Read a blog about finding a therapist and clarify what I need. Contact 1-3 therapists.
Ask around for recommendations for a career coach or someone who’s changed careers. Contact them.
TAKE ACTION!
The short summary of this exercise is FEEL (dream), THINK (plan), then DO (action). You’ve done the first two already (by connecting with your emotions/needs and your consultants), so the next thing now is to DO THE TASKS!
No more hemming and hawing, dragging your feet, or making excuses. If you find yourself stuck again, chances are your tasks are actually assignments or projects (i.e., they could be broken down into even smaller steps.) Break it down into bite-size, then DO THE THINGS!
As you repeat this process every week (tasks), month (assignments), quarter (projects), and year (goal), you’ll find yourself actually closer to making your 2-5 year vision a reality.
No more waiting and being stuck!! Let’s get to it!!
If you’re needing help (or a switch kick in the tush), check out therapy or coaching!
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!
© Copyright 2021 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
Does this resonate?
Radical Candor: Balancing Regard for Self and Others
Do you feel like your needs don’t matter, despite how much you do for others? Learn how to move towards radical candor, a relationship stance that creates room in the relationship big enough for both yourself and others.
Healthy Relationships Start with BALANCE
Connection with others varies from person to person. Sometimes you give more to the relationship, sometimes you might give less. Sometimes the relationship exists without much contribution from either party.
But the strongest relationships form when BOTH you and the other person make room for BOTH of your needs & wants. One person is not inherently more important than the other.
What makes this reciprocity possible? The ability to clearly and directly advocate for yourself while considering the well-being of both yourself and the other — what Kim Scott calls “Radical Candor”.
In this book, Scott outlines the four types of relationships defined by the balance or imbalance of self and others.
The 4 Relationship Quadrants
Kim Scott illustrates the four relationship types in an XY grid, where the X-axis represents care or regard for the self, and the Y-axis represents care or regard for others. When relationships have an imbalance of care for yourself or others, it can create relationships with conflict, resentment, shame, and inauthenticity. Learning which quadrants on the graph your relationships fall into can help you pinpoint areas to work on in order to achieve a balanced relationship that actively creates enough space for BOTH yourself and others.
Obnoxious Aggression
This relationship type falls into the bottom-right quadrant, reflecting a relationship with high regard for the self and little regard for others.
Characteristics:
Bully types or bossy.
Steamroll through relationships.
Don’t take feedback (e.g., disregard feedback or refuse to listen to feedback).
Unnecessarily aggressive (e.g., seem to look for challenges or accidentally challenge others often).
Rely on their power over others.
Tips for Reaching Radical Candor:
Learn how to consider others/increase care for others. (E.g., practice reflecting on how others may interpret your words and tone. Will saying X hurt their feelings?)
Directly ask for feedback and respond to it for course-correction. (E.g., invite others to give you feedback. “How could I have addressed this better?” Consciously listen and implement feedback.)
Understand others are different from you. (E.g., not everyone has the ability to know their own needs as well as you do. Give people the space to understand theirs and feel safe to ask for your support.)
Don’t expect others to act as you do. (E.g., a person may not be able to stand up for themselves as you can.)
Manipulative Insincerity
This quadrant lies in the bottom left of the graph, depicting a relationship with regard for neither the self or others.
Characteristics:
Gossipers.
Show up in certain circles but do something else entirely different behind the scenes. (E.g., fulfills work roles adequately on the surface and disrupts working relationships with gossip amongst co-workers.)
Very surprising or mysterious. (E.g., others usually can tell where these people stand and their insincerity is not a complete shock. You can probably think of a few people like this in your workplace or social circles right now.)
Hard to read.
Interacting with these people might tense up the body.
Have a plastered/plastic smile with no “evidence” of what they are doing wrong. (E.g., appear friendly but inauthentic, and it is unclear why they appear inauthentic because there is no evidence of it.)
Use power indirectly. (E.g., guilt-tripping, gossiping, making fun of others, challenging the character of others, dismissive, etc.)
Tips for Reaching Radical Candor:
Learn how to be direct with communication. (E.g., avoid using indirect means of power like guilt-tripping and dismissiveness.)
Learn how to state their own needs.
Honor and respect the other person. (People are different from each other and each deserves respect.)
Give information directly to avoid confusion or self-doubt from other parties. (E.g., instead of guilt-tripping a roommate to help with chores, tell them you need help maintaining the house upkeep.)
Ruinous Empathy
This person falls into the top left quadrant, where a person gives too much emphasis to others and not enough to the self. Most of my clients fall into this quadrant.
Characteristics:
Filled with guilt, anxiety, shame.
Have an allergic reaction to anger/highly sensitive people.
Overdo their empathy. (Empathy CAN be overdone and is not automatically a good thing.)
Empathy goes too far and leaves no room for the self.
On the surface, they are kind, serving, empathetic people, but this happens with an engine of shame behind the scenes. (E.g., shame may motivate a person to serve others because they feel like they are not enough.)
Overly extending self to others leads to burnout easily and creates a shame spiral. (E.g., “I should be able to do better,” self-judgment for “selfishness.”)
Can cultivate resentment when there is not enough time for oneself. (Resentment often shows up with guilt, and people may have a difficult time noticing and/or acknowledging this.)
Tips for Reaching Radical Candor:
Must learn how to care for themselves as much as others. (This will feel selfish at first because you’ve been trained to center on others, but it is NOT selfish, it’s SELF-CARING. In order to deeply care for others well, you must care for yourself; otherwise, acts are tainted with resentment, guilt, and shame.)
Practice anger. (Let yourself feel angry and hurt. These emotions are not selfish to have.)
Practice self-care and self-compassion.
Do things that at first trigger a sense of guilt and shame—this indicates you are going in the right direction. (E.g., be honest about your needs and explain to your loved ones when they do something that upsets you. This will trigger a sense of guilt/shame at first, but these are necessary steps for balancing your relationship and moving into radical candor.)
Radical Candor
This is the ideal place for a relationship. In the top-right quadrant, this represents an equal balance between the self and others.
Characteristics:
Able to create balance where you know others matter just as much as you do, and you matter just as much as others.
Are able to speak up for their own needs.
Speaking the truth kindly but directly.
Intentionally addresses issues instead of skirting around problems.
Reaching Radical Candor
Moving into the quadrant of radical candor can be very difficult for some people. Being assertive about your own needs can be scary if you have trouble putting yourself out there or if you are scared of the negative reactions from others, but it is necessary work for strong relationships. When you consciously and directly address issues in the relationship or clearly communicate your needs, you give the other person a chance to repair and address these issues and needs. Waiting for others to fulfill needs and address issues that you skirt around or avoid speaking about lays the groundwork for an imbalanced relationship and resentment.
As you navigate your work and social life in the coming weeks, evaluate your relationships and see if you can identify which quadrant(s) you fall into. Is there a balance between yourself and others? From there, you can work towards achieving radical candor in your relationships.
The BIG Feelings First Aid Kit
Messy feelings spilling out at the WRONG TIME, WRONG PLACE, WRONG WAY?
Grab this free PDF guide that shows you how to handle feelings like a pro so that you can keep moving forward in life!
© Copyright 2021 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, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
See how the Enneagram and genogram reveal trauma, boundaries, and generational patterns in families like the Bridgertons — and maybe yours too!