Beatrice Chestnut - Type 3 Enneagram Panel

you [Music] okay so welcome back for our type three panel I'll do a short introduction and then we'll hear from our panelists and we have Wendy Patrick Kimmy and Dave so thank you for being on our three panel so type three is the second type in the heart triad that we'll talk about today type three is that what we call the core point of the heart triad and that it's in the middle and it's one of the vertexes of the inner triangle of the inia gram it kind of means that two and four are variations on three in a way three is the core point and three is also the point which is the prototype for all of us for just the the fact that we all have a personality so threes identify with the personality or the image and then they in personality they don't really realize that they're more than their personality they get very identified with an image and then almost confuse their real self or their image which is something we actually all do we all identify with their personality and thinks that's all of who we are when really according to the Enneagram teaching we're much more than just our personality so at the core of type 3 is a kind of confusion of their real self for the image that they take on in the world as a coping strategy to get what they need and for the threes it's a little bit like twos in that they had an early experience often of not feeling loved or approved of or appreciated for who they really are but more in the sense of different than the twos which are more about what they do for people or being pleasing or supportive of others it's more for threes it's more about having an image of success or achievement and it's both the actual accomplishment of tasks and goals and achieving of status and also a looking good kind of a fulfilling an image that is socially approved of in ever context they're in so threes are very good at kind of reading a room or reading the context and and almost automatically ascertaining what is valued in that context Steen is successful seen as something that is desirable and becoming that the defense mechanism is identification so it's as if they identify with the image of what's approved of and become that and then of course in personality believe that's who they are and so this can usually be taking on of characteristics and a presentation that fits a particular image and 4:3 is again it's more about having a sense of what scene is successful or admirable more than more of a personal like pleasing or supportive thing than it is for twos so because for threes it's the coping strategy is about being seen as successful or being admired they get very good at doing whatever it takes to be successful so they tend to be very task focused for a work focused very goal-oriented really good at kind of figuring out what's the goal I want to achieve and finding it's the most direct and efficient line from A to B how do I get to the goal so it's almost like a laser beam focus on the goal that allows them to achieve a lot because they're really good at identifying what is the result I want to achieve and how can I get there and then they do what it takes to get there so they can be very productive very effective and at work and there is a lot of focus on work now threes are heart types right which means they are emotional types there is a myth about 3s or a misconception that 3s are not emotional right so the thing is their heart types and they are very emotional but part of their coping strategy is based on basically turning the volume down on emotions so they're good it kind of not acknowledging I'm and this is unconscious of course kind of numbing out their emotions not tuning into them focusing on something so that they're not in their motions now one of the reasons why its Ruiz worked so hard is because they're avoiding their emotions and they have to work really hard to avoid their emotions so this is why people think well they're not emotional they're not in touch with emotions the emotions are really there they just aren't always in touch with them because if you think about it if you were if you're someone who wants to get a lot done emotions will slow you down I have a good friend who's a three who says emotions are not aerodynamic right or another three friends says emotions have a high drag coefficient right so if you're in a mood like West ooze can be in a mood sometimes I don't feel like getting things done right but threes are more about getting things done and so they're really good not allowing a mood or an emotion to slow them down now of course one of the things that happens when they do slow down is feelings bubble up right because they are emotional types this is why they don't slow down one of the reasons why because I have another three I know said one time he knew he was a three when he realized he was going to a doctor's appointment and just the thought that he would have to spend time in the waiting room potentially for he didn't know how long he would bring four books with him now he's not gonna read those four books and that waiting but that's how nervous he was about having any downtime whatsoever so it's like don't leave any room because feelings will come up so there is they are emotional and when 3's grow one of the big things they do is get more in touch with their feelings and more in touch with their emotions and what they learn is our feelings are exactly the way that we get information about who we are and learn about who our true self is that's different that might be different than the image so sometimes threes will identify with an image and they'll like go into a line of work that everyone around them wanted them to go into but doesn't really speak to their deepest desires but they may not know that until they do some personal work and they get more in touch with who they really are and realizing you know what I don't really like what I'm doing now that I have the experience of getting more in touch with my feelings and what I like and don't like so those are some things about Three's I'm gonna see if there's anything else I want to do by way of introduction I think that's it let's leave it there for the introduction and leave it to the experts to fill us in on the rest so Wendy why don't you start us off and just tell us a little bit about how you knew you were three and how you see the type 3 patterns playing out in your life so I like to say that I popped out of the womb with a to do list that was very much reinforced in my family who were all about making sure that we were accomplished I was the child of two British immigrants and they had no frame of reference where I was growing up other than what they knew which was to reward their children for being successful and and I did that in spades so I was a straight-a student and scholarships and graduated summa wad Phi Beta Kappa had no idea what I wanted to do all I knew what to do was to work really really really hard and so I've really identified with the recognition that came from accomplishments we were talking a little earlier about subtypes and in my family my mother always said that the worst thing she could do was raise a vain child so imagine that you're getting rewarded for being accomplished but you have to do it on the down-low so I come by my self preservation subtype quite honestly but then the point you were making about finding yourself incre you know doing something you didn't like to do I spent 35 years in Silicon Valley doing software and things like that and I was really good at it so I had I'd sort of found my zone of excellence but it wasn't my zone of genius but I persevered because I couldn't think what else to do that got me the recognition and also provided the accoutrement of success so you know I got to ride my little BMW but there's always a used BMW because we don't want to look flashy er then and then we traded it in for a Prius right because that's you know kind of the environmentally correct thing to do plus you get the HOV Lane which gets you faster to where you need to go it was really the latter instead of the former and then as happens I think for a lot of threes I ended up with a health crisis because I just round myself into the ground I was just working all the time it was not uncommon to work 70 hours during the week from a relational standpoint my husband who is Type six used to ask me to just slow down and I was like why I'm providing and he's like yeah but I married you because I like who you are not what you do yeah concept was so foreign that somebody could actually like me for me without the succeeding and the the accomplishment so it wasn't until I had a health crisis that I sort of discovered that I was at three mmm you're saying a lot of good things I do want to highlight some subtypes of three because what you said about self-preservation yeah so the self-preservation subtype is a type most of the books about the Enneagram talked about the social three and we actually don't have a social three today we have one self-preservation in three one two ones or sexual subtypes you're it's oh you're self-preservation - okay so we have two self reservations - sexuals so the social three isn't the one that's sort of more so that the fixation and the the the passion of the type or vanity and self-deceit now it used to be self to see it was the passion claudia Naranjo switched it so that vanity is the passion some people still think that self-preservation is the fixation either way we can talk about both of them self-deceit right sorry so self-deceit is something where the thing I talked about how you identify with the image and you don't know who you really are so sometimes people say three is lie but it's not really fair because threes don't really know they're lying because they just have identified with something and they don't know and that they don't know who they are so that's one thing to say about self to see van is now what Naranjo says which i think is brilliant about vanity is that self-preservation threes have vanity for having no vanity so there's a way that they want recognition just like all the other threes they like to be on stage they're good at it but they have a little bit of discomfort with bragging or or self-promotion and so they can want to sort of be a little bit more on the down-low when it comes to showing off or things like that so having the used BMW or the Prius trading it in for a Prius and I always meet a self preservation 3 at almost everything I go to there they turned in their BMW for a Prius it's amazing it's amazing and and the person who the self preservation 3 is the one who doesn't really want to wear designer clothes with the labels on them that's the social 3 so the social 3 wants to be more on stage it's some more aggressive more competitive 3 and we still want to look good yeah of course still want to look good at all the same 3 stuff it's just a little bit more modest and similar with sexual three's who are a little bit more shy about recognition they'd rather have other people succeed so we'll get to that in a minute so sexual threes are more about supporting others and being appealing and almost in a charismatic way so just a little bit about this the subtypes to orient you to that and then I wanted to highlight a couple other things that you said one is this piece about sometimes threes will work and work and work and they don't really slow down and work on themselves until they have some sort of breakdown and they often describe illness or accident or something that actually stops them in their tracks do you want to say something about yours yeah so I ended up in the hospital with a lab induced case of pancreatitis and almost died on my way that the hospital I was trying to figure out how to get a contract redlined and at the same time my friend was driving me to the hospital and she didn't know anything about my middle name my social security and I was incapable of literally giving it so this is the other thing I think about threes is that we reveal certain parts of ourselves but other parts of ourselves we you know we really are very kind of private about and then I got to the hospital and I'm like oh no no no I'm a competent professional I know how to do being sick which I had no clue how did you being sick and I mean I was really really really sick I mean seriously to the point where I almost died first day the chaplain came in and asked me if I wanted to pray said nope got this and by the seventh day that chaplain came in and I was like oh yeah I'll take it I was like literally on my knees I will take any form of Prayer any form of crystals any form of healing you bring it on I am now receptive I have been humbled and it truly it was really really scary and in that moment that we were praying together and she was over by the the window I hadn't out-of-body experience where I could see myself I could see her I could see the light behind her and I thought okay this is we have to change there's something [Music] not working about my life and it was that was in 2008 and so it took me about eight years to get out of my career but at that point I was like I am NOT identifying with my work I started training to become an India Graham coach and teacher through the narrative tradition and I commit radically shifted how I valued my life my life became more about discovering Who I am what my feelings are how to connect with my feelings you know those little diagrams that they have with happy face sad face mad face afraid face that was where I had to start to figure out the whole emotion piece of it because I was so disconnected from feeling I want to say just a couple one more thing about self preservation subtype so it's the three that's a hard worker plus the self preservation instinct which brings in a fear about security and survival and so it's almost like turbocharges the three and so the self-preservation three is the three that has the hardest time slowing down has the hardest time stopping and saying you know if this is enough this is too much and so I appreciate you sharing your story because it really reflects how how much you hold on to that working and that that what got you the good stuff what got you the rewards of the recognition because it's just so hard to let go of that yeah yeah thank you so Patrick how did you discover yourself as a three and how do you see it playing out in your life so I'm extremely new to Enneagram actually so what so the being on this panel is kind of forcing me to confront my fear of being the least knowledgeable person about something but I moved into a house in Berkeley of people who were all very familiar with Enneagram and the first meal I cooked for like the house involved this one dessert that had like multiple components that each took had multiple components to it and they all walked into the room and they were like oh you're a three so but in kind of exploring like what being a three means I realized that like as I grew up in a household with a parent with substance abuse issues and enabler as another parent and I was always the like emotional child around that where's my four other siblings were very they were much better oppressing their emotions around it so I was always the one caught out for being emotional so that I struggled with that I there was this feeling of being devalued because of that and then I realized that school was one a way that I could gain a lot of praise because I was very good at it and an activity that I could channel of my emotions into so I kind of just both bulldoze through my academics and succeeded with that into college into graduates master's program and PhD program where I'm at now but not a lot of slowing down and I realized so in moving here I realized I was confronting this fear of being in a new area surrounded by people I had didn't know kind of socializing myself to that circle and trying to perform to be the smart interesting funny person that people would want to connect with and I was talking to a friend who he's he did this out of being a too but he was describing this exhaustion from always performing to be funny to be confident to be intelligent for other people and as he was describing this I realized that I was like crying as he was talking about this process because I never realized how much work I was doing unconsciously to performed to meet the expectations of other people and after that the day after that I realized I couldn't really connect with the people around me because I didn't know how to connect with people without performing and I was so exhausted by performing that I just couldn't do it but slowly kind of came back to it by what I thought was a more authentic way of connecting but it was a lot of work to saying like how do I interact with human beings while not trying to show off and do you have a sense of do you relate to that piece of creating an image or being aware of an image and how people view you yes I it's depending on the setting I always want to be the person that I think they will be impressed by and I there was a moment where two friends were like like somehow my personality was coming up and I it seems so strange to me because that two people could perceive the same individual because I like I realized that I had no sense of like Who I am so it's like I don't know how anyone can see me because I have no idea who I am in a sense right right and sexual threes can be the most disconnected from themselves of any of any of any of the 27 types because that there is so much outer focus and wanting to be pleasing and attract people both like you're saying in terms of being impressive but also supportive of others like genuinely supportive of others like they'll work in support of others instead of their own self-aggrandizement let's say yeah that is something I have to work through a lot is to be there for others while not enjoying being the person who can be there for you who has the skills to help you with something and just allow myself to be there for someone without any kind of reward attached to that without doing yes something just bullying yeah a friends that say as opposed to sort of earning what you do by earning being a friend through doing something for them ya know or having the status to be able to help you in a particular way having this status yeah yeah so notice that three sexual three especially will sound a lot like two but it's a little more about status and a little more about performance like you're hearing in his language even and less about that personal connection or the pride of giving or the control that comes from giving and more about the role of supporter in that and in a certain way yeah Thank You Kimmy can you tell us how you saw yourself as a three found your type is 3 and how you see it playing out in your life so when I first was introduced to the Enneagram I thought it was a social one because I have issues with being in a social group but at the same time feeling really repressed about a lot of anger at work and people's personality and I went to saut which is a module that a Claudio Naranjo does and he doesn't he didn't say anything but the the second module I went to he started saying you know it's strange do you think you're a social one because you smile a lot why is it that you smile and it's really true because you must smile for something and I do smile a lot so it's always about this engaging with the other really trying to sense what is it that you want to see from me and and then sensing whether I can really match up to that image and so that was kind of like the beginning of my search or exploration of what like Who am I or how how am i and I think a good example I'm gonna take an example from this autobiography that I had to write for these modules basically you write an autobiography about your emotional experience throughout life and the anecdotes from those kind of gives you an idea of times in your life where it's been an indicator of who you are and so in high school I took chemistry honor a very strange tract course for me and I did well a B and then a couple years later you had the chance to do it like an AP course I took that and I even passed the class or the AP so you don't have to take it in college but then I went to college and I was like well you know I didn't really learn it completely so maybe I'll do it again and this time I did it again and I was setting the curve and really at this point I was like yes this is me like you know like now I really know it because I'm studying the curve because I'm sort of like the standard of what the class should be based on and and and this sort of like identification of how I want to be seen so throughout my life there's this conflict of how do i how do i expect myself to be and perhaps sometimes not meeting up to that expectation and really feeling crushed about the fact that I'm not how I expect myself to be and then after college you know because my family has always raised me in a way where money wasn't a big ideal but more about exploration discovery art I really thought maybe I could become a researcher and even though I was you know setting curves on all these Tess's and all these courses I came out into the world realizing that I didn't have the brain for and I wasn't gonna be a top-notch researcher and if I wanted to stay in the field I would have to work so hard but yet be mediocre almost and I wasn't okay with being mediocre so so I I left the research field and I became a pharmacist and said because I thought that I would be a great pharmacist next cellent pharmacist and I would have security financial security and you know a very respected field but I left the dream of becoming a researcher because well I don't know if it's really a dream because it's I thought it was a great ideal to have to sort of discovery discovering and so this wanting to be something great and then kind of seeking out to find that greatness in myself but often time it's not meeting that expectation and it sounds like that was something you identified within your family like there is you were picking up something in your family that what's desirable is to be this Explorer this Discoverer and yet when you got closer to that you felt like well I'm not going to be the best of this yeah and so it was sort of like that's not okay yeah and so I need to find something else right because the real researcher would be more interested in the science and what is so beautiful about this molecule that's binding to this other molecule I wasn't interested in that beauty some of it was beautiful but I was thinking of more the bigger picture of who I be this great person who is leading the field in that area you want to be that want to be able to be the best and so what so twos as twos avoid rejection threes avoid failure and I've heard threes say that they can a three told me once I can smell failure a mile away and take another route so it's almost like that's what the story you're telling us like I smell oh I don't know if that will be the big winner in that so maybe I should take another route which is a little bit like that yes yeah I don't like to try new things I don't think I'm good at yeah I'm good at a lot of things though [Laughter] that's great one other thing about cars which I thought was so funny is um you know I really want a Mini Cooper but it looks so flashy and you know and I hear that the engines don't work out very well after some certain number of years so I have an Impreza a Subaru Impreza which is just a small and cute but very practical and very zippy and very functional practicality and just getting the job done yes okay thank you so much so Dave how did you find yourself as a three and how do you see it playing out in your life it's hard to know where to start really 20 or 25 years ago my life shifted you know a marriage ended my dad died I went back to went to graduate school and one of my early teachers in doing an Enneagram training said fill in this sentence I am what I blank and I said well I am what I do because I am I define myself by my work and I've always defined myself as being successful in my work because if you define me as successful clearly I'm successful and clearly this is the path I'm on the right path because look I view it as as a success and that's kind of the point so mom was a 1 and dad was a 9 so around my house there was a right way in a wrong way to do things and I learned very early on that there's a right way to mow the lawn there's a right way to take out the garbage now interestingly I didn't have to do it perfectly like my mother I just had to do it well enough to where I was praised for it and to this day whatever I do I have to do well enough so that you tell me I'm great for having done it that well yeah right so so I'll stop typing as soon as you people start applauding so you know throughout grade school I was a success at home and I was really successful in school because I had to be because that level of success was expected at home and God forbid I shouldn't have the image of a good student but then when things become more social sixth seventh eighth ninth grade I had to change in order to be viewed as successful and one of the things I could do in high school was I could hang with the dopers and I could hang with the jocks and I could hang with the faculty I used to go stamp my own cut slips in the attendance office morning Marianne because I had that ability to shape-shift that we've been talking about so I'm gonna stop so can you tell us I know that you identify as a sexual 3 yes can you tell us a little bit about the way the sexual 3 focuses a lot on supporting other's success yeah and almost succeeds through helping others and not just not just about your own right yeah and I should probably share this story about how I found out I was a sexual six because I love sexual 3 because I I love the story now earlier be said she she likes sports she she's a real Giants fan she's a San Francisco Giants fan through and through and that's not just about liking sports or trying to make somebody else like her for liking sports she's a Giants fan so every couple of years at least we try to go to a game together and we're at this game several years ago and she said so how are you and two hours later I finished talking and about the seventh inning I said B I'm struggling to figure out my my subtype and B said Dave you are the poster child for one to one subtype and here's why she said I asked you to talk about how you are she said you didn't talk about you at all you talked about you talk for ten minutes about your mom you talk to ten minutes for ten minutes about your mentor you talked for ten minutes about your wife you talk for ten minutes about this person that person the other person one story at a time and that made that one-to-one orientation so clear to me and the way it manifests now in in my life is I finally like for careers into it figured out that the the image that really is me is the person who helps others to succeed and is able to take great joy in that and I found it before I'd landed in the hospital although it was tumultuous because suddenly I have to feel all those feelings that you haven't felt for a long time but I consider myself very lucky you know I have a lot of I do a lot of different things but one of what one of which is teach grads graduate school so mentoring my students is very important to me and helping them to be successful and the reason this didn't work in my previous career is because I take I took it very personally when they failed right that wasn't about them that was about me I must have failed because they suck can you say a little bit more about the feelings piece about how you normally relate to feelings and when they burst through do I have to feelings are not aerodynamic I love that I am a deeply emotional human being I sobbed when bing-bong died in inside out right eye and that remind us who that character was that character was the imaginary childhood friend of the the main character in the and the show the little girl in the show and you know we all lose that imaginary friend at some point it was very pointed the way that was done in that show I love that movie my favorite movie inside out and I would much rather deny my emotions in the interest of being expedient and getting stuff done because I've always I love that popped out of the womb with an to do list that was beautiful and yet the here's there's a guy named Michael Doyle Doyle and Strauss they wrote a book about how to make meetings work and I met Michael he's gone now God rest his soul but he came in and taught a class when I was in graduate school and I can't remember what we were talking about but he's got a whole cohort of graduate students and whatever we were talking about he cried and I was really blown away by that and we question that you know why are you crying and well as Dee I'm deeply touched by the topic and I said no that's not what I meant why are you crying here and he said I've spent a lot of time working on getting in touch with my emotions and he said I've learned that there's no percentage in holding it back and I've never forgotten that he was just such a great model for me to be able to be transparent this is a lifelong battle more transparent about my feelings there's no percentage in it there's not enough of a return on investment there's it's not worth holding back and the cost of showing one's emotions isn't that high and there's a great payback and a cost of holding him back perhaps yeah the cost of holding him back is huge so he was one of my early mentors I should stop and by the way threes really benefit when they grow having a role model right right and my role model and mentor is a nine yeah thank you so maybe starting with Wendy again what what has helped you to see if these three patterns and grow beyond them you already saw a little bit about this in terms of the illness and sort of getting stopped since then sort of what what have you become aware of what has helped you to become more aware of these patterns it is a never-ending process and you know I follow the helen palmer model of stop observe press the pause button identify the feelings that come up process the feelings determine whether or not whether or not I'm telling a story about the feeling and try and do this in real time so that we're not wasting time while we're processing the feelings I mean it's hilarious right is this kind of back and forth back and forth but on my growth path I have tried it all I've tried meditation I've tried walking meditation I've tried labyrinths I've done a cosmic record work I've you know done past life regressions I've I mean I have really done the whole not the whole that I've certainly been committed to my own spiritual growth tell me this yeah I've been told by three is that sometimes when they do spiritual work let's say do meditation they do it right which actually doesn't help them like again I'm not saying that's the way you've done it but yes it is meditation and I was asking the prayer what do I need to do at this point in my life this was after the 2008 experience to you know to just enjoy this path that I'm on to enjoy the journey of life and what I heard really clearly from up above or wherever came from was just stopped producing just be and I thought oh my god that's profound and I went and got my notebook out and I wrote a task list for how to be yeah right and then I got done with the task list and I was loving hysterically because I thought okay I think I could just got the joke right [Laughter] and what's true when what I experienced when I started down this path was so much grief and so much sadness that almost I mean I felt like I was going to be annihilated by that emotion because really what came up was the shame of having spent so much time acting in these roles and feeling like I had spent so much effort on this and it had no meaning for me and it was deeply and profoundly only just sad and just dealing with that emotion in and of itself and then I was listening to Jill Bolte Taylor don't heal my stroke of insight and she talked about how from a neurobiological standpoint were wired to process emotion in 90 seconds that from the moment they you know the thought comes in the emotion comes in we feel that you know the quart of oil comes up and blah blah blah and I thought isn't that interesting I don't have to hang on to this grief or the sadness it's not going to annihilate me and I and all of a sudden it became one of those things where I really could sit without emotion see it go through not make any judgment about it let it go and that has been truly for me that the most profoundly helpful thing about my own growth path is recognizing that the emotions that come up pass through that they they don't persist unless I hold on to them until a story about them and today I feel so much less like a three I spent a lot of time in six I spent a lot of time in nine I I am blessed to be married to a six who often times well asked me you know to consider a different point of view and in the past what I would do is I would just sort of move right through him because I would I was like okay no I've got this right and now I literally stop and connect with him instead of doing what the instinct to do is which is to clean the kitty litter box or to do whatever you know get the oil changed in the car so now it's more about what is coming up in this moment mmm that is asking for my attention and can I be okay with that and for me that has been the most helpful thing because just sitting there and contemplating my feelings or whatever it doesn't work for me I don't know what what's true for you guys but I have to do something that allows me to process that emotion in a way that doesn't destroy me right because it sounds like there's almost fear of the emotions fear that it will destroy me or they'll slow me down or I won't be able to do what I need to do if they come up is that yeah it's a fear that I don't have the capacity to handle that and it's also the image of that grief-stricken person right so it's the image of I'm falling apart here and and I can't fall apart they need to be together I need to be together and there's nobody underneath me to pick me up and that's the other myth that I've had to work on is that in fact I'm surrounded by people who would love to pick me up if I fell apart yes three sometimes believe if they don't do it nothing it won't happen and everything around them will fall apart if they don't keep doing what they're doing and it's sometimes hard to let people support you especially for the self press three it's like you have to do everything it's you're the one that provides security and it's hard to be vulnerable and depend on somebody else to help you that is the hardest lesson truly for me can I sure well ask you too sure one time you told me just a great example you said you started to feel some grief about your father and then you immediately had the thought I need to do the laundry yes is that how it happened yes yeah and in fact that's kind of a consistent tell for me is that I can feel now in my body where the grief is coming from I can feel it Welling from that the kind of the middle of my solar plexus up into my throat and when I feel that constriction in my throat that's usually the tell that I'm feeling grief or sadness Dave's nodding his head and then I have to think about okay so what was the thought that just came in a moment ago and the thought is oftentimes around the the loss of my father the loss of my dog something that I am really afraid of that fires burning down my home my husband getting in an accident I make my husband now text me when he's done with a bike ride so that I know that he's safe and it's so that I can s wage that fear but that's one of the pieces of growth that's been great it's just being able to feel that where it is in my body yeah the somatic piece of it is huge because oftentimes I think for me I feeling can you know particularly feeling I don't want to feel right there are wet right yeah and and then you know right behind it is usually the the feeling will come up and then I'm like okay now I got to take care of what's right in front of me so even just sitting down and knowing that I've got the sensation coming up I can feel myself getting out of my chair and getting going to go do something in the moment that I'm feeling that that sense of whatever that uncomfortable emotion is and it can mean anything right so that sounds like on the path to growth that's that's the real edge is to be self observing okay I have this impulse to go do something in something just just a feeling just started bubbling up which motivated that this urge to action I can I slow that down a little bit and notice whether it's in my body or in my heart like what's bubbling up that I might attend to or in slow down and feel as opposed to go go do something great thank you Patrick what's what's helped you to become more aware of these things and to grow one easy tell from me is I always fly I find that I'm clenching my jaw in certain situations where I'm just like I and then I know I'm like you are working so hard to control this situation how people are perceiving you in this moment so it's whenever I do that I am like how can I like just like let go let this moment unfold how it does and a lot of times that turns into me just like not speaking in a situation especially a group scenario just kind of letting everyone be and then being in that which is harder than it sounds for a three right because again there can be this sense of like if I don't do it no one will yeah yeah it's difficult because going home I still find that like my successes almost a lightning rod for the dysfunction you explain what you mean by that that like at least there's you being successful because everything else is kind of falling apart and I'm like oh if I and not there's no stability yeah yes again it's like if I don't do everything will fall apart and and the high side of three which is sometimes called hope is is that this almost describes it as the sure-sure feeling that things will work out even with no effort on your part you know the knowing that everything will work and things will happen without you having to be the one to do everything it has also helped I start dating a for who one of the first dates we had he was like why are you working so hard to like control the situation and then like has implicitly and explicitly just given me the space to like be kind of a mess in a moment and feel everything I need to feel yeah just been really good for me right so allowing feeling a little bit like for the twos as well allowing yourself to be with feelings and having getting used to the fact that that's okay yeah and then lastly I think because there's so many things I do to garner respect that I've tried to do those things but when I'm completely alone and no one knows I'm doing it because I do enjoy like cooking and writing so it kind of resocialize 'iz me to enjoying them for their their own worth and not because someone is saying like great job right right right doing something for the intrinsic joy I'm doing it as opposed to how it'll make people see you in a positive light or give you a compliment or recognize you because it's a lot about recognition for a3 yeah Thank You Kimmy what kinds of things have helped you to be more aware of these patterns and also to grow so I I'm not exactly a very verbal person I I like a lot of expression through the body and and through music so lately I've been noticing a lot of sort of control like how Wendy also describes about how much clenching there is in the body and and just like tensing everywhere and starting to notice when when do I have that tension in my body and and that control that need that need to be a certain way and just tuning into my own body and not being so affected by what I want to show everybody so that's one thing and the second is because I'm so affected by other people and I really like to be around one on one situation and I'm really engaging and I like the other person but it pulls so much of my energy out that I will actually a lot time for myself putting on my calendar that you know this week I need to spend more and not going out this evening to be with other people so that I can be a little bit more in tune with just my body or whatever it is I want to do or just spending time with myself when you are with other people is it easy to focus on what's happening in the moment with them or do you find you get pulled away by your to-do list or what's what what are relationships like for you I'm pretty in tune with other people when I'm with somebody usually I'm really good in one-on-one and I really enjoy that I'm almost like my whole soul is like halfway out of my body towards that person so I'm not really thinking about other things when I'm with you can you can really focus yeah you don't find that work gets in the way of relationship you can sort of do both yeah I feel like I'm when I'm with that person I tend to be quite in the moment with with them great yeah and again threes or heart types and so relationships are a big focus yeah what's the question no I was just rocked back by when I'm with another person my entire soul is halfway out to that person right I mean no I that was really touching yeah you know were we get in our own way a lot because we're so task oriented that we often appear uncaring a word that I often use to self described is driven and that's like a clue that's like a flag that there's a three in there because we we approach tasks goals success with blinders on and so I'm trying to think of exactly how you framed this question well part of it is like what helps you be more self-aware yeah you know what helps you grow out of these patterns right by noticing them right well what I noticed these patterns by the bodies in my wake sometimes threes are so focused on the goal that they'll sort of run over or get around or ignore or piss off or hurt anyone who's in your way between you and your goal exactly and often what I found is that it's not the people that are in my way it's their feelings you know dealing with the feelings you know so just do like you might have weighed your own feelings you kind of want to avoid other people's feelings right yeah ain't nobody got time for that and again I think that's the operative phrase there's not time for that right I've often heard three's say something like feelings aren't productive they're not and they actually get in the way right productivity right why would you want to bother with that icky stuff and yet and yeah if you don't when I when I was behaving that way and I still do sometimes you know it's a process but when I was behaving that way exclusively I found that I would reach a goal be successful be perceived as being successful and not be happy and none of the people along the way were happy and I would repeat that over and over and over again until finally I said screw this I'm gonna do what I want to do and this was around 25 years ago as I said in the same six year period I went back to graduate school lost my father he died so that I had nothing to do with that my my first marriage ended and oh by the way I got sober after having drunk being an alcoholic drinker for 25 years and I went back to church and I you know it was a whole transformation the whole thing changed not all my behaviors changed at once but my orientation did and I started taking into account some of the bodies in my wake and I I started pursuing these goals and the success and what you think of me and all that stuff in a way where my happiness really played into it too and what I discovered was the less I cared the happier I was and the better I treated you and the better I treated me and the more I was aware of how I felt there was this sense of not being attached that until I was able to let go of trying to force control I really had no control the less I cared about image the less I cared about success the less I cared about what you wanted you know and it sounds callous but it was very freeing and and old habits die hard you know I really to this day mistreat people my wife's gonna be on the panel next time if she can tell you stories which proves the point yes thank you darling and are you more emotional now yeah I would think so I have to check with my wife yeah no I I've always been emotional but I never really knew where it came from and I'd always have to stuff it because I couldn't explain it and now I don't have a lot of judgment around that it just is and yeah it's yeah yeah yeah okay anything I haven't asked you about that feels like it might be important to say about it about three or anything yes nothing rising okay well up mate Oh Dave said yes yes so when you were saying go against the arrow first yes six six I was just gonna talk about that so perfect I have found it really useful recently when I'm at my worst to ask myself the question what am I afraid of mmm yes because if I can figure out what I'm afraid of then I can behave in a more down-to-earth collaborative way so you named something earlier that I found great value in doing and not knowing that I was doing that thing I had one other thing so the Richmond bridge was closed for an hour Thursday morning because a concrete falling off the upper deck and I was stuck in the back up I got a lot of work done and when when something is just absolutely uncontrollable there's there's nothing to rage against so I can accept it I got out we were type people we're talking to each other how often do you have a chance to walk around the bridge so yeah but if there was anything I could have done about it I'd be doing it yeah yeah I I really find that spending time alone is really helpful for these emotions to come out because you're talking about fear you know I was planning this event last year and there were moments where I really felt a lot of fear because I had to make so many decisions and I wasn't sure how it was gonna turn out I literally would spend hours at home just kind of like shaking in fear like like and you know I can't really show that in front of other people and so all these anxiety all these emotion it's helpful to have a space for that because maybe you yourself can can accept that and but you don't want other people to see it at least for a three so spending the time alone has been really helpful you know feeling anger feeling sadness crying for hours it's okay in your own space at least for right now so yeah yeah I have to watch Love Actually at least once a year is that just to reconnect with you so just to say a little bit more about the arrow movement so yes when three goes to six first it's about slowing down to get in touch with fear to get in touch with things that they sometimes don't allow space for you know concerns what could go wrong questioning sometimes it's like the goal is right there and there's no question it's really all forward movement as quickly as possible they don't like to be slowed down so in or slowing down checking in with other people what problems are I might might I be overlooking because I've just really headed in this direction and going quickly the other thing is then going to 9 what can you say anything about anyone want to say anything about what's going what going to 9 is like for you that's again the path of above growth sometimes called the stress point I think of 9 is hanging out my pajamas anything popcorn yes it's allowing yourself to be and not just do so David Daniels used to say that that threes are human doings and not human beings and they need to learn to just be and nines are really good at hanging out and just being and also connecting more to the people around them tuning into the creating harmony and relationships and not just kind of doing their own thing anything else anyone wants to say about that I do 9 a lot these days in all ways I like the description because nine always feels like jammies and popcorn and potato chips and movies and letting things unfold and just being I do a lot of that these days I don't necessarily do it without some level of negative self-talk mm-hmm so it's a challenge to allow yourself to just be it is because I've got so many things to do you want to hear about my to-do list and do you like do you always check things off the to-do list sometimes I'll write things on the list that I've already done just so I can check yeah I think other types keep to-do lists but threes are the only ones I've heard of that actually like check everything off and even will put something on to check it off that and there's a great feeling of satisfaction absolutely even takes it with her right writing a to-do list alone just feels so good before like a sense of accomplishment yeah yeah but I'm with Dave on the nine thing because about two years ago I made a decision that I wasn't going to do anything that required a huge amount of effort because I had been come so exhausted and I just want you to enjoy my life at this point and just see what came up and I decided that I was only going to do things if I was invited to do them not because I had issued the invitation and and just creating that space first of all just creating that space active person who's initiating something but allow yourself to almost receive and be more so guess what's happened what more invitations that I know what to do so that I didn't expect right because all of a sudden because I used to say well I can't do that because I've got this this this and this and now people are inviting me and I'm like going oh yeah I can do that sure I can do that sure I can do that and now I'm exhausted in the other direction oh yes right right and everything that's the thing the tricky thing about too is especially on the self-developing threes especially on the self-development tasks that path is everything can turn into doing right like meditating can be taking a walk or meditating can be doing meditation or like going out having an active social life can be doing that going on vacation can involve doing in tasks is that right well so vacations now my rule is I booked the hotel I booked the flights and sorry I generally know where we're going where we're staying and how to get there and that's it so this is a growth that I'm not exactly some sort of bike trip will be pointed that's different than what I used to do which was every okay so now we're doing the Louvre and if we have time that we're going to the Rodin Museum and if we time then we're going to go to this cool little cafe right to hang out with the beautiful people looking beautiful or maybe not but no I don't I don't script it so that's a developmental step okay all right so I want to open it up to questions so I first want to ask Michael if you have any comments or questions again a wonderful panel B I wanted to ask you you you spoke of the arrows to 6 & 9 is there a broader significance of the three cardinal points nine three six however you define it as opposed to are there different qualities to the three cardinal points as opposed to the other point there are in that it's it's thought that each each triad the two points surrounding the core point are like variations on that main point so 2 & 4 would be variations of 3 5 and 7 would be variations of 6 I also heard there's there something about each type and I'm not going to remember this now it's not that threes aren't emotional it's that they can use it externally sort of in terms of reading a room but not it for themselves internally almost and it's there's something similar with the 9 and the 6 so there are certain aspects of the core points that are distinctive with respect to the rest of the points yeah and is there but the arrows that connect all the points the law of seven as opposed to law of three you have that right yeah you spoke of one as creation and the other as yep yeah right could you could you elaborate on that distinction a little more sure so the law of seven is about it's the idea that there are seven steps required and to complete any process and it's like the musical scale right it would be a good example of that the law of three is the law of creation now when we put them together one of the traits of the process Enneagram is we can almost see it as a steps in a process of self-development so in the Sufi tradition they have a lot to say about what one means and one at one as a spiritual station so not the type at all but just a point on in development that's the point when we're absolutely in personality and coming from instinct so we are completely blind to the fact that we are identified with personality and everything's fine we think everything because we're in verse and now there's no problems because we're just operating in personality and just trying to do our thing but when we move to to not as a type but as a point in development that's the next stage in a process where we get more conscious a little bit more conscious we start to be aware that things aren't quite right you know a little bit like we've heard people and the panel's say of like actually this coping strategy isn't completely working and or conscious suffering comes in more desire to be on a growth path more awareness of the passion all of these things happen in this move now the three type point three not type three is not the next spiritual station the next spiritual station is 0.4 that's the third step in the process point three it's at three it's a shock point and three and six or shock points and that means something else needs to come in from the outside in order to keep the process going now again this could be a whole day long lecture in itself it's kind of complex but that just gives you a little bit of a flavor into this that these are also a map of process and that and that these are you know there has a lot of significance in terms of human development could you could you just walk us briefly through the rest oh you got us to three even though it's complicated could you just walk us through the rest of the point that is not in my book so at four we get in touch with the higher virtue we get in touch with more loneliness we get more in touch with the fact that we are insignificant in the big scheme of things we aren't the center of the universe like we thought we were on the Enneagram model between four and five there's a gap and that signify is a kind of dark night of the soul that we all must go through to go from being aware of the higher virtue at that at the four point the third spiritual station until we get to five where we get in touch with the higher mental centre and the Holy ideas but that dark ocean the dark night of the soul it's a kind of it's Persephone's world it's going into the underworld it's a kind of it signifies a kind of need to face the shadow and this is why that gap at the bottom of the Enneagram is very important very significant and it's a kind it's not necessarily some people think it's a completely negative experience it's more alike a losing ego a being instructed now it's scary there's like an existential fear that comes up because you're losing your all your defenses you're letting go of your defenses but it's a positive in terms of you know higher growth now as you come out of that kind of dark oh by the way this is an interesting thing so we talked about the Odyssey and how it's a it's a metaphor a metaphorical story of coming home to the true self and Odysseus after the Trojan War visits these nine lands that he visits that each of the nine lands matches the themes matched perfectly the nine Enneagram types and he faces these challenges and he visits them in order 9-8 counterclockwise if you look at the exact center of the odyssey the exact like count up all the lines and you look at the exact center of the whole poem where is he in the underworld he's in Hades he goes and visits the underworld between four and five between the sirens between the Hermes and the sirens he literally goes to the underworld and talks to a lot of spirits as part of his journey forward so if that's it's there too you know that we and it's a little bit like the Acorn metaphor I use in the complete Enneagram about how we must break open the shell so that the oak tree can emerge we need to allow our personality to break down if we're to go to a higher place now on the left side of the India Graham in terms of the spiritual stations at five which is the fourth spiritual station because three is a shock point where something else comes from the inside and by the way that thing coming from the outside can either be a higher force that moves us forward or a lower force that moves us backwards right so we remember we're always going forward and backward in the spiritual journey it's not linear necessarily so if we if that shock point we get a bad influence and we are not open to a higher influence we're not doing the spiritual work to like praying or whatever it might be that invites a positive influence being just being self aware for instance the lower kind of thing opens up and something negative comes in which could be just habit or going back into sort of a negative talk self-talk we go back down so if we go up to five that's where we are coming out of the dark night of the soul Persephone's world the underworld we get in touch with the higher mental center and the the Holy ideas in the Enneagram now by the way there's also things that go along with all these things that I will not be able to remember and by the way my teaching partner irani o pious he's the specialist in this particular teaching he studied it deeply because he was part of the Sufi path for a long time so he knows it better than I do but things like getting in touch with metaphor images happens at four geometric shapes and different things get in sacred geometry we get in touch with at these higher stations then six is another kind of shock point again something else usually you beat a spiritual teacher or something higher brings you forward now seven eight and nine are seven and eight aren't really talked about a lot by these spiritual teachers who teach this process my Enneagram because none of us are really going to maybe be there in this lifetime we're lucky if we get to five now the Saints and the enlightened ones enlightenment comes at six I mean these really higher states but it also this this whole map also is symbolic of the fact that the center of the Enneagram is point zero pointing up to God and as we get born we start there and we come out at 9:00 and we go the other way on the way on the path down and so in a way we can think of the Enneagram as a sphere and almost a spiraling up it's from an evolving pole to add evolving pole it's and when you're going clockwise there's a kind of ascent in terms of spiritual development and when you go down it's a kind of falling down thank you questions for threes see you did such a perfect job no one has you've been completely successful and I'm proactively answering everything well done Dave I was curious where resentment well then you know because if it's a round image and you know striving to me that I may be on but I'm just curious I'd like to hear where that comes out for you and resentments a little bit of a push down form of anger so resentment anger how does that what would it what kinds of things where does that come up I'll say for me so as I said grew up with parent with substance abuse issues and then like all the children were kind of towed to like we have to be like normal and functional for her and then like growing up I was the most responsible one and everyone else was kind of a mess so I would constantly be like I like I grow up in the same house I like how am I the only one who received this message until I go home and still be expected to be like the most responsible one it always feels like this weight that I shouldn't have to carry and then like there's the resentment of like why should I have ever had to hold that burden of being the higher achieving most functional stable one so I did I do have a lot of anger and resentment around that ya know I think it's but like coming along with that there's just been a lot of like having to let go of that there's I think this desire to want someone to like make that all better and for me it's been a process of just accepting like that all happened and everyone in my family is who they are and I am I am and part of what's good for threes is just allowing that feeling yeah to get clear about that yeah anything so for threes I feel like role-playing is a kind of a significant thing where for example like a pharmacist or I'm in the spiritual path or I'm meditating and so therefore I should be a compassionate person and to be a compassionate person sometimes I shouldn't be feeling anger even though someone's really really irritating and so then you repress it and then just this feeling of very a lot of anger inside but not allowing it to to sort of come out and I do feel a lot of resentment in that sense and it kind of was more prominent before I recognize that it was kind of a way where I was expecting myself to be a kind of person rather than just allowing myself to be angry because humans can be angry there is no end to my resentment when I'm when I'm at my worst it's lead follow or get out of the way and if you don't then I'm not really interested in working with you anymore because if you're not doing one of those things you're not helping and if you're holding me back I have no interest in continuing to work with you and I'm doing the best I can controlling the universe okay you see that don't get in my way or control it yourself I don't care what about impatience is that it's the same thing it's all the same thing we're trying to get there right don't slow me down well the other thing about impatience that I find is that I get really frustrated with people who don't get it and it's kind of like okay well you get it quickly also it's like standing in the grocery line and have my credit card out I have everything lined up and the person in front of me is just dawned on them that they're actually in a checkout line and they've they've got groceries still in their cart and you know they haven't figured out how they're going to pay for it so they're counting pennies and I'm just so now I literally have to use that as a teaching moment for myself where I go oh there I go again there and and so now instead of getting angry I say thank you man I I say okay now I get to practice my deep breathing exercises full breath count you know and so then but but really there's this sense of other people ought to know what they're doing why they're there where they need to be going what you know do they not have map applications on their phone right I mean so yep who asked the question about impatience are we done yeah so there's a there it's funny I have there's a cartoon I show sometimes when I do stuff in companies about three and it's the first one is the the person's at the computer and then that they're at home like doing something like this and then the next one is they're sleeping and in their dream they're doing they're doing the same thing multitasking in our dream right right you wanna say something about say I remember reading an article about how like they're these super successful people who just like don't we seem to not need to sleep they sleep like maybe three four hours a night I remember being so jealous like I would love to like be without sleep but I'm like I do need to but yeah yeah yeah as a to connecting on the conversation with threes what's the connectivity with the Holy ideas you're getting to the self-realization what do we share what if twos and threes share since they're right next to each other well the holy idea for for twos is holy will and holy freedom and the holy ideas for for threes is holy veracity which is truth you know getting in touch with who you really are and holy hope which is this thing about I don't have to do anything and I just know that think everything will work out by itself yep I'm a three and I'm interested in hearing more about relationship to the physical body which for me has a huge amount to do with my three Ness I'm on a path which I don't have a body as far as I know it's just all from here up and I can spend an entire day doing this or presenting in front of her room and being utterly unaware of the toll on the body and then collapsing of course and you talked about illness as being the only thing that stops you which I've experienced but it's also the resource I find it's the path back to self and I'm wondering if that's what you mean being in the body as the public decide yeah anyone want to say anything about that yes I can totally relate to that and my practice literally when I'm not in my body is to get back my body and this is something I learned from you which is to feel my feet on the ground and my butt in the chair but it's taken me five years to undo the damage that I inflicted on my body by ignoring it because I suffer from migraines and I have I had got issues and a lot of other things so there was a point for me where ignoring the body came at the price of not having a healthy happy life and that is where I think for threes in particular the self-care becomes so important because I mean if I'm not literally allowing myself enough time to sleep time for yoga time for taking care of my dietary needs that then I really can't move so there's that well and that's it or and the not to do list right because I don't I allow myself a lot of unstructured time anymore because I need it so how about you guys okay you can also maybe to do something to do is you know like Feldenkrais or I just took up a flute lessons again and I really found that series of like the relaxation of the throat and the the chest and because you're spending time on these activities you become more aware and you're putting attention on these things that you can bring it to your daily life and it kind of all integrates right so we do need to stop I'm just going to say one more thing and that is that America is a three country and so sometimes people Naranjo says that especially that sometimes threes in the US have a hard time finding their type because it's so much a given that we identify with image and there's so much of the stuff that's just part of the collective unconscious that threes do but that and so sometimes that's why it can be hard to know and hard to know who you are because again it's it's part of it and and one last thing is that sometimes it's hard for threes to develop because they're rewarded so much for being in personality in our country it's you're rewarded if you make a lot of money and you have a high status and you're very successful and you don't show a lot of emotion and so sometimes it can be harder for threes to come to the personal growth work because it's like what's wrong coached a guy recently at a high level in a financial company he's making a lot of money he's good look and he's a great golf player everything's going his way he's getting promoted here right and left and he's like well why would I want to change you know I was I was sort of tasked with being his Enneagram coach so there's nothing wrong here and and he well exactly and what he was overlooking in his 360 his feedback was that people didn't trust him people couldn't connect with him and I asked him and the coach who would assign me to work in the said well do you ask them about that and he it's like he it's like it wasn't really getting in you know that wasn't that wasn't registering with him because and and so I even said she needs to tell the bosses that they need to change his reward structure if they want him to change and develop his M as a leader because and so again when we have threes that are coming to the work I want to appreciate all the work you are doing because in our culture it can be even more challenging because it doesn't seem immediately obvious to why this is a good thing all this personal growth stuff and no social threes here yes okay give him the mic so he can be nice not being a social three and not having these social Three's those are the ones who who like status and big houses and big cars and the pool and the tennis courts in the backyard and all that stuff for the longest time I thought I just saying but the the social trees are the more showy threes and I always well early on when I was learning about the anagram I thought I sucked at being a three because I thought that's what a three was supposed to be and until be taught me about being a one two one three I I didn't get it yeah well I'm mostly a three but not completely because I wasn't a social too [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: NewSchoolCommonweal

Views: 31,745

Rating: 4.8722358 out of 5

Keywords: TNS, Enneagram, archetype, psychology, archetypal, personality, Beatrice, Chestnut, Palmer, Helen, Gurdjieff, Lerner, Michael, HR, organizations

Id: m0uAC0cU9Z4

Length: 89min 27sec (5367 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2019