Enneagram Types & Therapy

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

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

Panelists:

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

• Eden Hyder, LPC, LCMHC-QS (Type 2)

• Leslie Bley, LPC-S (Type 6)

• Joanne Kim, LMFT (Type 4)

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

Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That makes sense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boundaries & Burdens: Navigating Shame & Stability in Enneagram Twos

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whitney Russell Stabile (Enneagram 1): echo chamber.

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

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

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

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

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

That is really a good statement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I would be curious to know what you see.

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

And I think that I've seen that barrier.

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

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

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

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

But I think there's a conflict there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Each moment for what it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): for sure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you guys see?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that, that's really helpful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panelists:

• Eden Hyder (Type 2)

• Stephanie Cross (Type 2)

• Jordin James (Type 3)

• Amanda Nagy (Type 3)

• Joanne Kim (Type 4)

• Boonie Sripom (Type 4)

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

Transcript

Real-Life Stories of Growth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can you talk a little bit about that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay. Let's transition now to Boonie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): Do I sound like him? Like when he talks about stuff?

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): No, he's we think he's a type eight. So it's really interesting, seeing kind of the differences and we're gonna have a parenting panel on the summit here.

And we'll be talking about kind of our children and you know, what types we think they may be. You can't always type your kids too young for sure. But I just knowing the Enneagram now for a while, and my son's 10, we think he's an eight. So it's really interesting seeing, some of the, the autism traits and then also the type eight traits.

And how they mingle together. It's very, very interesting. So I'll be talking a little bit more about that on the parenting panel, but I forgot the video that you mentioned. And I just remembered it's the how to defend yourself video that I saw on YouTube. Explain why you, you did that video. Because I think it's, I think it's really important. You said you might not have been in the most healthy space or something like that.

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): No, I was not.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): But I, I saw it as a positive thing when I saw it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to have Boonie say that. So what, what do you mean by how, like how you were advocating to others to defend themselves? Like, how have you felt like you needed to defend yourself?

Breaking Free: Embracing Self-Acceptance and Letting Go of Misunderstood Perceptions

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): And so identity is a really big thing for me because I want it reflected meaningfully through the relationships that we have. and the mirroring that I get in this world. It's incongruent in certain ways because if I say something or if I present a certain way and someone will look at me or say something, it's like, that's not congruent to how I see myself.

But if someone's joking about me with my autistic, like, traits or the things that I like, all of a sudden, wow, this world is completely different. And now it's kind of like a shattering of my perspective because Why is it so different? Why is mock me being mocked? Why is it made fun of so much? Or even the people in my life who were part of my life, the things that I did do and like, they were embarrassed to be around me because it was so abnormal.

And so there are these things where I was just trying to explain for me as a five wing cognition is very important to me. I try to explain my thought process so people can pick that up and be like, okay, you have a reason for liking the things that you like. Okay. Just because I don't understand that doesn't mean it's wrong.

It's just now I understand the thought process. That makes more sense. All I ever wanted to explain was the logic behind something. But because people considered it, instead of me explaining who I am, they consider it defensive. It's like now I'm being perceived as defensive instead of trying to stand firm in who I am and explain where I'm coming from.

And that would be such an incredible wounding that it would make me withdraw so often. And it's like this constant in and out process of again, the Tiredness of trying to take up space when you were afraid that someone's going to misinterpret what you say or do. And so, um, I reached this limit of I'm sure many people here have reached a limit.

I'm so sick of shit. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. And so like, what am I doing wrong or what's happening here? And so you're like, okay, what's the big thing? Being defensive, people feeling a certain type of way about your worldview and your sensory systems, and just needing to withdraw, but they're interpreting as you being egotistical, better than them, using certain language to represent yourself, and now, again, the mismatch of perception and identity, it's like, I'm so tired of this, and so the limit is like, who is allowed to receive the descriptions of who you are. Who deserves to understand the inner workings of your mind and your heart? Not everybody does. And I finally had the big light bulb go off, like, this is not working. They don't deserve this. They're never going to get it. And that's where Enneagram work, personality work comes in too.

Are they actually going to get it? Yes or no. And so the separation becomes very clear of like, oh, I don't have to explain. They're not going to get it. Like I'm free. I'm so free. And so I can go somewhere else where I can refill my cup. Like they get it. These spaces where I feel free to have joy and just be seen as who I am, like all these people, I'm sure we're going to come to the same conclusion just as we are, right?

And so there's again more space to not react of, they don't need to understand. Why am I chasing them? Why do I keep on chasing the wrong people trying to explain who I am when they don't get it, you know? And so that's part of it. And I know a lot of neurodivergent people, we will get stuck in that trap because our, we don't even understand our brains.

Most of us don't. We follow the TikToks, we follow the memes, but a lot of us don't really get the mechanisms happening. So there's like the body part component too, which I'm just going to recommend. Please go seek out occupational therapists. They will help too. Just, okay. I think I'm done. I'm done.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That was so helpful and so important, um, to teach others advocate to defend themselves and for us to pick up that torch, say, Hey, we want to defend you.

Me and my wife are constantly defending our son against neighbors. And people who don't understand him mis, misinterpret his actions. And cause you shouldn't have to do that for yourself. We talk a lot about this when it, when it comes to, people of color in, in majority white spaces. It's like they get super tired of having to constantly defend themselves.

Advocate for the issues when we can step up and we can defend and we can advocate and we can be an ally. I think the same thing is true with like autism, as well, especially, I've noticed like in movies, TV shows, there's certain traits that show up when there's like an a character who has autism.

And if they, if you don't have those kinds of common traits and people might not pick up on it. And those misinterpret all your actions, you know, like Zeke is an eight is very loud. He's full of life and he's just all over the place. So, you know, when he comes in the room as an eight, but in people, but then he still has those social interaction.

They think cues that he misses all the time. And so he, he doesn't pick, he thinks that people are constantly betraying him that are, they're constantly looking at him funny. And then that just agitates him. And then it causes, you know, an unhealthy social interaction. And then other people would draw from him.

He's constantly losing friends. So we're constantly trying to help people understand him, advocate for him, defend him. And so we just need to all do a better job of doing that for our friends and family members. So, thanks Boonie. I really, really loved hearing from you. It was moving on. I think Amanda, we need to go to you as a three, go, go back to three here.

I, missed you there on the, on the list. So can we, can you unmute yourself and share a little bit of your story?

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): Sure. Um, trying to think of like the way to sum up my experience. Cause I feel like Most of my teenage and adulthood life has been struggling with mental health issues. My childhood, I was pretty easy go, performer, entertainer, loved everybody.

And it wasn't until my adult years when like a bomb went off. Um, and I definitely think in hindsight that my issues with depression, Suicide ideation, anxiety, um, eating disorder, food addiction, body dysmorphia, um, and later diagnosed ADHD had a lot to do with being a one on one, uh, three. So image being.

Beautiful having the body type or the dress or any of those things that society valued was so what I was obsessed with that, um, and not being able to ever measure up. Uh, it just imploded on me. Um, I couldn't get skinny enough. I couldn't be pretty enough. I couldn't, uh, wear the right clothes. I couldn't have that, like walk into a room and everybody look at me kind of like fantasy that I wanted to get some kind of value, um, Imploded at that time, and it just kind of kept going into my 20s and 30s.

It wasn't until my later 30s and into my early 40s that I finally started getting some insights and ahas and making connections. And just like Jordin was mentioning, I was going to figure it out myself. It was like. I, we taught my talking to my dad, who's also a three. And I was like, I think it was in my twenties where I was like, okay, I'm really tired of this and I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to fix myself.

And I'm going to have that moment, just like Jordin talked about that moment of being like, here I am. I'm healed. I'm confident. I have value come admire me. And of course that never happened and it won't happen the way I imagine it. Anyways. So that comparing to other people, the competing, I had no interest in being valedictorian or being president of a club or the best athlete, but I definitely wanted to be a attractive, magnetic, charismatic girl. Um, and I moved around a lot. And so it was the, the standard, the expectation was always changing. So it depended on where I lived, what community we were a part of. Um, and then when you're in a religious community and a secular community, then there's like, okay, how am I supposed to present myself?

In this one and then in this one and then when you get into the work world as an adult, you have religious community and personal community and work community. And it just, I didn't realize that that was, I was doing was this constant, like, trying to measure up to all these different environments I was in.

I think my success in getting through a lot of that was my ADHD masking. I think it helped me keep pushing through instead of just imploding on myself. The shame was obviously present. I didn't like it. And it was like, I'm going to figure this out. Where's this coming from? So constant exploration.

And interestingly enough, when I got into teaching and I was teaching life skills and then school counseling, and so I was counseling other high school students, kind of similar issues, you know, I was seeing things in other people, um, and it was like that. I'm going to, I'm going to. Help fix you. And maybe I can fix myself in that process.

But the ADHD thing was a total, like did not see that coming. I was just recently diagnosed at 42. That was definitely a huge gut punch. It was a, I don't know who I am. I really don't know who I am. And so it's a lot of grieving, a lot of grieving, a lot of anger. Interestingly enough, I found that most of the grief came from feeling like I missed out on years where I could have accomplished something.

Like had I known I had ADHD and I couldn't have medication and therapy and help in my twenties, my teens and twenties, I could have done so much more with my life. Like that was what I was struggling with and also the frustration of wanting to accomplish more, but the anxiety or the ADHD or, the depression like held me back from a lot of the things that I wanted to do.

Like I wanted to go do this. I wanted to, you know, be in this position or be in the spotlight for this, but it kind of was always that voice that was like, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but, um, so there's a lot of frustration there. That push to want to perform and get value that way, but also retreating because the shame and the image and what if I can't.

And so it was this, this crazy cycle that I went through and I'm still going through working on finding value and just being me. Like, I don't have to be pretty, I don't have to be put together, I don't have to have the latest fashion, I don't have to be the best daughter, the best wife, the best friend, if I just existed.

I have worth and value and that still is really hard for me to wrap my head around. So that's where I kind of try to show up and be the best performer at is just being the favorite friend, the favorite, you know, I always tell my husband, I want to be the trophy wife for you. That would be the best thing.

I struggled with emotional eating and binge eating. And so I got quite heavy and that was very hard for me as an image conscious person, because I didn't even feel like I had worth being out in public, like as an ugly obese person, you should not have to look at me. I'm just taking up space. And so that was another like mental thing to work through.

And so I eventually was getting healthy, working out. Of course I took that too far as a three. You know, I was feeling good and accomplishing and I would get my kicks out of telling people that I got up at two 30 every morning and worked out for an hour and a half for five years until my body was like, you're done.

So yeah, so it was just in hindsight, I can just see it. Plainly out there that it was mostly that intimate one on one kind of needing to have that value in my world, whether it was my peers or my parents or friends or all those kinds of things that kind of pushed me.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thank you, Amanda. I love that you echoed Jordin's comments about I'm going to fix myself because as a three, we just need to keep hearing that, like we, we need should fix ourselves because it is rather embarrassing, to say that we are not six, not having success. We're seeing a successful, and I appreciated you, talking about your subtype that you're a sexual or one to one, three.

That's big. And that really does provide some really, uh, insight into mental health or mental health struggles, because I know the sexual three, more so than the achievements, like you said, the social threes are really into the, the success, symbols, status statuses. But for sexual three, you're really gonna want to craft desirable qualities or craft a desirable image to make others.

Once you more to desire you more. And so I can totally see how that would lend itself to really thinking a lot about body image, exercising, like doing all that you can to sort of craft the perfect image for your loved ones or the people that you really want to attract, did you feel like, and I know Beatrice chestnut teaches that a lot of times sexual threes for women, they want it to be the most like feminine, they want to fit into that feminine box that called the culture, the majority culture wants.

And then for men to fit into that masculine, boxes, did you feel a little bit of that?

Chasing an Ideal: Navigating Body Image and Identity in the Shadow of a Gentle Mother

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): I had an interesting relationship with that. Um, my mother, I'm an only child. We moved a lot, weren't around family. So it was, my dad was a workaholic self pros three. So it was me and my mom. And so her energy, she's a nine.

And her body type, she's very tall and thin was my goal post for a lot of my life. And I am, I got curvy real quick. So yay, middle school years and blossoming. And so I thought I had to have that body type. I was also in the nineties heroin shake, you know? So Kate Moss and looking like you were on your deathbed was the ideal and definitely could not do that.

And then personality wise, my mom's just. friendly and laid back and kind. And I always had friends that are like, your mom is so sweet. We just love your mom. And here I am like opinionated loud, like go, go, go. I'm a fire, you know, like a lot of young kind of masculine energy. I'm also a thinker and a lot of the Myers Briggs.

So there was this. I have to be kind and meek and gentle and sweet and serve, um, and be soft spoken and not have opinions. And I also grew up in the Bible belt. So, you know, you have a lot of cultural expectations. And so there was this, like, I have to soften myself. I have to keep my mouth shut. I have to be more like her.

Everybody likes her. Nobody wants an opinionated, strong female, you know, especially during my growing up years. So I did, I did struggle with that. I had a love hate relationship because I am a girly girl. I love me some makeup and some clothes and all the things, but I also felt that like, edginess to me.

And so I did, I had a hard time kind of resonating with that. And I, I think I still do, especially my husband's a five. And so he's a little more still and quiet and reflective and, you know, I'm completely opposite of that. And so you've got those role reversals in a relationship. Cause I do the finances and, you know, and he doesn't.

And so, It is still kind of present. Getting more comfortable with it obviously is the more I learn about myself, the more I go through therapy, EMDR, brain-spotting, all that stuff has been amazing for me to work through that stuff and then having that space with a therapist where I can just let it all hang out and like, I don't have to worry about other people watching me or hearing me.

Of course, you have to get to that point as a three with a therapist to be vulnerable in front of your therapist, learn to trust your therapist, but having that space for me to just kind of be brutally honest and let it all hang out has been really helpful too.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): One more question, Amanda, you talked about ADHD masking.

That's something that came up in one of my interviews on ADHD here at this, on the summit. And so I was like, when I heard about it, I was like, that sounds a lot like threes. This whole ADHD masking thing. So, and you said you used it to cope. It was helpful for you. So as a three who, you know, we tend to wear masks, what is ADHD masking and how is it, how did it help you?

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): Um, well, one, I think that's why I wasn't diagnosed until much later, because I learned how to adapt my behavior to the expectations. Um, so Matt, ADHD masking is. Um, much like the mirroring that threes do, you know, we're watching people watch us and learning what is acceptable, what is an acceptable. And so ADH doers dears do that as well.

Um, we see that, oh, this behavior is not. You know, we're getting some negative feedback from this. And so you learn to internalize, come up with, um, accommodations, ways to not get that negative feedback. For example, obviously the societal expectation is to show up on time for things, right? And a lot of ADHD people have time management, time, blindness issues and contend to be late for things so you, you overcompensate sometimes. So for example, I have no concept of how long it's going to take me to get somewhere. And that's where a lot of my anxiety stemmed from was, was coming from those things. So I will leave way earlier than I have to, to make sure that I get somewhere on time. So I will get to places. 45, 30 minutes early before I have to. And I'm okay with that because it lessens the anxiety of potentially being late. And so I'll sit in my car and like do whatever I need to do. ADHD, people also have to work on transitioning from one thing to the next. So it is helpful to sit in the car and kind of mentally prepare.

Okay, I'm going from this. I'm going into there. This is what I need to do. So it does help me, but, uh, you learn what is an acceptable. And so that's why I say being a three. And having ADHD that mirror and masking, I think was my, my life force and surviving, uh, thinking about the things that I struggled with.

I don't, I'm surprised that I wasn't hospitalized or really got into serious addictions, different things like that. But I think that was part of it is I just got in that. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to do it on top of being concerned about the image. What would people think if they knew?

And so that kind of pushed me.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Well, the whole goal of the summit is to help us to have more self compassion for ourselves and more empathy for others. And, you know, you have the normal. Three or normal type stuff that we struggle with everyone does, and then you, the ADHD or other mental health struggles sort of layers on top of that.

So I, as you, when you say that you struggle with knowing how long it's going to take to get somewhere, I'm like, Oh my goodness, as a three, we like efficiency, really getting places. On time and quickly. I can't imagine then having that struggle on top of that, of not knowing, like, like having that value of efficiency and being good efficiency, but then not being able to control that.

That sounds really challenging, really hard. So that's a good, I mean, thank you for sharing that example. That's, that's helpful for the reason the rest of us listening in, but thank you again for, for sharing that you're 42. I'm 42 and I'm going through a crisis as well. My identity as a three, like, what did I do the last two decades for other people?

And what did I do for myself? I don't know. It's our midlife crisis. And I really appreciate you saying, Hey, I wish I would have got sought a diagnosis earlier. Cause I could have been so much more helpful. And that's one of the things that keeps coming up too, is let's, let's seek out those things.

Not be afraid to get help early on because it could change the next decade or two of our lives. Uh, so thank you for sharing that wisdom.

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): Yeah. I say advocate, advocate for yourself, advocate for other people. And now that's kind of my big passion is educating how ADHD shows up for women, especially because we're the population where it's not diagnosed or it's misdiagnosed.

So now that's like I'm on fire for that because. I still, I have a couple of friends that are like I think I might have that. I'm like, well, what have you done about it? Well, you know, my doctor says that I don't have it. I'm like, no, no, no. If, if you feel like that's something you need to explore, like go find another doctor and then go find another doctor.

We have to advocate. So I think that's that three, like encouraging and cheerleading and fighting for people I find coming in now and trying to empower other people for whatever diagnosis they might think that they have or mental health issue that they might think they have. It's like, don't just sit in it, you know, go find help some form or fashion, educate yourself if that's just researching, you know,

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

Well, I interviewed Kristen Carter, who is the host of I have ADHD podcast. So go, go check out that if you're listening and you want more. And I also interviewed Nate McCord on how ADHD shows up in every type. So that would be another resource for you. Okay. Thanks, Amanda. We have two left, so we're going to go to Joanne next and then Eden.

So Joanne, would you unmute yourself and share a little bit of your story?

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So, I came into this panel. I was like, what should I talk about? And while I was listening to people sharing, I was like, Oh, I was like having like an epiphany just right now. It's like, Oh, I realized that whenever someone asked me about me, I I have like go to tracks of how I can describe myself in my life.

I can like talk about myself as, someone who's moved around a lot, had a hard time making friends. That's track number one. Track number two is growing up as a queer kid in the church. And then like having that whole thing blow up. And then a third track being like spiritual abuse, spiritual trauma, all kinds of stuff.

And so it was very interesting. Just like sitting here, it's like, very Four-ish thing to do. It's like, I can talk about myself according to these like pre rehearsed. Ways. And I think that a lot of my struggles probably came from like this. It's a, I think it's a pretty common four thing, determining the conclusion up front and then working backwards.

Like the conclusion is obviously there must be something wrong with me and that I'm fatally flawed and that nothing can never like help me. And I probably have gone through my whole life and have interpreted different experiences I've had as evidence, but there must be something wrong with me. So it's kind of like a circular argument and you know, even in the ways that I show up in life nowadays might be according to that rehearsal. And I, I just thought that was pretty, pretty weird. Oh, I haven't actually talked about this track in a while.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): So that's extremely valuable just to let us in your head already. Thank you.

For allowing us to see that that's, yeah, I'm very intrigued. I want you to talk about all of that for a couple of hours.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): I could, don't tempt me, but I think the main thing that I've learned recently is that I am important, but I'm not central. That I come with the experience of being a self preservation four.

So I'm a four that doesn't look like a four. Everyone else on the outside might interpret me or assume that I am basically every other type. It really depends on my mood. And the people who are the closest to me would be able to tell that I'm a four. And that's like, if I even reveal all the crap that's like going on behind the scenes.

And so there's a lot of masking, jury's still out whether or not I actually have ADHD, definitely have had anxiety and depression, PTSD, the full range. But nowadays there, there are two things that are happening for me in present day. One is it might be a possibility that I've identified with Being someone who has anxiety, depression, PTSD.

Then actually having anxiety, depression, PTSD. Like, I'm not going to discount that. There were several moments in my life where yeah, anxiety is like just running the show or that I've been kind of like stuck in the mud. But I think if that's like, that might be maybe like. 40, 50 percent of what was going on for me.

And I think the remaining 50 percent was what my four was doing. It's like, I've demonstrated that there must be some, there is something wrong with me and I'm just going to like squeeze every single juice that I can't add with this identity. What helped me was when I discovered the Enneagram, I thought I was a social four for the longest time because I like resonated with all the four stuff and it wasn't until my Enneagram coach sat down with me for about a year and she was like, I think you should revisit because what I actually ended up doing was to disconnect with my own suffering and outsource it.

So I thought that I was struggling a lot, but from outside observation, no one can tell that I was struggling. I grew up with major RBF, so everyone could kind of tell that there was something going on, but I would never show it. All the meanwhile, behind the scenes, I know how I'm feeling. So it was like super broody and dark and stormy and all that kind of stuff.

But what actually ended up happening was that I was very functional. So my parents had no idea that I was struggling in my childhood because I happened to be very good at school, but it wasn't that I was actually good at school. I mean, I might have had some skillsets, but nobody knew just how much, how many more hours I put towards finishing a project.

Like I would work till like three, 4 AM. And so I think in a lot of ways, like I resonate with some of the things that Amanda shared, like, I think that was a lot of the masking that I grew up operating, like the good easy child suffering silently alone was like probably the way that I survived throughout life.

To the point where now I, inadulted, I painted myself into that corner. And later on, like six, seven years ago, I met my bestie. Who is also an Enneagram therapist. She's a sexual too. And she was so gentle in the beginning, but now she kind of let me in on her initial impression of me that when we met and she said, yeah, you were just like, like a broken record.

You kept telling the same stories over and over and over and over again. And I think I had learned more about the four to realize that, Like that was probably how I was coping. But the, the issue was. I was already in a safer place. I didn't need to cope anymore. I had already left the, the church that blew up that I was working.

And I, I was the black sheep, the whistleblower, the rebel, whatever back then. And that was just like the identity that I had taken on since I left was, I was a person who founded a huge church family secret and I got cut off from my community and no one understands what the hell is going on. And I have all this power to single handedly destroy this church, but what do I do with all this power?

That was the narrative. I kept telling myself for like the first five years since I left that church, maybe seven years. And I think the more I learned about specifically the self press for type set up, it's like, okay, if I've identified with. Suffering itself, then there will be no healing. The healing will not happen because I've already eliminated as an option available to me.

And so I learned that I have an allergic reaction to joy. I remember to what Boonie shared and that joy for fours is a very threatening experience. It doesn't make any sense, I think, to other types, but I think for fours, it's living life as if the umbilical cord that tethers us to life in the universe has been severed and all of our lives is us trying to reconnect that tether by making ourselves to be very different or unique, or trying to prove ourselves and to earn our worth, or by being the most suffering person on the face of the planet, whatever it is.

And so if all of those things are a part of the type four setup and we have our type of what, but we are not our type. Namely we are more than our type. Then I have to go back to the drawing board and rethink everything. All of my premises, I need to reevaluate because otherwise I'm just recycling the same limited conclusion over and over again.

So nowadays it's more of, okay, maybe I am important, but I'm not central. I'm not the center of the universe. So maybe the world will not fall apart. If I take a break, maybe. I can actually take up more space without other people feeling burdened. Maybe it's okay for me to enjoy things. And even if I open myself up to risk of losing that good thing or whatever, maybe I'm already more than capable of handling that now.

Then I did before. So a lot of it nowadays is more of like, let me just be a single drop of water in the greater life ocean and see where things go instead of me trying to make myself or life be a certain way. So there's a lot of self preservation instinct stuff that I've been trying to work on.

A lot of my anxiety was probably from that instinct going on hyperdrive. It's like planning and predicting and practicing and all those things. And to be upset basically for the rest of the day or the rest of the week, because one thing fell out of alignment instead of just being like, it is what it is, you know, maybe things are beyond what I can perceive and imagine.

And maybe that's fine in the same way that I don't know exactly how hot it's going to be tomorrow. And maybe I don't need to know, maybe I just need to know in real time in the present and I'll entrust my wellbeing to life to take care of me as I need and also to myself to make good decisions as each situation comes up.

So I don't have to. You know, relish in the past, thinking those were the good old days. I don't have to future trip. I could just be here wherever I am. And I don't know whether or not I have ADHD. The question that my husband asked me was, what would you do next, even if you found out? I'm like, I don't know, because life is pretty good right now. I'm self employed on my own boss. Like I get to decide my life to be however I want it to be. Eventually I might find out I might not, but there's some part of me that wants to kind of keep the type four at bay that if I were to find out, let's say if I do or don't have ADHD, that I would go back from birth and be like, this is why I have been, this is how I've become who I am now.

That's a story that I think is too small. For where I am now. And so I'm kind of just rolling on by day to day. And, I think trauma, for me is kind of a more open ended thing. Like oftentimes people think of trauma as like a big, scary event, like a car crash or like rape or whatever. And those things obviously are traumatic.

But if it's the case that in each of our types that we can create our own traumatic microcosm. Then how about we give ourselves the very opposite of going beyond our comfort zone and for four, it will be learning how to recognize that maybe some goodness is readily available to me right here and right now.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Thank you, Joanne. Thanks for sharing all that you did. I was. Kinda taking some notes down and I know, thank you for pointing out that you're self preservation. Four. I know self pres four can be sunny on the outside, suffering on the inside. And so tell me, is it a little bit like threes, you know how we talked about as threes, we don't like to go and get help?

Is it true? I know that self preservation four sometimes can suffer, suffer, suffer almost in like a masochistic way. Like they can endure lots of suffering. Yep. And does, do you think other self press fours will. We'll hold on to that. And, and cause I know that I've heard that they can almost feel more special because there's, there's something in such a unique way, but that keeps up press for us from getting help by kind of holding onto that or for you, like, what were you tempted to kind of just continue to suffer in a masochistic way or, you know, what propelled you to then move towards getting help and support?

Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming Counterdependency and the Pressure to Overfunction

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So there's dependency, there's counter, there's codependency, there's counter dependency. Counter dependency is like having an allergic reaction to relying on other people. It's just that in the United States, especially, we have a whole holiday to celebrate independence. And so, like, a lot of that, I think that was one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to break outside of that and still is like, I don't know what's masochistic if I'm just used to that.

That's my baseline. You know, like it wasn't until other people were like, you did what? Like you did how much work and getting that outside frame of reference that I reprocess like, Oh, what I reflexively do is more than what is actually required. What happens if I don't do what if I don't put in that much effort and then the anxiety that comes up usually is a sign for me now that it's my self press for over functioning.

A lot of it, I think that kind of, goes hand in hand with masking. I think self press 4 is like, no one can tell how we're dealing. And sometimes we ourselves can't tell. Because we are our own frame of reference. That's the self referencing bit of type 4. And so, asking for help felt terrible. I missed a step on the stairs several years back and I technically broke my foot.

And I was with my friend, I happened to catch her shoulder. So she kind of broke most of my fall, but I still ended up injured. And I was laying on the floor. And the first thing that came to mind was I asked her, is this the day where I'm supposed to cancel my clients? She's just like, was completely in shock.

She's like, what are you talking about? Of course this is. And I had to like get into a boot and everything. And it just sucked. being injured. But the hardest part of that experience was knowing that I had to ask for people to give me rights. Like the physical pain was easy.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): No, thank you for sharing more of that.

That's really insightful for us to hear about what's going on within a four, especially self press for, and thanks for sharing about your church experiences. Even though they, they weren't, you were sharing some things that weren't positive. And I just, I know that there's people who have used, uused to be in spiritual communities that aren't, and then there's people that a lot of people are watching that are in spiritual communities are going to Christian churches.

And I just want to point out that, you know, even if you have rose colored glasses and think that your spiritual leader or your spiritual community is like, so great, uh, that not all churches get mental health and that's why we're dedicating a whole session to that. When I was starting out as a spiritual leader, I was a horrible, I keep saying this, I was not a good, I did not get mental health.

And as a three, that was still needed to grow up, I kept, I had a lot of work to do in understanding mental health. And so I think it just helps for anybody to go to a counselor, to seek support and get a third party, sort of audit of your spiritual experience and tell your spiritual experience to somebody else.

And for them to be like, you know, that doesn't sound really healthy. Well, let me, let me walk you through this. Cause then, cause sometimes we get googly eyes and we, we just think our, our churches, you know, has the right teaching or has the best leaders or even, even in those situations, there might be some things that are not good.

Going well, and you need to help walking through those things. I grew up Catholic and I was telling my wife about something in terms of like, a relationship to like the, the town, the priest of our town, and she was like, that's not like, what, that, that is not healthy. And, and so like nothing bad happened, but it was just, you know, It was just an experience of like, if we need to be sharing our experiences with our spiritual leaders and community and have somebody else do a little audit of that, because there might be places that, where we need to heal.

And sometimes we can't see that. And obviously our spiritual community is biased, so they might not be able to help us see that. But an outsider might be able to help see that. And you guys are all, a lot of you guys are coaches, counselors, therapists. So you know what I'm talking about, but I'm just stating the obvious for, for those who are watching.

But also I'm going to be interviewing, Audrey Assad on here. And she's going to be talking about, telling her story of spiritual OCD. So that might be an interview that you guys might want to pay attention to or watch. So, but thank you, Joanne for, for sharing your story.

I'm going tof ollow up with you. I need to hear a little bit more of your story. So I'll follow up with you after the panel. Okay. We have Eden. Eden's back from the thunderstorm that her internet got cut off, but she is back. So Eden, can you unmute yourself and share your story?

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yes. Apologies for having to being forced off, should I say?

Right. Yeah, and, and I missed the other two. I'm so sorry, Stephanie, I missed your, your story. But yeah, I'm Eden, and I am an enneagram type two. And I'll be talking a little bit about my history with anxiety and depression through kind of my life. Now as a practicing therapist and attachment coach, I always start with the beginning, right?

Like those early attachment, those early childhood years. When I entered the world, my mom and dad and sister, older sister, had just moved to a new city. And, um, my dad was traveling Monday through Friday. There was no family or support there. My sister has down syndrome. She was maybe a year out of having open heart surgery and here I came, right?

So needless to say, I had entered into a family system that really had some pretty intense Needs and very little room for a new set of needs, right? And that obviously reinforces reinforced in me that primary type to trait of attending to other people's needs and neglecting my own So that was just it's kind of like the perfect melting pot for that Trait to really form and flourish and in me. So as a sibling, I think it's It's worth like stopping there a little bit as a sibling of someone with special needs.

Not only did it feel like there was no room for my needs out of just the circumstances, right? No one's fault, but there was also so much shame feeling a need, right? Because I have so much more than she does. How, how could I even think about? Picking up space here. So that I think added another layer to. Not being in touch with my needs.

I had to kind of work my way through the shame around that. So overall, I kind of grew to be pretty good. I became the like token friend that was the counselor, right? I can really read and anticipate people's needs and it felt a little like maybe three ish at times like I can I'm gonna kind of morph a little bit here based on what I'm seeing and I felt like a superpower really.

The shadow sid of that superpower, there was kind of an undercurrent of conditional self worth manipulation of others. So I could feel valued. That's really kind of just come around into my consciousness. Wow. Like I'm doing these things because I think that this person is going to bring me value and I'm going to create a need for myself in their life so that I can feel validated and affirmed.

That's been a fun one to kind of discover more and more. And really ask myself, okay, what do I want in this relationship with this person? Like, do I want to be friends? Do I want to be acquaintances versus I need them to need me? That's, that's kind of been really helpful. But yeah, shadow side, and then also having a really loaded self critic that can come in, when those personal needs or opinions.

Or that like stress eight, you know, kicks in, a lot of shame around that. And my, my depression, I was thinking about my childhood and I was like, I think I was good. I think I was good. And then like my twenties hit and I had left my family system. And was kind of dropped into the world, right? And it was terrifying.

Because I was then responsible for the choices that I was making. And I didn't know what choices to make because I didn't know myself. I didn't know what I wanted, didn't know who I was, what I needed. I felt like that moment from, the notebook, except without Ryan Gosling, where he's like, stop thinking about what other people want.

What do you want? Right. What do you want? Um, which is a terrifying question. So like a 20 something, but also really could and did inspire some creativity and imagination and curiosity about myself. My part of my anecdote to my own depression, obviously therapy, my own therapy, some medication, um, but really was songwriting and performing, that process.

It was something I'd been doing since a kid, but I had kept those songs totally to myself. I'd never shared, never performed nothing. So when I started writing in my depression, I just was like, well, maybe I go to a coffee shop and play an open mic or, and it, and it just started flowing. Right. and that, there's so much, there was so much power to the experience of I am standing behind an amplified microphone, right.

And there are people looking at me, hearing my words and hearing my voice and they want to listen. And so that really started building up that connection to myself, my voice, my thoughts, my feelings, um, as well as that self worth. And then, you know, I think another phase was becoming a new mom.

I think anxiety, like, just came in and snuggled up next to me in that phase of life. And part of it was just like my idea of myself being shook, right? I had this concept of myself as this eternally patient. And the token caretaker for like the whole world, right? And I was known as a very patient person and then to experience myself as like so depleted, as very limited.

Um, as resenting my kids and my partner at times, and like what felt worse than any of that, like these moments where I would lash out at my kids, right? It was just completely unacceptable, not in my framework, and there was a lot of wrestling with, you know, okay, who, who am I in this new role with these new demands?

What do I need? How do I communicate that to my partner? And how do I communicate that with my kids? So there's been a lot of, a lot of self care that I've stepped into, which, you know, that, that is like a buzzword and I don't love to use it, but it really has been moments of stillness. Oftentimes when I'm alone for whatever reason, for me being able to get to my core self requires me feeling very embodied, um, and not in my head, not paying attention to the people around me.

I do hot yoga and the room is dark. I love it. No one gets to see, no one sees your sweat, right? Like. Yeah. You feel it, but you don't see it. So hot yoga shavasana is that moment of reflection at the end of yoga class where you're laying there and just really noticing what's coming up in my consciousness, that is a way that I hear myself speak, imagery or in words or in thoughts or songs and really paying attention to that.

So finding a rhythm and working that out with my partner and my life, right? My lifestyle, working that out, finding that rhythm where I stay connected to myself in the midst of all the things that I'm doing in the midst of all the needs. We have a dog, we have chickens, we have a turtle, we have kids, right?

Like, I love being in that role. And I think that's one thing that's we're saying, like, I imagine there's parts of ourselves that we love. Right? Like, in the types that we are, I love being that nurturer and that caretaker, and I love being able to offer a patient, obviously a therapist, right? I love being able to offer that space for people, um, but it's also, it has to be in balance, otherwise I stop being as good as I can be for, for myself and for others.

So that's, that's my 2 cents here.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): if you go to a type two therapist like Amanda, or it's like Eden, you may get a reference to Ryan Gosling, to help, you know, your mental health. So just to let you know,

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. To be, to be fair, I have not, I haven't seen that movie probably since it came out.

But it was very profound when I heard those words coming out of his mouth. And you pointed out that relational anxiety might manifest as a two by creating needs that you can meet for people. A lot of the mental health anxieties come for twos is relational anxiety. And so I like how you put that.

Pointed that out. And didn't you say that you felt like you couldn't talk about your needs because you had siblings or sibling that had more needs, right? I think that was really helpful to hear because you might, especially as a two, you might minimize your own needs, especially if you can see other people who are struggling and be like, well, who am I to bring this up?

I'm just going to be more of a burden. And that's kind of a thing that a lot of you guys shared in the panel is kind of the tendency to minimize your, your struggle as it's not being a big deal. Uh, when it actually is, and you're deserving of support and help and, uh, for people loving people to come around you.

And then I liked that you pointed out that songwriting has been a really helpful, like therapy tool. I hear that over and over for twos, like I had no two who does photography and those creative outlets. When you're just going out and doing something for yourself, that's fun and enjoyable is self care.

And, I always tell twos, especially, um, in, in churches where you're, it's continually preached to be self, be selfless, be selfless, be selfless. Well, twos aren't already selfless. They need to be more selfish in the best sense of the word, uh, something that feels selfish is actually self care.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yes. And I didn't, I didn't mention that as well, but I could have gone on a whole church, path, right.

But I think that was one of my major early on. I grew up in the church. That was one of my major struggles with the church because that was not a message that I needed reinforced, for myself, I needed to be valued for myself and I needed my strengths and my gifts and my talents to be mine.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yes, that's what the Engram was so helpful to me because then I can, I'm telling nines now, take up more space, take up more space, but that's not usually a message that's, that's preached. Well, thank you, Eden. I'm going to start with you and then work back to the others on the, on the panel in closing, tell us where we can find you online, any point us to any resources that you want us To know about any work that you're doing. I'll ask that question of everybody. And then if there's a burning thought that you had, that you didn't get to share, now's your time to get it in. So go ahead and work. We find you online, Eden.

Eden Hyder (Enneagram 2): Yeah. I have a group private practice. I come on with my husband. He's also a therapist and an Enneagram Nine. It's called Inside Out Collaborative and that's insideoutcollaborative. com. And then,for coaching stuff that's edenheider. com. I have a podcast that focuses on attachments.

There's just a season out there. It's just a little, little flip, but that's called inside out podcast as well. And my Instagram is @edenheider. I'm not on as much. That's part of self care that's happened over the past couple of years as I'm not as much on social media. I'm more in my body, which is positive.

But yes, I love hearing from people. Um, And yeah, there are lots of good resources on those pages too.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah. Um, and I'll post the links that you shared with me. I'll post them below so that people can, can find you that way. Perfect. Uh, let's go back to Stephanie.

Stephanie, where can we find you?

Stephanie Cross (Enneagram 2): Hey, um, so I'm on Instagram. Uh, like Eden said, I'm not on there a ton. Um, but it is storycraftstuff. editor. And I have a website where you can find me for editing services. And sometimes I do blog about grief on there too. Um, but that is storycraftncom.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Awesome stuff. Uh, Jordan.

Jordin James (Enneagram 3): I am on almost all the socials. Um, it's at just Jordinjames. Um, so you can find me on there as a three. I have a lot to express and I am on social media a lot. Maybe, uh, I'm taking some self care notes. Um, so yeah, you can find me on social media. I, um, a lot of my narcissistic abuse stuff. If that's something that anybody listening is interested in.

is on my, in my writing and I write a lot on medium. com. So I think that there's a, there's going to be a link for that as well. And then my, my favorite thing that I just created earlier this year is a 30 day email program called worthy. And it is all about, reclaiming your self worth, your unconditional self worth from the inside, but it's tailored around letting love do the work for you.

So like, I'm really tired of a lot of healing stuff out there that has you working really, really hard to heal because it does not, does not actually have to be as hard as we're making it. Um, so that's called worthy. Uh, it's just a 30 day email. Um, of course it's only 33 bucks. Uh, so highly, highly recommend that.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Yeah, I found you on medium. com too. I found one of your articles and I was like, well, she is very vulnerable for a three. I, I like it. Yeah. I need to get her on the panel.

Jordin James (Enneagram 3): Yeah, actually that, that I had a burning thought as I was listening to y'all fours. I was like, Oh man, this is so good because I've got, I've got a four on me for sure.

And I've realized that like, My four parts are so gifted and special and deep, and they are weird. They are really weird, and my three parts blame my four parts for why we're so lonely. Like, if you were less weird, if you were less deep, if you could just be more shallow and fit in, like, then we wouldn't be so lonely.

So as I was listening to the, the fours, I was like, oh man, that's like the war that's been going on inside of me all this time. So thank you fours for being so vulnerable with that.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Love that, Jordin. I totally agree with that. Uh, Boonie, where can we find you?

Bonnie Sripom (Enneagram 4): So, my website is organizedmesses. com. I also have YouTube with a similar name, Organized Messes.

You can just find me there. I, So I have a disappearing relationship with my Twitch, but I want to promote content on there because of my love and support for being part of the gaming community. So I am streaming on Mondays and Thursdays. I actually just lecture because I like to info dump at people.

And it's like my history of not being able to just rant about a topic for 30 minutes on end, which is why I initially created my YouTube, but now I'm going to do it with a live. live action with people who can comment and ask questions. And so I've noticed, not coincidentally, I'm sure you all know, there's a lot of ADHDers and autistic people in the gaming community.

And so I found my people. Um, my perception of rejection is, uh, slowly disappearing and I feel like I do belong there. And so if anyone wants to come say hi, you can just lurk. You don't even need to say anything. Um, I'll be there. So, and I also have a couple lectures that I, I have. Recorded for letsplaytherapy.

org. It's through the lens of play therapy by talk about neurodivergence archetypes and video games for therapists seeking to understand the world in a different lens. So thank you.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Wow. I love that Boonie. And I found you on your YouTube channel. Thank you for taking up space and sharing your story. And, uh, I, I love that.

Keep doing that. Okay, Amanda.

Amanda Nagy (Enneagram 3): I have on Facebook and Instagram, uh, two different accounts. nagyonfire is my personal, but I, I do health coaching, ADHD, all that stuff there. And then Nagy on Fire Coaching is more specific to self awareness, typology, that kind of thing. Um, and I wanted to add that the social media actually helped a lot of my Healing because I wasn't active on social media.

I was a lurker. I didn't want to expose myself in any kind of vulnerable way. So I just watched what other people were doing. And when I started, um, health coaching and talking about weight loss and posting those, uh, not so. Pleasant photos. Um, but I didn't want anybody to see was kind of therapeutic because it released a lot of that shame, right?

Like talking about the things we're ashamed of releases the power it has over us. So I actually found it therapeutic to be vulnerable and share a lot of these things, um, in social media and speaking a little bit more about the ADHD and whatnot. So, um, Yeah, for me, it was helpful to expose myself that way and realize, Oh, it's not that big of a deal.

Like the world didn't end and you know, a lot of people are like, I've I'm there too. And so there's that, that space of feeling like, Oh, I'm not alone. And all these things that I'm going through. So

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): It's good. Thank you so much, Amanda, for sharing that. Last thought and we have Joanne.

Joanne Kim (Enneagram 4): So I have two hats on one is as an enneagram therapist and, I have a free guide that's called the emotional habits of enneagram types.

It's a free PDF. I basically explore what I call the big five feelings. Mad, sad, glad, scared, dumb. And how each type has different relationships with each of those motions. And then with the feelings translator hat on I built an online school for feelings because a lot of the work that I do with clients, people like.

Why didn't they teach us this in school? So I made a school. And so with that, I have a free guide called, The Big Feelers First Aid Kit, basically what to do when messy out of control feelings show up at what seems to be the wrong place, the wrong time in the wrong ways. So that's a free guide.

But I also have the online school where I basically share In let's say 20 or so hours of things that I actually share with my clients in session. But I've had a long wait list for quite some time and also people reaching out from out of state. And I'm like, I can't work with you in therapy. So here's this and said, but that one you can find at intelligentemotions.com.

Tyler Zach (Enneagram 3): Awesome. I think that's everyone, right? Okay. Well, thank you to all of you for having the courage to share. I know that so many people right now feel seen and are feeling like, Hey, I'm not the only one and feel empowered to go get support or seek out support. So thank you so much for your courage and vulnerability.

And for those of you watching today, before you head over to the next interview or the next panel here on the summit, remember to do things, seek support and share compassion because you are not alone.

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

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

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

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

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

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

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

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

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

How Enneagram Type-Specific Retreats Help You Dive Deep into Your Personality

Transformation from the Inside Out

As an Enneagram therapist, I want to walk the talk. I’m committed to working on my own Enneagram type’s ego structures so that even the way I help people aren’t cluttered by my own Type Four biases and reactivity.

(If you don't know what the Enneagram is, start here!)

I’ve been trained by my Enneagram teachers - Beatrice Chestnut & Uranio Paes — founders of Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy — and have gone through their Personal Mastery & Professional Certification Tracks.

Here are some other blogs about inner work retreats:

• How CP Enneagram Retreats Supercharge Your Growth

• Reflections from the CP Enneagram Inner Work Retreat as an Enneagram Type 4

Most of the prior retreats were for people of all nine Enneagram types.

This blog is about 5 reasons why Type-specific Retreats would help you take your inner work on a laser-focused level.

Reason #1: Less = More

The human brain can only take in so much information, let alone information about NINE DIFFERENT TYPES (or 27 subtypes!!).

Yes, I would still highly recommend the other 5-day retreats that cover the nine types, but there’s something about SIMPLICITY in doing the deeper dive on ONE TYPE (YOUR type!) that really hits home.

• What are the central themes of your Enneagram type?

• What are your type’s core childhood woundings?

• What are the main psychological defense mechanisms of your type?

• What is the emotional habit (aka PASSIONS) that drives your automatic patterns from behind the scenes?

• What is the mental habit (aka FIXATIONS) that immediately directs your focus, to then summon your passion and its workings?

• What does your type look like across all the Levels of Development? (e.g., what does a Type Four person fully stuck in ego look like vs. a Four who’s done a great deal of inner work?)

• What are the three SUBTYPES of your type (Self-preservation, Social, and Sexual)?

• What’s the alchemical outcome when you mix your passion with your dominant instinct?

• How can you tap into all three Centers of Intelligence (Head, Heart, Body) to grow beyond your type?

Ultimately, it would still be useful for you to be familiar with the other eight Enneagram types, but for the purposes of your own growth, having a fuller understanding of your own Enneagram type inside and out is practically more immediately useful so that you’re STAYING IN YOUR OWN LANE and not getting distracted from doing necessary work!

(I’m especially looking at you Enneagram Twos and Nines who often look to everyone else except for yourselves and also to Enneagram Fives who often hoard information without taking concrete growth steps!)

Reason #2: Get Straight to the Point of TAKING ACTION

When you do a deeper exploration of your own Enneagram type, you can skip the accumulation of heady knowledge and get right to the points that really confront you with a mirror that reveals your own patterns IN REAL TIME.

Personal growth work is already hard enough as it is, but it’s even more difficult if we tend to INTELLECTUALIZE what really needs to be ACTED upon.

I love how the Enneagram is both COMPREHENSIVE and COMPACT at the same time. The Enneagram contains a wealth of information about our types in very accessible ways that are easy to remember and regurgitate.

The hardest part is catching our patterns in the act, not learning what our patterns are. There comes a point where we’ve learned enough heady knowledge about our types that it’s now time to TAKE CONCRETE STEPS.

80% ready is READY ENOUGH. Take what you already know, and RUN WITH IT! Time is of the essence, and we need to know that sometimes we DO know enough to do DIFFERENTLY starting TODAY.

Let us not drag our feet any longer on taking the important steps towards freedom!

Find out what those steps are by signing up for your Enneagram type-specific retreat.

(If your type’s retreat isn’t available yet, contact them and add yourself to the waitlist!)

Reason #3: See Yourself Reflected in Others

I joke with my Enneagram Four clients about what might happen if you have a room FULL of Fours.

Lament all they want about how they’re the MOST different, unique, exceptional, and fatally flawed person on the planet…but they can’t ALL be right!

I used to tell this to clients as a hypothetical…until I actually attended the Type 4 Retreat myself and saw for myself how WILD and WEIRD it was to see MY patterns showing up in OTHER PEOPLE in REAL TIME. (It’s not just me!)

As with the Boggart in Harry Potter who morphs into what we fear most and disappears when we see how riddikulus! it is, so does our own ego loosen its hold when we see those same patterns in someone else like in a mirror.

Not only are we able to better OBSERVE our own patterns in action (might even be triggered by this), but we are also able to cultivate better COMPASSION for ourselves in ways we can for others (especially important for people who are so self-critical, self-judgmental, or self-loathing) as we see just how much that mirroring person is SUFFERING because of their/our type.

You def can’t get that insight by reading a book! Better to experientially SEE you for yourself in real time!

Reason #4: Focus on Your Type’s Passion 

All of the nine Enneagram types have a deadly sin (add two more to the Seven Deadly Sins and you have nine!):

• Type 1 - Anger

• Type 2 - Pride

• Type 3 - Self-deceit

• Type 4 - Envy

• Type 5 - Avarice

• Type 6 - Fear

• Type 7 - Gluttony

• Type 8 - Lust

• Type 9 - Sloth

These PASSIONS (lit., “suffering”) are each type’s ego-driven emotional state that totally takes over someone’s life. They are a reaction to us losing contact with who we truly are (our “ESSENCE”), and are ways that our EGO tries to cope with that loss.

The word personality means MASK. Each of us HAS a mask, but we AREN’T our mask.

But what happens when we FUSE with our mask to the point of forgetting who we really are? We live our lives THINKING we know ourselves, when in fact we have no freakin clue.

EVERYTHING we do in life is driven by the passion, whether we know it or not. The issue is we usually are UNAWARE of how pervasive it is.

But what happens if we were to discover:

1. Everyone wears masks

2. We each wear a specific mask

3. Our specific mask looks like XYZ

4. Here is how the mask stays on

5. Here are ways to take it off

Once we have a more concrete sense of what each of our personalities look like (like knowing where the edge of the mask is), then we have a better shot at taking the mask off to reveal our true selves.

These type-specific retreats will help you know what YOUR mask looks like so that you can have that chance to know your true face.

When someone has done a lot of inner work to peel off that ego mask and reveal their essence selves, their emotional habit is the exact OPPOSITE of what it was in their ego state:

• Type 1 - Anger > Serenity

• Type 2 - Pride > Humility

• Type 3 - Self-deceit > Veracity

• Type 4 - Envy > Equanimity

• Type 5 - Avarice > Non-attachment

• Type 6 - Fear > Courage

• Type 7 - Gluttony > Sobriety

• Type 8 - Lust > Innocence

• Type 9 - Sloth > Right Action

As an example, the more personal work I do as Enneagram Four (whose reputation is to constantly compare ourselves and always be in emotional chaos), where do I go?

Towards seeing myself as being EQUAL to + SIMILAR with others, and having emotional STEADINESS.

Pretty wild, huh??

Reason #5: Focus on Your Type’s Fixation 

In the same way each Enneagram type has an emotional habit (PASSION), each type also has a specific mental habit (FIXATION).

• Type 1 - Resentment

• Type 2 - Flattery

• Type 3 - Vanity

• Type 4 - Melancholy

• Type 5 - Stinginess

• Type 6 - Cowardice

• Type 7 - Planning

• Type 8 - Vengeance

• Type 9 - Indolence

Each type lives in a deluded/warped version of reality as we “fell from grace” and lost touch with true reality (the Holy Idea)

• Type 1 - Resentment > Perfection

• Type 2 - Flattery > Will

• Type 3 - Vanity > Harmony

• Type 4 - Melancholy > Origin

• Type 5 - Stinginess > Omniscience

• Type 6 - Cowardice > Strength

• Type 7 - Planning > Wisdom

• Type 8 - Vengeance > Truth

• Type 9 - Indolence > Love

Yes, this is very jargony, but part of that is likely because of:

1. translation issues

2. this likely being beyond our current emotional & intellectual paygrade to fathom

The main thing for you to know now is that even BEFORE the passion drives the train forward, it’s our FIXATION that sets that train on the train track.

Where we look affects where we go, and what we focus on limits our reality. (Imagine the sky that you see is but a painted ceiling. What if there’s SO MUCH MORE out there?)

No matter how much work we do to peel off that personality/ego mask, if we don’t shift our attention AWAY from the mask, it’s only a matter of time until it goes back on.

We need something else to focus our attention on so the mask STAYS OFF. That is what the Holy Ideas are about.

It’s easy to get lost in all the abstract, metaphysical language, but that’s all the more reason to really hone in on what this means for YOUR specific type.

All of this knowledge is pointless unless you know what it concretely means for YOU where you are right now.

Summary

In this blog, I listed five reasons why I HIGHLY recommend that you try a Type-specific Inner Work Retreat:

1. Less = More

2. Get Straight to the Point of TAKING ACTION

3. See Yourself Reflected in Others

4. Focus on Your Type’s Passion 

5. Focus on Your Type’s Fixation 

Ready to go deeper in your personal work?

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

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Check your inbox for your free gift guide,

"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

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

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

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

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

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

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

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

How Enneagram Retreats Help You Grow

Transformation from the Inside Out

As a huge part of my training in becoming an Enneagram therapist, I wanted to work on my own type’s ego patterns through personal inner work.

(If you don't know what the Enneagram is, start here!)

I wanted to do this with my Enneagram teachers - Beatrice Chestnut & Uranio Paes — founders of Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy — through their Personal Mastery & Professional Certification Tracks.

The Personal Mastery Track involves 3 retreats:

• The Experiential Enneagram

• The Psychological Enneagram

• The Alchemical Enneagram (here are my reflections on this one)

Even though I've completed the Personal Mastery Track, I intend on attending these retreats as as part of my heart cleaning annual tradition.

If you're eager and intentional about personal transformation using the Enneagram, here are 5 reasons why I think you def should consider attending one of their CP Enneagram retreats.

(Btw, I'm not getting paid to say any of this...Just really want for you to see for yourself what this form of transformation is like!)

Reason #1: More than just head knowledge

You can read all the books and watch all the seminars about the various Enneagram types and growth steps, but there's nothing that beats seeing things firsthand and hearing about what each type takes away from the exact same activity or prompt.

You might conceptually know about how Heart Types (Enneagram 2s, 3s, and 4s) are image-oriented shapeshifters, but to visibly see in real time just how they shift their body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and gestures to get people to like, admire, or understand them...that's a whole 'nother thing.

You might have heard Enneagram 6s be called "The Contrarian" or "Questioner" but might not understand why until you hear a Six say, "But why??" for the fifth time in a single conversation, constantly pushing back against what was said immediately before.

You might know that Body types (Enneagram 8s, 9s, and 1s) exist, but might not know what that really means until you hear them talk about how they respond to a new situation or decision, that they have a sense of "right or wrong" they sense instinctually in their bodies.

Even Enneagram concepts like arrows work or subtypes come to life when you visibly see them played out concretely.

• How do the different Enneagram subtypes differ from each other?

• What does "taming" the dominant instinct look like?

• What about "nurturing" the repressed instinct?

• How is the Enneagram symbol itself useful for growth?

Reason #2: Growing in the company of others

For various reasons, so many of us tend to try to heal and grow in isolation. 'Tis an overgeneralization, but this is what I've observed of the following groups:

• Heart types (Enneagram 2s, 3s, 4s) tend to feel embarrassed to be exploring their inner pain and struggles in front of others and thus tend to put up an image (or not know who they actually are)

• Head types (Enneagram 5s, 6s, 7s) tend to get stuck in their heads or have a hard time connecting with their own or others' emotions 

• Body types (Enneagram 8s, 9s, 1s) tend to influence (or be influenced) by others

• Self-preservation (SP) dominant folks tend to avoid situations where they don't know what to expect

• Social (SO) repressed folks tend to be mistrusting of groups

• Sexual (SX) dominant folks tend to prefer 1:1 interactions

Because our Enneagram types, subtypes, and instinct sequences reveal how our defense mechanisms (which used to be helpful) eventually create problems, a lot of our present day struggles may arise precisely because of an avoidance of connections with individuals and/or groups. Therefore, reengaging connections might be the very thing to help us get out of our own mess.

We can only heal relationship wounds in relationships. We can't "just get over it" by analyzing, avoiding, ignoring, or controlling relationships.

In these retreats, you're in the company of 20-25 individuals who are there to really do the hard inner work. Inevitably, you'll bump shoulders with SOMEONE in SOME WAY during those 5 days, but might also realize that this is similar to the kinds of struggles you experience in normal life. 

Consider these retreats like a safe laboratory where you can:

• learn more about your own patterns and reactions

• see them happening in real time (so that you might try something different)

• gain feedback about your actual impact on others (and compare them to what you assumed about yourself)

• receive encouragement or recommendations of what else to try

(For example, one of the other participants might have the same subtype as your mom who is so suffocating...This might be a great chance for you to do some deep healing as you interact with that participant differently than how you would with your mom.)

In normal life, you don't have any guarantees that the people you're bumping shoulders with are safe or well-intending. Precisely because people seek these retreats with the intention of truly growing beyond their respective bullshit patterns, you're in good company. What better place to try doing things differently? Sign up here!

Reason #3: Tuning into the Body Center

There's so much emphasis and bias towards Head Center experiences especially in the Western world. Those already intellectualize and also dampening their emotions or body experiences are often celebrated as "good", "mature", etc., whereas those who tend to be emotionally or energetically driven or outwardly expressive tend to be punished more severely.

In recent decades, there's been more welcoming to the Heart Center experiences, with people like Brene Brown or Susan David becoming household names. It's a great thing that there are more literature and media about Emotional Intelligence, nonviolent communication, empathy, etc. because it balances out the heady ways of life.

However, it's gonna take a long while until the Body Center experiences become just as integrated into society (the yoga & meditative movement is just the tip of the iceberg). Think about it - out of the three Centers of Intelligence (Head, Heart, and Body) how much more difficult is it to describe what exactly a Body type is?

More to come about the Body types, but in a nutshell, here are some contrasting concepts to illustrate different Centers of Intelligence:

Head - thoughts // concepts, security, certainty // fear

Heart - emotions // connections, image // shame/sadness

Body - energy // agency, action, will, justice // anger 

CP Enneagram Academy's retreats provide opportunities for you to see firsthand how each of the Centers show up and how you can become more balanced in all three. You'll also witness the nature of energy that is more normal for people who are familiar with Eastern traditions that we don't often see in the Western world.

Reason #4: Collective experiences 

In Reason #2 (Growing in the company of others), I talked about the growth experience that comes from literally engaging other people. There is another dimension of this too that deserves its own section. 

Another limitation to the Western world is the emphasis on the individual - Life is about ME, MY, MINE, including in personal inner work. There is less of an emphasis on WE, OUR, OURS, much to our detriment. So many of society's ailments (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) might have been averted had we been more familiar with having a collective consciousness. 

As an Enneagram 4 (which is literally called the Individualist), this has been a huge blind spot of mine. I used to think that as long as I put in the work - if I read the books, attend the workshops, learn more concepts, and do the exercises), I would heal and grow. Only when I learned AMONG others in these retreats did I experience a whole new level of transformation that was impossible for me to attain on my own.

(For example, how can I move beyond my Enneagram 4 shame that says "I'm the ONLY person who struggles with this" until I hear 3-6 other people also say it's their struggle too?)

Discovering collective experiences is one thing...healing collectively is another. When ONE person heals a specific pain, OTHER PEOPLE might also heal in that area by virtue of being present in seeing that happen.

When I connected with and expressed my inner rage in a primal, gutteral scream, a ton of others in the room also unlocked something within themselves.

When I saw one woman (with whom I share very little in common) connecting with her grief in realizing how much time she lost in her reactivity -- I FELT that, too. 

What does this mean? When you are present for another person's pain & healing, you might heal yours too (and vice versa). How much time, opportunities, and money could we save by sharing the healing load?

Reason #5: Limits to therapy & coaching 

Obviously, as an Enneagram therapist & coach, I have a bias towards these fields. Tons of people across various types experience powerful life-changing transformations through these individualized sessions.

However, here are some of the drawbacks of therapy and coaching sessions.

• Hub & Spokes
  Sometimes I literally have the same conversation with 4-5 other within a week, with each person feeling like they're the only person who struggles with this or that they're going crazy. The nature of being a therapist is that everyone shares their deepest darkest secrets with me...not knowing that the person from the previous hour might have felt the same. I really wish I could connect y'all to each other!! Alas -- confidentiality is the law of the land.

• Unidirectional
  There's an uneven distribution of vulnerability (and therefore power) between me & my clients. I know WAY more about my clients than they do about me, and that might make some people feel more nervous or embarrassed in sharing things. How much more growth could happen if y'all were to know what I'm processing too so that you know you're not alone or crazy, that I wouldn't judge you bc you know that I know what it's like!

• Asynchronous
  People share what happened AFTER shit already hit the fan or BEFORE an important event (you can prepare for your interview all you want in session, but what will really happen when it's game time?)

• Expensive
  As much as I believe that therapy & coaching is worth it for many people, what if you could get the same degree of work for a lot less? A 50-min session with me is $275...Weekly sessions skipping holidays & vacations might come to $12,000+ per year. A single 5-day retreat where you get SO MUCH processing done (again, also because you're healing vicariously through others' work too) is $1,500-$2,400. I don't know about y'all, but sometimes retreats might make more math sense depending on the topic. 

There's def a time and place for therapy or coaching...but DO consider retreats as a great supplemental option for deeper work. Retreats don't replace therapy (in fact, Bea & Uranio would probably encourage some people to seek therapy to continue the work after these retreats), but they can definitely help heal or focus our attention on important areas that we might otherwise wander aimlessly around.

A word of caution

Now before you sign up right away, just some things to consider...

Only consider these retreats if you're NOT currently in any form of crisis (recent breakup, job loss, bereavement, psychiatric emergency, etc.). You might want to wait until your life feels somewhat steady before you dive into the depths.

Especially if you've NEVER done therapy before or come from a conservative religious background - there's a chance that what happens in these retreats might feel so out of left field, so different from your worldview, or so beyond your comfort level that you might feel overwhelmed, confused, or disoriented.

If after one of these retreats you need to process, reach out and let's do a coaching session so you can make more sense of what to do next.

It's totally okay to have lotsa feelings - sometimes that's a sign that a huge blind spot has been illuminated.

Have I convinced you enough about these retreats? Here's the link again if you're intrigued!

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

Loading...

Woo hoo!!

Check your inbox for your free gift guide,

"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

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

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

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

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

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

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

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

My Annual Heart Cleaning

Every year, I'm digitally offgrid for several days at an inner work retreat with my Enneagram teachers Beatrice Chestnut & Uranio Paes, who founded the Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy.

Some of these retreats, which are a part of their Professional Certification Track & Personal Mastery Track, became the milestone markers of how I've healed and grown over time, as I vividly remember what I was working through each of those moments.

Here’s are some things I worked on at these retreats:

• Recognizing my Enneagram 4 SP autopilot habits of:

  • Getting sucked into melancholy

  • Monologuing about past hurts (much like a broken record)

  • How I create my own suffering 

  • Push/pull dynamics in relationships

• Connecting with my physical body

• Tapping into & releasing pent up rage that's actually my ally

• Connecting with the flow of life, rather than trying to control everything 

Since starting my Enneagram journey, my life did a total 180. I barely recognize myself from when I was younger, and now have dimples to prove it!

This is a snapshot of how I used to be:

• "I AM how I feel."

• The "good, easy kid"

• Emotionally shut down, trying not to be a burden

• Closeted queer kid who grew up in the church

• MAJORLY repressed in all the ways 

• Withdrawn, disconnected from myself & others

• Queen of RBF (Resting Bitch Face)

• An intensity, drama, and complexity junky

• Way too familiar with anxiety, guilt, shame (partly bc I was allergic to anger)

• Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, loneliness, shame

• Suffering silently & solo 

...and how I am nowadays:

• "I have feelings, but I'm more than my feelings."

• Anger is one of many feelings that tell me what I need or want

• Open, flexible, light & easy

• Guilt-free rest & play as part of my normal rhythm 

• Open heart to receive whatever life has in store for me that day 

• Nurturing and pursuing my desires (rather than swinging between repression & resentment)

• Mutually nourishing relationships 

• Having the time of my life

Here’s a video of me sharing my takeaways from a past inner work retreat.

If you're wanting to supercharge your own inner work journey (I'm specifically looking at all y'all who tend to hoard heady knowledge about personal development without actually taking action), I HIGHLY recommend CP Enneagram's personal retreats.

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

Loading...

Woo hoo!!

Check your inbox for your free gift guide,

"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

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

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

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

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

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

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

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

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.

(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!

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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!”

Let Your Body Show You The Way

If you told me a decade that I would EVER become a yoga studio member, I woulda thought you were high...

The few times I did yoga before, my reaction was:

• WHY IS THIS SO SLOW??

• WHY IS THIS SO BORING??

• There's no freakin' way I can do that.

• What if I fall?

• What if I fart?

• What if everyone looks at me funny?

• OMG...why am I here again?

• *insert more grumbling* 

Don't quote me on this, but it's my observation that Enneagram 4s are typically very disconnected from their physical bodies (and overly connected to their heart first and then their head). The body is an afterthought, except as a target of self-criticism, judgment, and shame.

I have no freakin clue what possessed me to not just sign up for a 3-week trial at the yoga studio, but also to sign up for a membership (and actually stick with it even to this day!!).

Whatever the reason, here are all the things I've learned from being more connected with my body center of intelligence.

See which ones stand out to you, especially if:

• You live disconnected from or unaware of your body

• You tend to live as if the world is on your shoulders

• You believe that you are what you DO

• You’re a control-junkie

• You manage how you’re seen by others

• You have a hard time being still or resting

The only thing I bring into the studio with me is my mat and my body.

I leave everything outside the door -- my phone, my schedule, my email, my responsibilities, my worries.

These things continue to exist, but during the next 1-1.5 hours, it's as if they are irrelevant.

The world continues to spin even when I'm not doing anything.

Life continues, even when I don't do anything else.

The world does not fall apart just because I stopped working.

No one is dying because I am not thinking about them or not doing anything for them.

Other people continue to live & exist as if I am not the center of the universe. (Ha!!)

When I'm lying on the floor, I am literally doing NOTHING. The FLOOR is doing all the work in lifting me up.

I don't have to be the only one giving, working, serving, etc. to others; I CAN be a passive recipient of someone (something) else doing good work.

I too deserve to receive good things; I don't need to EARN goodness.

I am not more worthy when I'm useful, and I am not less worthy when I'm not.

I can just rest -- nothing bad is going to happen in this exact moment.

‘Come with the body you have...’

What I have in this moment is enough. Some days I come with more energy, some days with less. Neither is inherently better or worse -- it is what it is. I show up however I am...and that's enough.

There is no basis of comparison with others bc we all have our own bodies (& individualities). All are welcome as we are, however we are.

My body can do so many more things than I ever gave it credit for.

I've learned to suspend judgment on my own body and let it demonstrate what it actually can or can't do as a neutral piece of info. It is what it is!

If I'm surprised by just how much my body is actually capable of doing, maybe it can also do other surprising things!

Let me see what actually happens, rather than assuming a certain outcome and not bothering to even try.

I don't need to be in control or in the lead. I don't have to always know what's coming next or where it's going.

I have no clue where the yoga instructor is going to take us. Sometimes even they don't know! And that's totally okay.

All I need to do is to follow their lead and to focus on just the immediate next step.

I can turn off my brain and heart, and just BE in my body.

Sometimes, it's easier to do new/riskier things when I CAN’T see.

My own ability to see/perceive things is overrated. Sometimes it actually gets in the way. 

I don't just have a heart (or head), but also a body that has its own wisdom as another center of intelligence. I CAN learn to listen to my gut.

Sometimes it's literally easier to hold my balance when my glasses are off or my eyes are closed and I let my body lead with intuition/instinct.

Sometimes, no one is paying attention to me...and that's FREEING.

I don't have to be self-conscious, worried that other people are looking at and judging me.

Sometimes (a lot of times), they're in their own world, focusing on all kinds of things other than me.

I don't have to be or look a certain way. I can just mind my own body and business and carry on, and others can do the same.

If someone looks towards me and judges me during freakin YOGA, that's THEIR issue (plus, they're probably going to literally fall over).

Other people's thoughts and opinions of me are none of my business.

Anything stand out to you?

Maybe that reaction is your body's signal that this is an important part of your own personal work.

How can you incorporate body work into your path of growing BEYOND your Enneagram type?

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

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"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

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

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

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

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

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

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

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

Tagged: emotions, numb, self care

Quarterly Check-in!

With a notebook handy, take 10 minutes connecting with yourself (ESPECIALLY your body if you tend to be stuck in your heart or head).

Ask yourself these questions (and write them down with a timestamp!):

• What's my body highlighting about how I'm doing now?
  - What am I feeling?
  - What am I needing?
  - How can I take steps to meet those needs?
   

• What are some good things that happened since the beginning of the year?
  - What are some hard things?
   

• In the next three months, where would I like to be in one of these areas?
  - physical
  - emotional
  - mental/intellectual
  - relational
  - environmental
  - financial
  - professional
  - personal/spiritual/existential

If you're needing some extra questions or examples to guide you in this self-check-in, here's a blog I myself revisit every quarter. 

Of the eight above, the one that stands out to me personally at this time is relational. Time to reach out to my own Enneagram coach! 

Share in the comments - What is one area that's standing out to you today! What is one step you will take this week to nurture that area?

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

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"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

© 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!”

Investing in Myself

"True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don't need to regularly escape from." [Brianna Wiest]

It is a regular rhythm of mine to sign up for 2-3 courses throughout the year for personal and/or professional development. 

In 2022, I did:

• Inner Work Retreat B - Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy

• Space Holder/Side Hustle - Marissa Lawton

• Million Dollar Year - Dow Janes

Each of these kinds of courses range from $2,000-6,000, but after taking them, this feels like chump change. 

As a firstborn daughter of an immigrant family with zero generational wealth, I've learned how to take care of my own needs myself (if at all). I've learned a lot of survival mindsets and strategies along the way, including,

• "If I don't do it, no one will - I can't rely on others."

• "I need to be on top of this, because otherwise one surprise is going to make it all crumple."

You'd be surprised as to just how this paradigm showed up in all aspects of my life - physical, emotional, psychological, relational, financial, etc.

I'm taking these courses not just because I want a certain concrete outcome, but mainly as an act of declaring that I am worth healing and nurturing, too.

I used to see the prices on these courses and think, "that's too expensive," "X is going to judge or be mad at me," or "I don't think I'm worth this much."

After many years of taking out the head trash, I am now comfortably in a place personally to build these into my annual budget. I don't have a ton of cash to just drop for random things, but I've learned to be really intentional with my time, energy, and money to make it count.

(Actually, being more anchored internally has helped me make better money/business decisions so that I DO now have cash dedicated for this without sacrificing other important things. Inner remodeling leads to external reconstruction. THIS is why I'm so obsessed with the idea of a FLOW state: minimal input, maximum impact.)

I'm not here to tell you you should "just TREAT YOSELF" by buying this and that, taking luxurious vacations that put you in further debt and stress you out the remaining 50 weeks of the year.

I am encouraging you to consider whether your small daily decisions are leading you to a vicious cycle of stress and reactivity or virtuous cycle of healing, freedom, and joy.

A one degree shift leads to MILES of change over a long period of time. Take 15 minutes sometime this week to consider:

• Are my daily decisions REACTIVE or PROACTIVE?

• What is one thing I can do this week to shift my life trajectory towards the better?

If you want some help with this, here are some resources:

• Atomic Habits (book)

• Enneagram Guide to Waking Up (book)

• Million Dollar Year (shoot me an email if you want a $100 code!)

---

What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?

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

Don't know your Enneagram type?

Find yours here!

What are your emotional habits?

Get the Emo Habits Guide!

Loading...

Woo hoo!!

Check your inbox for your free gift guide,

"The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types"!!

---

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

JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT

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

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

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

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

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

Which Ax Are You?

Two Lumberjacks

Have you heard of the story of the two lumberjacks?

There once were two lumberjacks who decided to have a little competition to see who could cut the most wood in a day. They rolled up their sleeves and started hacking away at the trees.

Dude A kept going strong, chopping and chopping, all the way til sunset.

Dude B started strong, but every once in a while walked away, disappearing for 15 minutes at a time after every hour.

Dude A thought, "Bro, your loss!" and kept swinging his ax.

Dude B did this throughout the day, disappearing for a total of 3 hours.

At sunset, they piled their wood blocks to settle the match.

(By this point in your life, y'all you would have heard enough stories to know that Dude B won.)

"What the hell!" stated Dude A. "You must have cheated! How is this possible that you cut more than me? You weren't even around for a fourth of the time!"

"Cheated? No. All we decided on was who would cut down more wood. I used the same ax as you have, bro." 

"Then how did this happen?"

"I took a break. The breeze was nice today!"

"???"

"Yeah, it was such a gorgeous day, that I wanted to just chill and take in the view. I let my body rest, stretched, and sharpened my ax." Dude B pulled out a polished stone from his pocket.

Sharpen Your Knife

Moral of the story? Resting is NOT slacking off. It's refusing to work harder than you need to - taking the simpler, easier, more enjoyable route. It's rebelling against society's pressure to believe, "I am what I DO." 

Resting is NOT a sign of laziness. It's also not a sign of incompetency or worthlessness. Rather, it's the opposite.

Knowledge says, "If I keep working the whole time without stopping, I'll get more done."

Wisdom says, "If I'm in my peak condition, my element, everything would just FLOW. I'll get more done, even with less work."

Even in your kitchen, if you use a dull knife, you are more likely to: 

1. Exert far more effort than using a sharpened knife

2. Have sloppier results

3. Hurt yourself 

If you've been frustrated with yourself because you're struggling with procrastination, perfectionism, overwhelm, etc., I get it. My Enneagram self-preservation 4 autopilot prompts me to keep pushing the daily grind until I wear myself out and shut down.

I've learned the hard way that growth, progress, and productivity isn't linear. More time, more money, more effort does NOT always win out.

...not that growth, progress, or productivity is the point. 

Like Dude B, you can take a break, catch a breath, and enjoy the scenery. That he was also productive was BONUS, but not the point.

Dude B was a winner, and not because he chopped more wood. He was a winner because he had a great time. He ENJOYED life.

What's the state of your knife or ax?

• Are you in a FLOW state, where things feel like you're cutting butter?

• Or a FRUSTRATED state, where everything feels so damn difficult and annoying?

If it's been a while since you've taken a breather, now's your chance. It doesn't even have to be long or complicated.

Put the ax down.

Rest your feet.

Stretch your arms.

Take in the view.

Sharpen your ax - let your mind, body, and heart be focused.

Want some ideas to help you hone your senses? Here are some options:

• The Five S's of Self-Care

• Create Your Safe Haven

• 3 Ways to Calm your Nervous System as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

• Build Self-esteem with a Fuck-it List

---

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"!

I want my First Aid Kit!

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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!”

3 Ways to Calm Your Nervous System as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

I was a guest on the Highly Sensitive Podcast with Lauren LaSalle.

I shared about how I learned I was a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and gave three tips about how to calm your nervous system as an HSP.

(Scroll down for the transcript.)

My HSP Story

Lauren: What was your experience like discovering that you were highly sensitive? 

Joanne: I heard about it a couple years back during my pre-license years in therapy.  

I think just the lights went on and everything kind of clicked and made sense in terms of just how readily aggravated I get over sensory experiences, especially in my environment.

I used to label myself as being very asocial and withdrawn and things like that. 

I used to live with my in-laws for a good number of years. Being in a household full of vivacious people with all these sounds, I found myself coming home from work, going straight into my bedroom, turning off all the lights, putting my earplugs in, and going into bed.

Or in other times, we would have a big family gathering where they would hangout until past midnight. I would usually be the first to duck out because my eyes were glazing over from all of the activity and energy and I wouldn’t really be listening anymore.

I found out later that my in-laws wondered whether I was okay or thought that I didn’t like them.

Once I learned that I was HSP, how my body felt and what I did all made sense.

I explained to my in-laws that my body needed to decompress from all that happened during the day, and that it wasn’t personal. Because a lot of them were also HSPs, they understood. Now they know how to interpret my reactions.

To smooth things over, nowadays I just tell people, “Hey, I need to go decompress. I’ll be back in 20 minutes” and help my body and brain recharge. It’s a neutral, regular, and routine thing I do these days.

Lauren: Wow. I can't even imagine living with, I mean, even my own parents again, let alone my in-laws. That sounds really tough as an HSP.

Joanne: Fortunately, my in-laws are really great. They're emotionally fluent enough where I can share how I'm feeling and they're okay. 

It's more the sensory experiences of just there being a lot of chatter I hear through the walls and pots and pans clanging and things like that.

I think having agency over my own immediate space has been super helpful. Having my own office space was actually a huge plus for my own personal emotional and mental health, because I get to control the space however I want to and add all kinds of very soothing features to it in ways that I wouldn't have been able to at home.

What is Trauma?

Lauren: Not only are you highly sensitive, but you are also a therapist who works with highly sensitive people. What are some examples of how normal events can be traumatic for HSPs and kind of what can cause this to happen? 

Joanne: I like thinking about things through the lens of our nervous system in terms of how overwhelmed it gets. 

Often when people think about reactivity, they think about the actions people do in response to being stressed. There's less of a focus about how a person gets stressed to begin with.

 I would say there is a general window by which we are supposed to be stimulated throughout the day, like the sun rises or the coffee machine works, et cetera. Generally we're supposed to take those stimuli and use them to kind of wake up and engage the day. 

It's just that for HSPs that window is a lot smaller where we can get readily flooded all too easily and non HSPs they're like, I don't even notice a difference. 

When that overstimulation happens for an extended period of time it really wears away at the body, at the nervous system with cortisol (the stress hormones) constantly coursing through our veins. Cortisol has been shown to actually erode some aspects of our bodily function, it actually impacts some organs. 

It's this deadly cycle where we get overstimulated more readily, our bodies are under a lot of strain, we make reactive decisions that often make hard things worse, and then there's more strain and then it just keeps spiraling through. 

Generally I define trauma more openly than other therapists might. I don't just consider those big dramatic events, like a car crash or assault or things like that as trauma. I define trauma as any event, big or small, that gives people a very concentrated set of feeling out of control, feeling like they're in danger, or feeling embarrassed. 

That last piece would I think give a lot of people more empathy towards themselves. 

If a person when they're growing up in their elementary school classroom gets called on by a teacher to answer a question on the board, some kids might be like, oh, this is super exciting I can finally show off what I can do, and they answer the question on the board, that's taken as a very positive experience. But for a lot of people, especially HSPs, who are called on the spot, they weren't expecting it.  

Getting called on itself is very stressful on top of getting all this attention from everyone in the classroom, and then they might actually turn beat red. Therefore also losing control over their own bodily experiences and would be super embarrassed. They will be socially isolated, or at least internally, that's how they would interpret it. 

That event, which normally will be considered a very normal, day-to-day experience, is a traumatic event.  Later down the line, the person might have a lot of anxiety when it comes to giving presentations at work.

These are the actual kinds of situations that I help my therapy clients with in the present day. 

Lauren: I love that example because as you were talking about it, I started to feel anxious. Because I was one of those people where if the teacher called on me,  even if I knew the answer, it was a total blank. Like, I have no idea what's going on. I feel all hot and like everybody's looking at me and like I just kind of want to disappear. So I can totally relate to that, and I'm sure a lot of people will be able to as well. 

Joanne: Being sensitive not just towards being put on the spot, but also other people's energies and emotions, and also sensitivity towards one’s own bodily functions.t's kind of like a triple, quadruple dose of stimulation. 

It will definitely lead people to shut down and afterwards having shut down then there's a lot of the shame talk. Like, oh, why couldn't I be like Tommy? Or why did I do this? Like, I'm so dumb, et cetera. 

And that's adding several extra layers.

Lauren: I like how you define trauma too, because I think I've done that as well with my clients. I think a lot of people just think, oh, trauma is these big events that happen, but it really can be seemingly smaller events. Just because it doesn't affect one person negatively doesn't mean that it's not going to really, really affect somebody else and have a lasting impact on them. I really like that definition. 

Joanne: What I also like about that definition is that we can also flip it upside down to talk about what kinds of experiences help an HSP heal, or general person, but HSPs all the more.

If trauma is any experience, big or small, that leads a person to feel super out of control, super in danger or embarrassed, then healing would be any experience, big or small, that helps a person feel like they're in self-control, that they're super safe and secure and feeling seen, known and validated.

Finding ways to give ourselves more of those experiences on purpose, integrating that into our day-to-day lives is super important, because in the same way that we would be bothered more readily by different things that come up, we could also be readily soothed then for non HSPs.

It goes both ways. That's the nice thing about it. 

Responsiveness and Attunement

Lauren: I think that's so interesting that research has found that. It's just a really strange thing. I wouldn't have thought that that would be the case. I guess it's kind of sad in a way, but it's kind of nice also that even though we can be negatively affected by things more than the average person, we can actually be more affected by positive things, too.

Joanne: It eventually kind of breaks even, you know?

It's just that neutral stimulation. Less so having a moral charge of good and bad towards it. 

I think for that reason, those who are highly sensitive or are in relationships with HSPs need to be particularly attentive to noticing things in our environment like, five senses. 

Like bringing in more greenery, for example. 

Even those small things can have their own compound interest, if you will. It just keeps snowballing so that even when a person comes home, if their environment is very soothing, then they can actually recharge a lot more quickly than for someone who's not particularly paying attention and they're still getting aggravated along the way.

I would say that the HSP trait prompts one to need more responsiveness and attunement and more intentionality to their daily experiences. 

Lauren: I agree. And I've started to try, I mean, now I have a six month old at home so that's just another added layer on top of everything. As a new mom you hear, you don't have to keep up with the dishes and all of this, it's okay because you're busy, which I totally agree with. But on the flip side, if I don't, it stresses me out. If there's stuff all over the place, I lose my mind. So I know that for my own mental health, I also have to be as much on top of dishes, laundry, and cleaning up clutter as I can be. Otherwise it's going to go rapidly downhill.

Joanne: It's not about being particular or about having high standards or whatnot. The alternative is I'm just going to be irritable all the time. 

We give our nervous systems a chance to breathe more easily.

Using Brainspotting to Decompress

Lauren: So what are some other things that we can do to help our nervous systems other than being really intentional about our surroundings? 

Joanne: There are two approaches that I use most of the time in therapy. One is the Enneagram Personality framework. The other is called brainspotting, which is a derivative of EMDR, another trauma therapy technique. 

Brainspotting is actually what we do naturally, just not on purpose. 

If you've ever seen a veteran who is back in civilian life and they're kind of sitting on a bench and they're staring off into space. That's an example of brainspotting. 

The person doesn't quite know that they're internally processing, but their lizard brain is definitely trying to metabolize some stressful things. Obviously, for veterans, they've gone through a lot. 

HSPs tend to do that, staring off into space a lot more often. It's just that the idea of staring off into space is not socially acceptable. It's as if someone is not engaged or disinterested or whatever. 

Often when someone is sitting, staring off into space, the people around them are like, hey, are you okay?

But in actuality, the person's brain is saying, no, I just need to sit and do nothing and decompress. 

What I recommend for clients who come in, they find out that they're HSP or they've known for some time, but they're wanting to know how can I de-stress as soon as possible. I would say give yourself permission to sit and zone out for at least five minutes uninterrupted. 

The emphasis is on permission. 

Often when we have those experiences, when we're checked out, there's a lot of judgment and shame around it. When our body's actually trying to recover, when we bring in that judgment, then that actually sets up a whole bunch of triggers that ends up adding more stress than even before we start zoning out.

If a person can give themselves at least three to five minutes of zone out time throughout the day.  Great! 

If a person does it five minutes every hour, the five minutes will help decompress whatever happened within that 55 minutes prior, and then again, and again, and again. Really taking advantage of breaks. 

Let's say a person's work environment is not conducive to that kind of stuff. Where it's an open office and everyone's talking all the time. Excuse yourself to go to the restroom and then just sit there for a couple extra minutes so that you can have uninterrupted time where you can just allow your body to metabolize whatever comes up.

Brainspotting traditionally is using specifically one's eye position and zoning out while looking at that particular spot. It's just that a lot of people might do so accidentally where they're zooming in on a negative experience and then end up ruminating. 

My encouragement for people is that instead of focusing on what's bothering them to scan their body. Look for the most neutral or the most pleasant or grounding spot. 

Then while they're focusing on that spot notice where their eyes naturally gravitate towards and then stare there… for not too long because this is originally a therapy approach, so it really should be done with a therapist. Especially when processing difficult things. But because our bodies reflexively do it anyway, it will be good for people to try that on purpose.

An idea with brainspotting is where you look affects how you feel. So it's kind of hacking that towards HSPs. 

Lauren: That's so cool! I'm guessing doing this might help with falling asleep at night. I know a lot of us, if we have trouble falling asleep, it's because our brain won't shut off. I'm guessing if you give yourself breaks during the day to process things instead of leaving it all to when you're trying to fall asleep, then it will help with the time it takes to fall asleep. 

Joanne: Focusing on a very soothed or relaxed part of your body, noticing where your eye naturally drifts to and staring off in that place and just noticing whatever comes up. 

We don't have to analyze or anything. It's better that we don't analyze. 

Another approach is to focus on what you would like to feel. Thinking of either a time in your life, a memory, or if you don't have a particular memory, make up a scenario. 

For some people it might be laying in a hammock with a cocktail in your hand in front of the beach. Focusing on that until you experience the body sensations and then notice where your eye looks and then stare there. 

You can use either of those approaches. No fancy equipment necessary. You could actually do this while you're laying in bed in the dark. It's kind of a nice, handy way to do so.

Lauren: I'm gonna try that. I've heard of brainspotting through working, but I've never, gone further than just hearing about what it is. So that's really interesting to learn about that. I'm glad you brought that. 

Joanne: We don't have one brain, we have three, and they're very much interconnected.

So if someone, having gone through a bad situation, and they have negative emotions and their body shows it. Facial expressions or the posture or whatnot. The reverse is also true as well. 

When people actually simulate a posture that's associated with either positive or relaxed experiences, maybe even power postures, that's something that has been gaining more popularity nowadays, that can also affect how we feel on the inside.

It's just that the highly sensitive person trait often is associated with social experiences of making oneself small or meek or gentle or quiet, caring, et cetera. 

I would actually even encourage HSPs to practice living as if they're not HSPs, at least in their bodies. That can actually create a different feedback loop.

Lauren: I like that. 

Joanne: I might encourage a non HSPs to actually practice being like HSPs. So it goes both ways 

Lauren: I'm so glad you brought all of this to the podcast because I hadn't talked about some of these things before. Your expertise is much appreciated. 

Joanne: It's a great space. I'm really thankful that you have this avenue for people to really learn more about themselves and take good care.

Top Two, Bottom Two

Lauren: Thank you. So is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you wanted to make sure you brought up? 

Joanne: In terms of the five senses, one thing I talk about with people is in noticing which of the five senses are your top two? Like you notice it all too readily. They either bother you or they please you very easily. 

Then what are your bottom two senses? 

For me, I'm super easily affected by sight and touch. My bottom two senses are taste and smell. 

It actually has been a very healing journey for me personally. I used to dissociate a lot. In actually tapping into those bottom two senses and trying to reconnect with my physical body.

I happen to do so by making cocktails. That's been a fun experience for me because I'm really focusing in on what usually takes more effort. That's helped me to connect with a present versus drifting away into wherever I tend to go in my mind and my feelings. 

Lauren: I like that.

So how can people connect with you?

Joanne: I have my website, olivemecounseling.com. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram. I do also have a side business called Intelligent Emotions and that is an online course where I help people find out how to navigate with their big feelings.

Often if we leave our big feelings as they are, they tend to spiral into a vortex. It's a self paced course where people can find out that emotions are actually very logical and they actually have a system of their own. We're just not ever taught about it. Those two things:

OliveMe Counseling or Intelligent Emotions, that's the name of the course. 

Lauren: Thank you so much for being here. I think a lot of people will benefit from what you shared with us.

---

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© 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!”

How to Do Brainspotting on Yourself (Gazespotting)

DISCLAIMER: The Brainspotting approach mentioned here is meant to help your body decompress from stress accumulated from a busy day, NOT to help you process trauma. This post is NOT meant to be a replacement for therapy, just to help you wind down and rest more readily.

If you have trauma triggers or really intense emotional reactivity, find a therapist near you.

Your body knows how to heal itself

Brainspotting is a therapy modality that’s been gaining more attention in recent years because of how well it helps people process emotional reactivity, trauma, and dissociation.

As a derivative of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Brainspotting also utilizes eye positions. David Grand, the founder of Brainspotting, says, “Where you look affects how you feel.”

Many of my therapy clients who’ve tried both EMDR and Brainspotting say that they prefer the latter, hands down, because of how intuitive it can be and how deeply yet quickly it helps people resolve their pain.

One of the best things about Brainspotting is that this is actually something our bodies intuitively know how to do. Staring off into space, eyes glazed over, is an example.

Gazespotting (one specific type of Brainspotting) is a useful tool to keep in your back pocket, especially if you’re a Highly Sensitive Person or if your life circumstances are super busy and/or chaotic that you often feel overwhelmed (parents of young kiddos, I see you!).

Gazespotting is much more helpful than Netflix binging or scrolling mindlessly on social media, since you don’t actually feel more rested after those things.

No fancy equipment necessary for Gazespotting - you just need 5-7 minutes (15 minutes, even better!).

You can do this anywhere and anytime you don’t have anything you need to focus on (i.e., don’t do this excessively at work or while driving - otherwise you might make mistakes or miss your exit!).

How to do DIY Brainspotting

Reminder, don’t try to do trauma processing by yourself. Brainspotting is like deep water diving - the further below the surface you go into your subconscious, the darker and more disorienting it gets. Divers have someone else sitting in the boat on the surface, ready to pull them out when it’s getting too risky or when it’s time. The Brainspotting therapist is that someone else.

Here are the steps for Gazespotting:

1. Recommended timing: Once around lunch time, once around dinner time, and once before going to bed (basically, when your body and mind needs a break from work/focus mode).

2. Set an alarm for 7 minutes, with a pleasant alarm tone.

3. Focus on a part of your body that feels the most GROUNDED, NEUTRAL, and CALM. Rate that feeling from 1-10 (10 - most relaxed).

4. Then, look around in your room (first from left to right at eye level, then up/down) and find a spot where you feel even MORE relaxed.

5. Zone out while staring at that spot until the timer goes off.

6. Just notice whatever comes up - none of this needs to make sense to your analytical brain.

7. When the timer goes off, close your eyes, scan your body, and stretch your body to reset and be fully present again.

8. Don’t do this for longer than 5 minutes at a time. Better to do it more frequently than longer durations.

9. If you’re still feeling checked out, drink some water. Notice the temperature of the water as it goes down.

BONUS: If you’re feeling super reactive and have a hard time calming, here’s a great video that my work wife Melinda Olsen made about Vergence, another type of Brainspotting you can do yourself!

Power of Permission

The main difference between Gazespotting and you accidentally zoning out is your INTENTION.

When you zone out reflexively, you might often judge yourself because society deems those who are inactive as being “lazy”, “sluggish”, “unproductive”, etc.

You might judge yourself, or others around you might judge. But when you give yourself PERMISSION to zone out, a huge internal switch happens.

• When you zone out DESPITE your plans, you feel TRAPPED, HELPLESS, OUT OF CONTROL, and ASHAMED. This adds more strain to your nervous system, which makes you more reactive.

• When you zone out because you WANT to, you experience the feelings of AGENCY and SELF-CONTROL. This helps the nervous system soothe.

Practice giving yourself PERMISSION to rest, zone out, do nothing. Then see what happens.

A loud inner critic…

When your inner critic/Manager part starts criticizing you for not getting work done:

• Say thank you to that part for wanting to help you

• Say that what it’s doing is not actually helping because it’s adding MORE stress that shuts you down further

• Tell that part that what you’re needing right now is to turn your nervous system back on and that you need to turn off your brain for a while to do just that

• Say that you’ll ask for your inner critic’s help again when it’s the right time. Now is not that time.

• Reset the timer to 5 minutes.

• Resume gazespotting.

A Rhythm of Relaxing

Gazespotting is something I’ve integrated into my normal daily routine during lunch breaks, when I come home from work (sitting in my car for an extra 5 min before going inside), or winding down at the end of the day in bed.

More frequent, shorter runs are better than having stress buildup on your nervous system. If you really don’t have chunks of time to do this, doing this for 1 minute every hour between meetings or activities would still do wonders for your mind, heart, and body.

Start incorporating this wherever you are, and see where this takes you. The key words are “INTENTION” and “PERMISSION.”

---

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"!

I want my First Aid Kit!

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Check your inbox for your copy of The BIG Feeler First Aid Kit!

---

© 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!”

Designing a Healing Space: How HSPs Can Create a Safe Haven at Home

Hanging on the wall of my best friend’s office is this sign that reads:

Sanctuary:

your safe and peaceful haven.
a comforting place of refuge and rest in a noisy, chaotic world.

Ever since I learned that I’m a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), I realized just how much my external environment impacts my inner world, and vice versa.

Home for this HSP

Having learned this, I started recalibrating how my physical space is both at home and at work.

Here’s what I did for myself:

• I got plants, which taught me valuable lessons

• I gave myself permission to toss out itchy clothes

• I replaced all the lighting in my home with soft, warm light

• I bought a TON of plushy blankets and cushions

• I got fuzzy slippers and warm layers

• I got rid of anything looks visually jarring (busy patterns, annoying colors, clutter)

• I often wear earplugs or noise cancelling earphones when unwinding or focusing on a task

Moreover, I chose a home specifically considering what impact it might have on my HSP body. Even if it cost more, I gave more weight to things like natural lighting, tons of greenery, access to water, and lots of quiet.

(Imagine how many therapy sessions I saved myself because my body regularly gets to rest and relax! All in all, a net GAIN.)

Within my home, here is a nook I created for myself, my own sanctuary.

Inside matches Outside

One morning, I bust out my watercolors and joined in the Draw Your Feelings workshop that my friend Rukmini (@rockinruksi) offers. The prompt for that morning was: “Mapping Your Heart”.

This is what came out during that time.

In the past several years, I’ve done a lot of personal work in considering myself as being JUST AS WORTHY as others - no more, no less (think equanimity: “equal life” or “equal soul”).

A lot of this inner work was possible because I also recalibrated my external environment.

Your Safe Haven

I define TRAUMA to be any experience that stirs up strong feelings of being unsafe, ashamed, or out of control.

In turn, I define HEALING to be any experience that provides the opposite - that gives you the sense of being safe, worthy, or in self-control.

• When it comes to your physical environment (home and work), what do you notice?

• What is its impact on your mind? your emotions? your nervous system?

Not everyone has the opportunity and freedom to do a complete overhaul of their personal space, but there is still a lot of adjustments that might be feasible.

Specifically consider the five senses: sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch:

1. How can you reduce, dampen, or eliminate some things that BOTHER you?

2. How can you bring more of what REJUVENATES you?

Take one small action to help your body soothe a bit more this week.

---

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"!

I want my First Aid Kit!

Loading...

Thank you!

Check your inbox for your copy of The BIG Feeler First Aid Kit!

---

© 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!”