Beatrice Chestnut - Type 6 Enneagram Panel

you [Music] type six the second type and the head triad this is sometimes called the core fear point because it's at one of the vertexes of the inner triangle and these core points are kind of the pure version of each of the centers that they represent in this case the head center and it's also sometimes called the core fear point not all sixes are conscious of feeling fear but the personality is structured around a response to fear especially early fear and also is designed as a defensive structure to manage and cope with fear again not always conscious but sixes are sometimes called the devil's advocate or the contrarian sometimes called the loyalist sixes are a type that are are are focused a lot on safety and security and so this is someone who I referenced this morning as scanning the horizon for danger and threats and they tend to be very good at forecasting potential problems that may occur at some point so that they can plan ahead of time and be prepared in case the worst happens so at work in work settings they make very good trouble shooters they ask a lot of questions often when you have a project they'll want to poke holes in it and sometimes in a work setting when they don't know about the anagram they think what is what's wrong with this person they don't like anything I do or they keep trying to find a problem but of course when you're a really good problem solver it's natural that you become a problem seeker and sometimes sixes are described as as looking for problems in order to solve them but the truth is there are problems that crop up and it's important that six is for them to feel ready and able in case something bad happens or in case something scary occurs or in case there's a problem and so they become very good at being prepared I know one six who said before she met the Enneagram she didn't think of herself as having fear she more thought she was a really good Girl Scout like she was really good at kind of being prepared for anything and always having everything ready to go so sixes are in sixes are one of the types where they differ a lot according to the subtype so Claudia Naranjo in in his books and lectures often says you almost can't talk about one six and I find that's really true when I'm doing introductory workshops now on the Enneagram and I need to talk about type six it's really hard for me to describe six because it depends on it depends on the situation and just like fight or flight or different responses to fear there's one six that's more of a flight six more of I'm gonna run and hide or get away with draw or try to find a way to get away from a threat and then there's another six that sort of moves toward the threat from in more of a fight stance that takes the stance of being strong and intimidating and moving forward toward the threat to try to manage it because it feels more anxiety provoking to kind of hang around and wait for it to come get you than it does to go meet it so and then there's a third kind of six that is more a six that's looking for a good Authority and finding rules and reference points in order to find a guide posts in order to deal with fear so as we go through I'll try to really clarify the subtypes in this case because I think it's it really helps it clarifies that and neuron hoenn in his book character and neurosis it's really interesting so he has a chapter in every type and it's for one of the foundational books in terms of integrating the Enneagram with western psychology it's a little bit hard to read it's a little dense but the sixth chapter is the only chapter in the whole book where he talks about every trait he describes and the six having in terms of the three subtypes so for every trait trait he says the affection six does it this way the obedient six does it this way and the aggressive six does it this way so the affectionate six would be the self-preservation 6 this is a 6 that copes with fear by finding protectors and being friendly and warm and if you want to find people who will help be with you in times of in scary times it's important to be warm and friendly to attract friends and protectors the social six would be the obedient six that's the six that's looking for an authority it's not always a person it can be a system of thinking or an ideology can be religion it can be a political system it can be a system for health the guy in my book talks about when he found Ken Wilbur's work that became he felt like he could finally relax could he because he had a system that would help him define his life and help him know what to do in any circumstance and so it's like finding rules and reference points for living and then the one-to-one or the sexual six is the counter phobic 6 so the phobic 6 is more the self-preservation 6 and the counter phobic 6 the one that goes against fear with strength is the one-to-one or the sexual six and this is what Naranjo termed the aggressive six because they tend to react to fearful situations not by feeling the fear but by getting aggressive themselves like moving toward that situation sometimes these are also people who do dangerous things like take part in dangerous sports or drive really fast and on the freeway or things like this because it's almost like a courting of the danger is more enlivening and is feel safer actually than kind of waiting and standing back so six is have because they're the core fear tribe they tend to and relationships have issues with trusting people because again they are looking for ulterior motives false pretences expecting that something might go wrong and so it takes them a while to trust people now what's they do trust they tend to be very loyal and really really really will stay with you they also have contrarian mindsets in which when you say something they automatically think of the opposite one time I asked a6 if they tend to think in terms of worst case scenarios which it's sometimes said sixes do and he said well actually I think in terms of whatever scenario everyone else isn't thinking in so he said when I was on a soccer team one time he said if everyone thought we were gonna win I think we were gonna lose if everyone thought we were gonna lose I would think we were gonna win so there is a way that they can automatically take the other side they're very sensitive to power dynamics it says if I if I swallow a whole whatever you tell me like how am i protecting myself and staying safe so there's that kind of that kind of a feeling of being on guard a little bit being a watchful being aware of what threats out are out there so they can be ready for them so I think I'll leave it there and turn it over to the experts so we'll start with you Trent if that's okay and if you could just tell us a little bit about how you saw yourself as a six what let you know you were a six and how you see some of these traits playing out in your life okay yeah well I'm just I'm aware in this moment I do a lot of leading workshops and stuff but I'm aware of how nervous I feel talking about myself in this vulnerable way so mmm this is interesting experience yeah so I I came to the Enneagram actually had a good experience with a teacher pointing out my indie Graham type I was in a large training where I think almost everybody there had already had some familiar familiarity with the AMIA Graham and we're kind of going around the circle and naming there any Graham numbers and he got to me this is something working with me for maybe five months or so and so he knew he was a five so he was very observant and he he seemed to you seemed to be on to me and comes to me and he says well what's your any ram number and I said well I'm a little skeptical of these kind of systems I don't really get into this kind of thing I mean how can we know this is real and you know I sort of see a little bit of a little bit of nine and a little bit of this and he just said well you're a six just pointed out how we approached at my experience we approached the iniya gram through our Enneagram pattern you see and so that's where it really showed me how deeply this goes yeah and then that was an immediate conversion moment for me in some ways and then another way in which it goes deeply I was thinking of telling me I was thinking of what to say today come up with a couple of stories or something to share and just to show you how subtle and tenacious these patterns are around planning worst-case scenarios or planning ahead for danger and how automatic they are just last night I was walking across the street I live in San Francisco and it's sort of a busy intersection and it's just actually one of these intersections where you got three streets and there was this couple that was trying to catch the 37 bus like across two of the streets and this is a very hard bus to get it doesn't come very often and they ran out in the middle of traffic right and so the first thing I would just immediately okay bus coming it's gonna hit them I have my phone in my pocket I can call nine-one-one I can run out and then they do CPR all of this happened within seconds I imagined all of this yes this is not something that's something that the work for it just happens you know I walk past a dog and I'll immediately think oh it could bite me this way or could move this way I'll walk around it this way it just these things just come so I've learned it's not about getting rid of that I mean good luck with that I think you know whatever that pattern is for you good luck with it right it's more about just getting that space for me around it and actually a little bit of humor you know a little bit of humor I was in the middle of the lake once floating on a little tube thing and I heard a speedboat revving up people had just gotten into the boat they were still at the dock and it was revving up and I had a thought of it shredding me you know as it like run over me and I would be some shreds right and it was just like what did I just started laughing that this is so absurd how these things come you know and yet that's what it is so yeah the other story I wanted to share about how how in green these patterns are one of the ways I started to really see it as I went back to an old email that I wrote after an incident in which I was flying from Istanbul to Cairo and I was on a hijacked plane yeah so you can imagine a well it turns out that sixes said sometimes are notoriously calm in a crisis yes which was absolutely true yes for me because when I discovered that we were being hijacked I just accessed my hijack plan all this worked out so there's a way in which I'm and I didn't actually think that I was ever afraid I always just thought I was being sensible and and sort of you know why wouldn't you wanna proactive yes prepared like why wouldn't you want to have a hijack plan with your traveling you know right so but that I realized that it it's actually kind of ridiculous because my plan was just changing my seats and hiding my passport and then I felt perfectly safe so it's like in another way it doesn't make any sense but so long I had the plan and I could execute it then I could feel comfortable and I was totally calm and I was imagining okay well if they come down the aisle then I can trip them or I can do something so there's a way in which I think I'd move into courage because it's I really was I learned something this morning when wouldn't be was talking about how the six is kind of the action head type because it's a lot of planning for the action that I can do so you know I think there was a moment in which I would have done something but I had already thought about what that would be right and if that makes sense so I think it's the spontaneity of the action that's the trouble right right right a lot of you playing it out in your head ahead of time yeah so which is why I think six is tend to be calm in a crisis it's almost like they've already thought through this it's already happened and so now that it's actually happening what they plan for is almost like a sense of calm and they can really act in in good ways when the worst does happen that's it and then I realized how much of that's driven by fear so I thought it was just planning but actually I'm having to imagine this but I'm having to imagine all of the worst cases in my head you see so I'm basically scaring the out of myself constantly by imagining all of in running all the tables and the scenarios so quickly it's a constant state of imagining myself in those situations that's the fear and I didn't realize that I thought it was just planning right which is a great example of how as six can feel like they're they're not really afraid I'm thinking can I think we may have a battery issue at this microphone oh there we go I think it may be I just hit it yes okay now there we go much better it can go on that's probably what happened thank you yeah yeah it's back so we're all gonna be afraid of [Laughter] yes yes great examples of how it doesn't necessarily get labeled as fear in your mind before you meet me any a grab it more is just like okay I've thought through that already and I'm thought through this but you're right there's a way that while you're planning you're scaring yourself by imagining that that's happening and then I just wanted to say one more thing and pass it down is that I was really appreciating how your OB was pointing to how difficult it is to type sixes and how we can contrarian and whatnot all that's true a lot of it is about consistency so there's a more subtle way in which it's not just safety it's about consistency reliability and I once heard of teaching where the passion the intagram fear was described as inconstancy and there's a way in which I'm looking for things to make sense and be consistent and reliable and the irony is I can be the most unreliable and inconsistent person I think of myself as reliable but I can be angry and sad and over there and happy and social and withdraw I mean I can do the whole range of things which can be really confusing except for the fact that there's a lot of inconsistency and testing others for how consistent they're going to be in relation to me and so I think that's the actual nub of it for me you know is like seeing that part of that desire for something reliable and consistent in the way that I'm actually manifesting and testing to get that I think to me that's the nub of it yeah that's so clear and it's all is it also about certainty certainty yes yeah certainty wanting put you know something to be predictable something to be sensible that the world makes sense especially on a rational level there's a kind of logic and when that's threatened it's kind of like the whole thing can spiral apart and so for me what I discovered in deep meditation with treats is that my biggest fear is actually insanity not not just debt it's just that it's the whole thing is not gonna make any sense and sometimes with all of the projecting and the sort of thinking over thinking I can do things say start to believe things that actually aren't true and I it's very painful to have somebody say that I don't have a grip on what's going on that's a very painful thing for me because sometimes they're right I've made up all of these little conspiracies or these little things that are going on and then on the flip side I'm just gonna say there's a gift because there are a lot of times I dunno what's going on and I can detect the subtle movements and I can item like something's happen and I just knew it was going to happen and then it's only when I'm into it it not when I'm overthinking it but it just comes to me and there's a real gift yeah I think for the six and being able to discern that yeah it's important to say that sixes are very intuitive and it makes sense because the childhood strategy is predicting what the authorities are gonna do ahead of time because they've got power over you right so sixes were sometimes raised by untrustworthy authorities or people who are too authoritarian or not there at all and so there can be the sense of what's going to happen next and if you're really good at predicting what's gonna happen next sort of that the the far reaches of that or being very intuitive sort of sensing or knowing what's going to happen next and success often have that intuitive ability it's a more mental intuition than say the force that we talked about last type that have a more emotional intuition kind of knowing what's going on at the feeling level Six's can often say they know it's know what's gonna happen before it happens and it's you can see it as an outgrowth of this happe mental habit of trying to predict what's gonna happen next as a way of staying safe thank you thank you very clear so I didn't I realize I didn't introduce everyone so I wanted we have Trent and we have Jen and we have Edie and we have Noah so thank you all for being here so Jen how do you see six playing out in your life how do you relate to this type I am you know I listening to the fives I you know I relate so much to that because as a sixth one of my biggest strategies is just to the consumption of information you know I'm interested in everything and I want to you know read everything and I there's a thing we say sometimes at home and I'll say to my husband you only think is interesting and he'll go everything and so when I when I learned about the Enneagram I was gonna go to this full-day workshop where they were gonna type you as an introductory workshop so I can't go into something like that without reading a book about it first because you certainly can't go in unprepared and so as I'm reading through you know there's you know there's always for all of us there's always other types where we can see behaviors like where you're like oh yeah I do that you know like I look just like a three at work you know I'm I'm a workaholic I you know I'm super invested in my job and then you know you get to five and I'm like oh yeah you know I could see that that just that hunger for for information and then I get to the six and I go yeah but that's what it feels like on the inside you know that constant just watching everything you notice we're all very comfortable because we have our backs to the wall this whole time we've been sitting over by the you know I've been sitting over by the door and and I can tell you are all the exits in the building are and just but but more than that you're looking at I looked constantly at and I think this is where the information piece comes in just just patterns and you know what are people gonna do and someone lasts the last weekend for the heart type someone brought up the question of types and sort of like extrasensory you know abilities and things like that and and you said well sometimes six can be seen as psychic and as a skeptic I'm like well it's not psychic and I said to my husband you know but anybody could identify those things coming if they were paying attention you know but nobody pays attention like a six you know nobody else has to know has to remember what everyone was wearing so that in case they see them later they you know know where'd that person come from you know nobody else needs to look at all that and so it's that just that sense of the world as being unreliable and then you know for me I was raised in just on a very chaotic sort of intermittently abusive household my mother is a drug addict and she's also severely bipolar and really loving I mean just incredibly loving I grew up with this this real sense of being loved but her you know her partners were like whether it was a stepdad or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever were better or worse at parenting and so you know there's that like that chaotic you know childhood where there isn't anything to rely upon but yourself but also it adds that sense that even people who really love you can still hurt you mm-hmm you know it's not just the outside world it's even the people you love are gonna hurt you because they're not paying attention or just through their own you know stuff that happens for them so it is just that it was like I was thinking about fear and I think people can get a perception that the sixes are just like you know we're up here trembling but it's almost like I don't know if anyone else can relate to this but it's almost like when you're an alcoholic you never notice being hungover cuz you're just hungover all the time you know and so when I think for me when you're a six that's just what it feels like you just feel like that all the time so you don't really notice that that's fear it's just like you said it's just you know I'm just realistic about the world I'm prepared I'm paying attention I'm you know present in it um very clear I don't know what else I would say but I would say some of the other six things that I think I really identify with are just that that real push-pull with authority you know there's there's just so few authority figures that you can really trust and I mean I don't trust anybody but you know there's just you know it's so hard to find people that you can trust and you know are they gonna follow the rules or things gonna be safe are they going to be consistent are they going to take care of people and then just that sort of that sort of champion of the underdog when you know when people I know I have a really intense and annoying sense of you know fairness or when people are being abused or when things are you know I'm actually a chronic ruiner of everything because like my husband and I went to Atlanta a couple years ago we landed really late and we were both just really hungry and we started looking for someplace to eat and he goes oh well there's a chick-fil-a and I'm like what you're not eating that you know you better save some of those pretzels from the flight because you know so it's just you know I kind of like what am I one of my TAS came up to the other day with this book and I went oh well like that guy's trash you know so you can't you can't enjoy that so I just I ruin things with my sense of you know fairness and what's right and is this someone who has been you know sneaky or abusive or you know things like that so it's um which is another I think sight of just that constant vigilance right right and I think that anti-authority they're the authority issue is very important it's a real big like sometimes when I'm not sure if someone's a six or not that's the deal like you need to have a much your boss so for you is it more suspicious and skeptical or is it more rebellious or how would you how would you say that authority issue plays out exactly I think well I mean I think when I was younger I think there was more of a pushback that was more of a rebellion or rebellion I think I'm better now at kind of judging you know where people are coming from but yeah it's definitely uh there's there's definitely a you know I can I can work with people as long as I feel like they're not actively trying to be you know dishonest or take advantage or you know be injurious to people mm-hmm okay but that's that's kind of new I that's really clear yeah alright thank you very much so Edie how did you know yourself as a six and how does this show up for you oh well Abby and I have been friends now for probably 20 years and she first invited me to come witness and Enneagram panel they were hour long I think we had that you were going through all of them in a and a weekend I believe and so I was there for the whole thing and I was witnessing the threes and I really identified with being a three very much about achievement and accomplishment and getting things done but it wasn't until the six panel came up and I started to listen to them and oh my god these are my long-lost brothers and sisters where the hell have you been all of my life like I had no idea that people felt the same way that I did and it was and I can feel it now it was a very emotional space for me to witness that and every time I recount that story I could I could I could feel it coming up for me viscerally and so it's like okay I'm a six am and I'm on the counter phobic side of things I definitely have issues I want say issues I struggle with Authority with authority it's a matter of respect I need to know that they've thought things through that they've looked through other viewpoints that they've seen the other side or where their weaknesses are so that I can feel comfortable that is somebody I can trust that they're also looking at the bigger picture of things when that's not visible or I don't see it then I lose respect really quickly and I don't trust them anymore for that reason I'm self-employed a few years ago I was kind of in a bad space and I was getting some counseling and during that process the therapist was asking me about my upbringing and specifically about my mom and it turns out that right after I was born literally right out from my born my mom started suffering migraine headaches but she'd only have him on the weekends and at that time there was no medication really for it so she would do her thing all week long and then Friday would come around and she would knock out and she'd be out for the weekend and so as an infant as a young person you know mom's the center of the world and so during the week everything's great and then the weekend comes around moong Mama's nowhere there and so my own theory behind this is that there's a distrust to Authority or there's uncertainty and then there's fear about who's gonna watch out for me so I feel like I've developed a way of needing to do that for myself and instead of feeling the fear I tend to be more aggressive towards it you know people ask you know my relationship for fear is like what is that I don't it doesn't show up in terms of me being afraid it shows up in me in terms of planning out for everything making sure I've uncovered all the rocks to see what's underneath it and and then eventually making a decision to do something a lot of analysis paralysis that occurs what else can I talk about I remember one time you said that you're always look kind of like what Jen said you're always looking for inconsistent behavior yes for sure in the vigilance part Jerry and I were vacationing in in Greece and we were driving down a one-lane road in each direction and you know weren't Greece so I'm paying attention to everything that's going on around me I'm driving and up ahead I see a couple an older couple on a four-wheel ATV and all of a sudden his eyes behind the helmet I could see it his eyes got really big and I'm like oh my god he's gonna run into us and sure enough he bolted over into the oncoming traffic and I stopped our car and he came charging into us and hit us head-on and I'm like you have no idea what what would have happened if I hadn't been aware of what was going on and came to a full stop before he hit us and it didn't faze me you know like I was prepared for it and those split-second things you know I'm always looking for it and so when they do happen that's the one consistent thing is that I'm not out of sorts it's there you know it's it's it's automatic and I've I've come to find that very comforting as well but the underlying part of that is that because of the vigilance there's a certain level of anxiety that goes along with being vigilant all the time and as you are saying you're not aware of it because it's always there it's only to the times where I find myself moving towards 9:00 where I can be in the flow or more relaxed and like wow that's a lot of energy that goes there you know had no idea how much energy that goes into to being that way all the time so that's that's how I know I'm a six can you can you egg there's one more piece to that grease story that you wanted that's a little bit about being counter phobic Oh about being angry at the guy what happened yes yeah after I'm after I underst I get really angry at them for for not paying attention to what they were doing and putting everybody in a dangerous situation and it was really interesting to to witness all the people that had come out to to make sure everybody was okay people could feel my energy it was really apparent that this guy's like half-cocked you know and it took a little while to calm down to the to the point where I could be compassionate with everybody and and it worked out fine you know but there was a moment there where I was upset with him yeah thank you so Noah what does this look like for you how do you see six playing out into your life Wow well going right down the line I've heard so many things that I'll need to touch on here first I'll say my heart's beating really rapidly just because I'm the center of attention second of all say that in this sweater is tissues paper towels hand sanitizer chocolate because I'm a little bit of a sugar addict and I don't want to get a headache in the middle of this presentation so there you go that's just to begin so Trent I love what you said about we all approach the Enneagram through our type without knowing it I took a test before being you know typed and sort of exploring this concept with about a group of 30 people with a teacher that I very much admire and respect and so you know I kind of got these results of everything was tied your a six seven four to nine getting the same number for how much of me was each number and so I immediately went into I was telling everybody on the way in this is complete BS none of this matters this is you know this and that and all these really negative thoughts about what we were about to do then I started seeing everybody go around the circle and I go oh wow this is very real it works it's completely on point except I can't figure out me and this whole room you know seems to have a much better grasp on themselves than I do that maybe save for one or two other people and you know the day went by and everybody sort of seemed to have figured themselves out and it took me until the next day doing sort of a private one-on-one discussion and it all came down to this issue of whatever the question was asked of me about my internal experience yes but no either/or it's it's both it depends or ultimately it's circumstantial yes yes it's if it's if the situation surrounding your question is a well then my answer is completely to the left over here and if the circumstances surrounding your question are B then I'm all the way as far right as I can go and my answer so it was all of those things and yeah I always thought of myself as an affable easygoing happy-go-lucky guy no this no I I may be affectionate I may be warm I may be funny but easygoing no it just it doesn't it it doesn't ring true now that I've observed myself in this special way so let's let's talk other other pieces the hyper-vigilance when I feel a presence behind me as I'm walking on the street the urge to turn around and check them out is just overwhelming it's it's truly a mindfulness practice for me to say okay I'm just going to continue walking and whoever is back there is just a fine person with no negative intentions that's that's a really big hard exercise okay preparing for I'm always preparing for bodily harm or danger or attack I've never been in a fight not one time but I I do a little custodial job at a CrossFit gym and you know I got into this habit of as I was opening the door around 11:30 p.m. or whatever to you know start throwing the trash bags out and getting ready to move him to the dumpster you know opening that door just completely in my imagination of who was out there and what was going to happen so I would in my right hand I would hold this wrench and the wrench it's it's just the wrench is just me you know feigning I have the wrench and in my left hand in my pocket is a screwdriver so I'm gonna wave at him with the wrench and they think that that's all there is and then I get him in the gut with the screwed up you know so it's there's never been anybody outside that door you know just prepared for preparing for nothing and so let's see Authority my thoughts on Authority are generally who would want to be in a position of authority or power if they do not intend to misuse it that's my honest first thought if you want to be President you're probably shady that's my thought there's the you know if if you don't not need to abuse power then you don't need to have power right is my is my thought when people say well no it you don't vote you're a pathetic I say well I just truly believe at my core that my vote is put into a suitcase and thrown into a river and and that makes it really hard to commit to any course of action that in decision analysis paralysis was brought brought up and it's just it's because to me the world is full of chaos conspiracy and untruth in fact the idea of truth to me is like an oxymoron there is no truth I can I can look at objectively observable phenomenon again gathering information wanting to know what's what the boundaries are and needing information to feel like I can move forward but you know I can look at objective phenomenon and and try to organize my perception around what I see and once I've sort of organized my best guess not truth just my best guess I'm just kind of sitting around waiting to be proven wrong you know for the next thing that I learned that will show me why my current perception is wrong or incomplete so yeah I'm all about the conspiracy theories and you know what's going on in Antarctica and all those kinds of things and then let's see there's something else that I meant to touch on here that I can't Oh phobia and counter phobia that the pushing back against the fear I very much find myself in the self pres so when I end up counter phobic angry aggressive approaching fear in that way for me that's very much an out-of-body experience the anger demon has got me and I'm not really in control of what I'm doing is how it feels I'm on the attack in a way that's scary to me as much as it's scary to the other people and then I find a little bit of that approaching fear in my socializing where I can I can really feel when I'm going to make the choice that's not always the choice I make to say to a stranger oh hey how about this thing that I see right there that maybe we have in common to me that's just like this moment of like I've just popped open a soda can and there's no lid I have to drink the whole thing or pour it out it's but it's open now you know and so to me that's a counter phobic moment kind of saying well I'm not gonna sit here and wonder what did this person think of me or what's going on inside their head over there I'm gonna say hey I'll try to get to know you and essentially testing for me that idea of sort of testing poking things to see if they'll be aggressive it's it's about disarming whatever fear I have projected onto that thing so if I can get to know it or somebody I can disarm whatever I think is terrifying about them I guess I'll end on the the way I feel in life is that I come into new situations and experiences cloaked meaning I'm wearing sort of an invisibility cloak of I don't really understand how I do it but there's this idea of you're not going to get to know me unless I decide that that's cool and so I essentially I come in cloaked and I go up to the thing or the person and I go you know a little push push tap tap putting you are you are you dangerous are you harmful no okay and when I can finally develop that trust of okay I've I've pushed and tapped a little bit and nothing bad has happened maybe this person seems nice and interesting and now I'm curious up comes the cloak and I'm here and I'm ready to engage with my real self but until I can find that first modicum of trust I'm wearing my ability cloak of you know you won't really know who I am or what I'm about you know yeah and on that day so do you what does it take for you to trust someone and how does that the trust development process go from there it's this one's really hard for me to say because like at this point the person I would identify as the love of my life is a four and has that very much that push-pull relationship style and I've developed a very strong trust for this person and so it's confusing to me because usually I am looking for that idea of predictability consistency it will be the same way its predictability and consistency for me are again elusive and ethereal but I like to say that many many times I've heard the phrase in life no news is good news and coming from the six perspective that is just the most untrue statement I had ever heard like if the news is good that's great I'm excited to hear the good news no doubt but if the news is bad I need to know that too because no news the unknown that is the ultimate fear you know I'm not going to jump into a lake if I can't see to the bottom it's just you know if I don't know I can't go you never know do you never know yeah right right right so you touched on a few things I just want to highlight one is that the counter phobic versus phobic spectrum most sixes will say there's no such thing as 100% phobic and 100% counter phobic now usually especially depending on what subtype you are you fall at one end or the other self-preservation subtype more at the phobic ends sexual subtype more the counter phobic end social subtype kind of in the middle is sort of a mix but you the most phobic sixes will tell you they have experiences of counter phobia on a regular basis and I think that was a great example I hadn't really thought about that that even just like really opening yourself up to somebody can be a counter phobic experience especially if you're a phobic six and so it's important to keep that in mind that there's that that's a spectrum and they tend to one usually they're your one end or the other most of the time but it's not all the time and it's it's a little bit more of a mixture in reality and also you point you mentioned projection and that's the main defense mechanism of the six we talked about forests in trajecsys I dimin side themselves in order to control it unconsciously sixes do the opposite they project things outside themselves that they don't want to own or that are uncomfortable inside and then imagine that it's coming from out there so you've heard them talk about how they do that with fear often they may they may be fearful inside in a way they may not fully register or own and then they see you as being someone who means them harm so the fear gets projected out onto others and then of course it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you if you treat that person as dangerous and then they become dangerous so sometimes that that can happen for the six okay life is all gray area yes now that is a statement of the self-preservation six who sees life in terms of gray and not black and white it's a social six doesn't like that doesn't like ambiguity uncertainty gray and so social sixes tend to see the world a little bit more in black and white not a hundred percent but more because they're looking for rules and reference points they're looking for some sort of certainty because the certainty that they find often in a authority figure or an impersonal Authority like a system or an ideology helps them settle their fear because they know what rules to follow and so sometimes they can sort of be even too much of a true believer in something because they give their authority to that that system of rules so that they can feel more safe and I'm looking I'm always looking for the thing I can be the true believer and I'm wanting and seeking and asking others deferring out to try to find where the black and white is and the markers and seeing them in the same place all the time but I can never get there and you can always ask more questions there's always something to doubt right yes you know I as much as I look for the black and white I get stuck in the gray yeah and I can be pushed to the point of you know finding okay well this is my opinion I I've found the the black and white but even when I find that place it's usually yeah a contradiction of some other thing that has been posed from outside of myself you know the devil's advocate stance it's all right beautiful thank you so much very clear so why don't we start with Trent again and I want to just ask you and and to if you want to say what your subtype is that might help people and then also like what's helped you grow how is understanding all that these six patterns helped you on your growth path yeah I say that I probably lean self-preservation first and I'm pretty close social second so I'm sort of maybe a mix of the two I think I'm more warm in that self-preservation way typically and then the sexual counter phobic would probably be my least but I really see all three come out you know a lot so in different contexts I can really relate to all three of them I really appreciate hearing from all of you actually I was reflecting what Noah was just saying about no news is definitely not good news for a six because that to me is where the projection part really lives you see if I don't mind if you're angry at me I don't mind if you have a hostile intention toward me as much because I can prepare for that what I don't like is when I don't know what's going on and then I go into the hole I have to go to the worst-case scenario first to prepare why wouldn't you prepare for the worst intention you have toward me if I don't know what it is you say and then back up from there so one of the things that's helped me is to relax that a little bit and as I as I see oh I'm going into that I don't know what their intention is toward me and there must be hostile bah-bah-bah if I can relax that come into my body coming into the body is really helpful all the good things start to come next you know what I mean if I just let it I can start to see oh well actually I think they're just kind of embarrassed which is why they're not coming toward me and then there's almost like a ring of truth to it that comes when I'm more settled so if I allow myself not to get completely hooked by that first worst-case scenario I can I can actually more intuitively come in to what's going on so that's been really helpful to me coming into the body right getting in touch with your body sometimes when I was working with one six he would go around and around and round in his head and I say what happens if you go into your gut what is your gut telling you you know or what is your heart telling you so getting out of the head into the body is a good way to get more in touch with feelings and physical sensations and like you talking about like the real evidence that's in front of you aside from the story you might make up yes right and then I love that you said you might pick up on something and then you get an intuitive hit like ah yeah that's right you know and sort of you start to sort of sense what what might be more true that's it and then learning to trust that intuition yes because it's not figuring out that ever really gets me to the truth it's the intuitive head of Luna more relaxed and oh you know what that's totally what's going on with them and I can be compassionate yeah then rather than fearful right and I also hear you saying it's up for six is a big growth piece is learning to own their own authority right instead of projecting sort of the authority out there and the fear of authority out there being your own good authority like you're saying recognizing like oh I just got a really accurate sense of what's going on with that person and trusting that that's like you trusting your own inner authority your own sense of your ability to kind of say what's true or not really aside from the fear that's it I would say one more thing really quickly is that the poking that's I mean I get feedback all the time that I'm a poker but there was a time there was a time when I would physically poke people like you know I would sort of like tickle or poker and then you know really took a compassionate friend you know that's not okay well dumb people Joe like that but that's what I mean that's what it was was testing testing testing but now it's a kind of more metaphorical poke but I'd poke a lot yeah yes questioning holes and it's almost a physical I almost get a picture of like poking the Beast you know like you know to see look are you gonna react now are you gonna react now because it's it's better for you if you get data yeah what's gonna what will set them off that it is just sitting back there wondering what's gonna happen next or what will set them off and then if a friend is is unclear to me and I start poking and then they get angry they so I knew you were angry all along I'm actually safe I'm safe when they finally say they're angry but then I made them angry by poking and questioning and angry okay well that feels good now I know certain here they're angry okay that I can relate to thank you so Jen what's helped you growing and do you have a sense of what your subtype is you know I think it's it's really I mean that made a lot of sense me I I think I tend to you know they all kind of made sense to me in different ways I think the social probably makes the least amount of sense to me because because I am such a skeptic you know because because I integrate everything and I say oh well I really believe most of this but then there's pieces you know I always am looking for you know what's the loophole what's the what's the flaw I think that I tend to have um you know I'm I was listening to what Tracy was saying in the five panel about being really introverted but being able to be really social and really outgoing and that's exactly what I do and so I was thinking oh maybe I'm social but but then I realize I don't really do it to formalize this is gonna sound terrible sorry I don't really do it to form alliances so much as I do it to control situations because if I because I do it more in situations that are uncomfortable where I'll talk to people I don't know or I'll you know approach them and it's like I'll because I want to bring people in this close but I'm never gonna bring them in this close mmm you know but if they're this close I know exactly what they're doing watch them better right so it's a certain amount of you know it's a certain amount of like you know trying to in trying to kind of control those situations and I was um because so much of it and and this is and this is really where the work is for me is so much of it is about you know do I really have to control all of the power dynamics around me you know do I really have to constantly be and that doesn't mean I have to be in charge all the time but I have to have a vision of you know where everybody is and you know where I am in that and I was thinking about this I have this have a TA who was my TA for a while and recently she's been copying the homework for some of my students because she's working out of the same book with the teacher she's working with right now and it takes her an extra like ten minutes a week and she's been doing it for about a month and I am like this really uncomfortable with it and it just it's just been really bugging me and I keep thinking oh I'm gonna lie to her and tell her we're working out of a different book now you know or I'm gonna tell her I'm gonna get in there and I'm gonna do it before she does you know what I'm going like why am I doing this and this is a woman who is like starting in a teaching position next semester that I helped her get but but her doing something for me just made me it threw off the power dynamic for me you know and so I realize it's that's just so much more one-to-one that's so much more you know I don't present a position of strength like oh I'm this big strong you know person but it's still a position of being the being the authority figure or being revealed yeah we're being invulnerable or kind of having all the answers and I have to inject a lot of like warmth and humor into it because otherwise it would be unpalatable you know I would be it would be harder to be the authority it's hard yeah so I mean I think especially as a woman I have to soften it a lot but it's just it you know it's like I really really read we talked about last time I've been really wrestling with subtype and that's I mean that just ended up being the thing that made the most sense and then in terms of the vast amount of work I clearly need to do on myself I should see my new year's resolutions it's like 50 you know items with photographs and circles and lines drawn on the other side and eight-by-ten glossies um so in terms of the you know for a while I had a post-it that sat on my binder at work and it said it's not personal and that had there for like a year and that's what it took for me to not take what everybody you know if someone said something said I had an opinion that disagreed with me or questions something that had happened I would you know take it personally and it's an attack and that's you know they hate me or they don't think I'm doing a good job and I had to have that and that really helped a lot it's bizarre it's post-its are amazing they're amazing therapeutic tool but but it just that helped a lot and so that's kind of the area that I you know clearly need to do a lot of work on it's just being able to you know trust people you know this much or be able to kind of let it let go of some of that control and maybe things are gonna be okay I think you know everyone will be happy to know I have a therapist and you know I'm married to a three and so like a six who looks like a three on the outside and a three and that's not a household you think of where there'd be a lot of authenticity but my husband and I are both in recovery and being in recovery really requires you to look at yourself even the gross parts you know I'm not in any position to judge anybody because I don't remember my 20s you know and so it really helps you look at yourself and to take accountability and to be authentic and to try to be you know vulnerable and think about your actions and I think that you know you were talking about cracks and things can be a strength you know that's huge that's huge for me it really saved me from being much more of a monster the fact that I really I do have to look at you know my own part in things and I have to try to be authentic and and I have like I have like the perfect job for a six I work with emotionally disturbed boys who have behavior problems so and a lot of them have been really traumatized and so you know they really need this safe place but they also need this constant supervision and this constant you know kind of maintenance about the structure and what's going on around them and nobody understands how to create safety better than a six you know so it's just the perfect you know it's the perfect job for me and so that helps me to try more things you know because I'm really good at it and I feel really comfortable there I can push myself sometimes in a way that I couldn't in an environment where I wasn't insurers myself so I can you know my therapist will tell me well why don't you try letting someone else do something I'm like you know and then and then I you know what's bad and then and then I can try to do it yeah so that's beautiful thank you really clear so ed what what kind of things have helped you grow what what have you done since you found out you were six differently in terms of developing well awareness from the get-go watching how other people respond to me for one knowing that being aware that when I'm in maybe I'm feeling fear and it's coming off as an aggressive stance so there's like a boundary and and people are more standoffish learning to smile helps a lot learning to be vulnerable helps a lot in inviting people to engage and it helps calm my fears my anxiety if I can smile at myself in the moment and being aware that this is going on a lot of times it's unconscious I'm not aware that it's going on I'm in my head going about my business and and I notice at some point in time I noticed there's an avoidance of other people approaching me I don't and so there comes my counter phobic side you know that that that underlying anxiety and fear that shows up the growth process is really vulnerability and and learning to get comfortable being exposed and finding a safe way in order for me to do that right now I play in a immense tennis league and I get to be aggressive and assertive when I'm out on the court with my teammates and then when we're done we can talk I can start to talk about real-life things and I can see how it catches them off guard like all of a sudden it gives them permission to also be vulnerable and and and we get closer from it so that's my little experiment space it's my safe spots and I'm trying to find ways to bench that out into other parts of my life yeah thanks and you're probably hearing that sixes are naturally because modest and humble there is a like not a big ego there's a lot of self deprecation let's put it yeah yes so let's see subtype and growth I reconfirmed myself Prez subtype today by driving 10 miles on the side of a mountain with no guardrail and and just so you all know I am looking for recommendations about a different way back the idea the idea with that whole situation was for that 10 miles that's a very tense situation for me 10 into 12 miles an hour if anybody I thank God there was nobody behind me the whole time because I'd need all the turn offs all the you know pull-up plots and so yeah that I reconfirmed that yeah it's all about bodily harm fear of physical danger safety what could go wrong in the realm of literally survival so okay sub-type done okay gross so I catch myself sick Singh very often now you know catching myself in the act was the first step just like we were saying awareness and so I now am able to do two things when I catch myself sick Singh and the first thing is I can say okay my imagination has taken me very far right now it's taken me in a negative direction but if it can take me that far in that direction my imagination could hypothetically take me equally as far in a different direction so I try to use the power of my imagination to whatever the most positive outcome could be as a counterbalance to the most negative outcome which comes to me so effortlessly delightful right and so then let's see what else do I do when I catch myself there I also have been able to say to myself in those times okay I've caught myself doing this this habit so I'll try to think like someone who's not a six someone who let's let's if I had somebody standing beside me who is any other number this thing that I think of as an 85% chance of happening to a hundred percent chance of happening this worst-case scenario would they agree with those numbers would they think it was more of a 10 percent chance five one percent very often 1% is the answer again and so yeah those things that I think of that other people go really you're wasting your energy and time thinking about that that's crazy that will never happen that's the 1% times I'm talking about when you end up in the 1% yeah you do real well as a six and I've been there a few times where I got that thing that was so impossible happened and I said to everybody around me si si you know okay then there's also the thought loop where you know there's a situation that has to be tended or something that has to be done and I immediately start my internal questioning question a leads to B B leads to C C leads to d e f and G and Julie's right back to question a I'm on a thought loop I get right back to the beginning where I started and I and in those times I think to myself well okay I'm having all these thought this thought loop exists because I don't want to start acting and end up with these worst-case negative scenarios I'm imagining and so I then have to reframe for myself and say okay staying on this thought loop is also a negative scenario and it's not good to be here this is not productive and sometimes I like to tell myself hey think like an eight you know any action is better than no action even if it's the wrong action because then you can start making progress towards what the right one would be right learning from the errors or whatever what have you and then my very favorite thing since I've learned about the Enneagram me and my girlfriend do this the six and the four together this is very powerful because we're such you know kind of confusing types a lot of dichotomy tendency to catastrophize you know in very different ways and then of course there's the projection and the introjection so those go really interestingly together and so we've started to play this little game called what did you what did you hear and it's it's basically this thing where when when I say something that I feel is just me making conversation and all the sudden were escalating voices and getting aggressive going on or vice versa she says something that's to her just casual conversation and I get riled and reactive we're both reactive triad I think in our conflict styles so you know there's a lot of immediate escalation sometimes and so we back up and we say wait I was just trying to make you know some curious observations and have a fun conversation and you're really not having a good time in it so what did you hear what do you think I said and then when it gets quoted back I'm often like wow do you think I said that or I think you said that no the intention behind the words was completely lost going across the air in the room you know so all of those little growth pieces have been beyond you know just blessings on blessings on blessings to be able to be able to literally rewind situations beautiful thank you so much I want to say a little bit about the arrow movements and then we'll open up to questions so sixes go back against the arrow to nine and forward with the arrow to three so three and has been called the stress point nine would be the security point so four sixes anyone want to give an example of what it's like to go to nine as a secured yet so again in our theory you go back first and integrate the high side qualities of the arrow against which in this case would be nine and then that fortifies you internally to go with the arrow which is the direction of real spiritual growth to add in the balancing effect of the arrow point ahead which would be three in this case so yeah speak to that I think in and I might be grossly interpreting what a nine does but I know that for me you know when I was younger I was way more you know oh my god you know those are fighting words you know this is a conflict um and I think now when I see that stress what is important for me to do is like I think about nines and I think about the way that nines can take these different viewpoints and kind of merge them with their own or merge with them and so you know reminding myself it was like that you know posted that said it's not personal reminding myself about what a harmonious compromise could look like you know so if someone makes a suggestion for something that I just think is you know horrific you know instead of immediately reacting I have this rule for myself if I'm really angry with someone I wait a day to talk to them so that I can really think about and I'm usually a pretty quick thinker but when I'm angry I have to step away from it think about it and then get back to it and so usually by then I can kind of integrate you know where were they coming from what you know what is the position they're coming from and the ability to play devil's advocate but a6 has it does make it easy for me to be empathetic with people well this is the position they're in so this is why they would suggest this and so maybe I can find a way to come back at it from a point of view that isn't just oh my god you're endangering my safety or this is against my values or things like that but you know here's what you're interested in here's what I'm interested in maybe we can come up with a compromise right so it getting more connected to people seeing more things from other people's points of view as opposed to just maybe this scary Cynara scenario you might create in your head relaxing more getting out of your head into your body so this is really good for sixes to ground that the fearfulness in a sense of their own physical strength - so it's feeling more grounded by getting more conductive to the body almost like that head has a cushion the fear and the rest on and so then going to three would be more about taking the risk to be more onstage you know to be more recognized because you probably hear sixes are very self-deprecating not really owning their own Authority kind of taking the side of the underdog but at 3 its Allah allows them to sort of you recognize more for their strengths for the things that they do really well for the things that they can do getting out of their head and into action allowing themselves to not get caught up in thinking too much before moving ahead and and being more goal oriented to get more things done and get out of any kind of analysis paralysis that's upcoming going on and and also taking credit for the good things that they do instead of sort of hiding out from from being recognized sometimes it said sixes are afraid of success as well as other things and that and I've heard a Sikh say well it makes you a target you know so getting out of that fearful sense about even having a success and allowing yourself to enjoy more success yeah so Michael do you have any comments or questions I thought it was fascinating I was thinking isn't Germany considered a six cultures social six culture yes chairman Olson I was thinking how effective in the military or similar things counter phobic sixes would be because they're hyper aware of the situation and I think general McChrystal had as a line that I always liked he said when you're with the enemy be courteous be nice and have a plan to kill everybody in the room and so it was that combination of you're courteous you're Sybil you're nice you're aware of everything and you could kill everybody in their room and so it was that at least it seems to me that I I see that hyper-alert scanning of everything and precisely that plan for every possibility and then when you were on the plane that got hijacked you go into this deep calm because you thought this out already you have your plan and it seems to me that's a very military ability yeah there could be an application one time I was with Edie and his family several years ago and we were at the farmers market at the Ferry Building in San Francisco on a Saturday morning and if you've ever been there there's just people everywhere it's a huge crowd and and I remember we were just standing there like I think waiting you know just on our way somewhere we're just staying there and leans over and he says now you see an environment like this this is very difficult for me because I need to be paying attention to everything you know and I just thought it was such a poignant thing to refine I was so glad you shared that with me of like there's so much to pay attention to and the more complexity and people and everything that almost the more hyper-alert attention there is being paid yeah it's exhausting yeah yeah yeah okay question Terry can you comment about introversion versus extraversion in this like every type I think any type can be both either extroverted or introverted so I think that's the main thing and even with fives we say they're the most introverted but that doesn't mean there couldn't be an extroverted five what what what's true for you guys around introversion extroversion I think we're protential II the type most likely to say both because it's the whole Dyke like the dichotomous yes but no all the way left all the way right like you know we have a hard time figuring out our subtype because we feel like all three have a hard time feeling like what what was my wing I spent a whole year being like what's my wing I'm a five wing seven wing five and it's like the answer is both and if I had to pick one I'd say that I'm 51% 7 wing and 49% 5 wing so there's just this this idea of having to choose just one thing is almost impossible like with well there you go there you go ambivalence indecision those kinds of things make me feel like oh I'm an extrovert right now and then 20 minutes from now I'll be an introvert and it's just a back and forth all the time I always go to where do i recharge my batteries like how do I refill my gas tank and for me that's introvert I like my alone time it's calm there's not a lot of stimulus going around I don't have to be paying attention to things it gives me a chance to calm myself so I would lean to the introverts oh I remember you took you took the Enneagram test once and came out as a 5 as a 5 yes is that yeah I totally agree with the halfway down the scale on things and all of that there was something I wanted to say about the standing out and the target piece I really I like to be underestimated so I like to lower the expectations you see so if I'm playing I was playing a game once it's a Catan I don't know if anybody's played this game and you're sort of doing things with territory and whatnot and I'm playing the group and there was a counter for book 6 in the group and we kept doing the same strategy against each other like I don't have anything look I'm so undefended and you can't come after me and you see if I'm always like downing my side and pointing out how strong the other one is there at the target but don't underestimate the six because I love Noah's story of I'm gonna throw the wrench over here but I got the screwdriver right there so that's the six we're not to be trifled with you know but I also think that there is a lot of self-deprecation that comes with that and humor and relatability yeah yeah yeah okay Jerry I'm curious to know if any of you have an awareness or a belief around being planning and predicting versus calling it in and manifesting it life-like do you find that some of the ways that you are vigilant and and predicting and things like that are actually asking for it to happen okay I'll say when I hear the word manifesting I think of that activity as very difficult because of the indecision and ambivalence and analysis paralysis I would say that yes I put out an energy of the worst thing will happen and sometimes it does feel like I attract tow stubs and banging my head on the cabinet and those kinds of things just because I'm so concerned about them I can actually be thinking about the thing I want to avoid and it can happen to me while I'm spinning on it so yeah that that's a pretty difficult thing I also I heard you to say the word expectations over there and I wanted to touch on that idea of meeting expectations of other people and covering all the bases in life and that kind of thing so you're getting that vibe we all we all have that up here yes I like to say that my daily experience of what life feels like is as if I'm stuck in traffic and the person in front of me feels like I'm riding their bumper and the person behind me feels like I'm not going fast enough and they're both mad at me for different reasons opposite expectations and I feel like I have to meet both I feel like I have to speed up and slow down at every given moment of every day that one's yeah it's it's it's it's part of the growth is the idea that it is not possible to cover every base and that was one of the things that I've had to accept as I've done this work and you know the idea of you know maybe some of those uncovered bases are important for how the world is gonna shake out you know so I feel exhausted I I'd been in various sorts of therapy since I was probably about 12 I'm 45 and I just found a therapist that I could work with it I have a really serious mistrust of therapists it just it took me a really really long time to realize that it wasn't them it was me you know like how could all the therapists in Northern California be ridiculous right so weird so it's it's hard it's hard I really absolutely had to get to the place where I realized it was my projection it was my concern that I was putting what was inside out there for someone that they were gonna tell me what to do with it and maybe they were gonna have me do crazy things you know so yeah it just it took an actual active effort to say I'm just gonna stick with it and this is what I'm supposed to do and this is really healthy for me but it you know it took 30 years for me it was consistency how they showed up for me when I was there you're watching I was I had to go there well for me it was at a point where I'm like I'm at wit's end I need help I'm not getting it in my current surroundings I'm gonna go seek some professional help and it's not that it wasn't you know suspect to it you know and so he had a recommendation from a really good friend who we trust that helps a lot so how do you get to the point it's not that you don't trust anybody it's it's a matter of learning to trust them so you're you're being vigilant and watching them and seeing how consistent they are and after a period of time you're you're able to let your guard down a little bit you know where they're coming from you've been watching them whether they're aware of it or not poking yeah poking in there and they're acting oh they're having the right response when you poke them potentially we teach and we do a professional workshop for people for therapists and coaches working with people of different Enneagram types and one of the things we teach therapists and coaches when you're working with a six they will need to trust you and so that means you need to recognize that and you need to be trustworthy so in other words if you are doing little things that are a little bit questionable like maybe you're starting late or maybe you shared something about another client you know that they are going to notice that and so I mean one of the ways to for us on this side of it to handle that is to be trustworthy right to be honest to be transparent to if you make a mistake admit it things like that yeah yeah yeah what what goes in one way making the mistake and admitting it it gives us a big sense of calm that you can you can own that piece and then we can own that too because a lot of people don't right yeah no are you gonna say something since you mentioned coaching yeah there's a to me health coaching was the answer to the question you're asking of being able to how can I go if I don't trust Authority and give myself over the idea of a helping relationship or you know a growth relationship with another individual who is on my plane meaning health coach is known as more of an advocate and an equal in the relationship not the expert who is talking down to you and so essentially if you're willing to work with me and help me and say I'm not an authority I'm on the same level as you I'm very much more likely to engage in that healing relationship you know if you can come alongside me and say we're in this together as opposed to I'm up here and you're down there how can I use my power to help you down there it's a very different feeling that I think as a six I'm much more comfortable with the difference between like relentless mentalizing and projecting fears as opposed to carrying your honor feeling your own intuition that's an important question for success is this projection or intuition what do you guys think yeah that's that's cute key question well for me I allow myself to go all the way down the rabbit hole with the worst case projections I don't try to stop it or control it I let it go I look at it and then I back up and I say how does this feel you know what what is my body telling me about that mental process how likely is that to occur and and that helps a lot I mean it provides a certain level of calmness without judging myself for going down the rabbit hole in the first place anyone else want to say about that how do you tell the difference between projection and intuition so the thought loop that I talked about earlier I can tell very easily that that thought loop comes from me and I know that intuition hypothetically would come from me as well but for me I can feel intuition when it's the first thing that comes in and there is no thought loop following it because it feels like almost feels like it was beamed in from up you know just beamed in being and so essentially when I get in some kind of intuitive knowingness or answer from somewhere that I don't feel I can question because of the inherent truth in it there's no questions to ask that's kind of how I know cuz I always have questions to ask but when I can't come up with a question that's when something magical is happening trying to I'm trying to reconcile that which is that you know for me you know I I don't really know how to discern this idea of gut versus divine or anything like that but I know that I've spent my whole life rejecting my gut so this very well may be an active case of projection where I take what is actually coming in here and I'm putting it up there you know one more Courtney speak and I think what was even more like crazy of a reflection I was having was listening to everyone else respond like non-verbally in size and things to what you guys are saying because up until I started this work I thought everyone thought like me you know I got not everyone was as critical as I was I was like oh that's just normal like this is normal and then you know you learn you know that's not how everyone okay yeah I can relate to that but then hearing how you guys burble eyes your thoughts is like really but like define anything for me I was like oh yeah that's what I do but um what I wanted to ask for you guys to speak to is something that really resonated with me I mean ds9 psyche types of leadership about six as it talks about the ping-pong egg like being very inconsistent going back and forth between like it was like you could be mad or sad happy or like distressful are very trusting or like you know just when you spoke to be looking for in consists in consistencies but being in consent and for the inconsistencies so you guys like that resonate with you guys at all like a dichotomy I'm very like back and forth with lots of different sorts of oh yeah beings anything more you can say about that what's that what that's like but it's about girlfriend I try to explain to people and they're like I don't know what you mean by ping pong ball I just to sort of claim some of the gifts because I feel like Essex's can really throw ourselves under the bus very quickly that's part of our whole pattern right like so for my jugular it's right here exactly but yeah I feel like that also allows a kind of flexibility and to me it's the foundation of empathy and you know a cup of nines can really feel into all the different types I feel like there's part of that for me too in in the constant being able to do all these different things so I feel I feel like it's the basis of a lot of empathy I mean it's really true that I mean when I do typing interviews I often know I'm dealing with a six when they start to say in response to every question it depends it depends and they're there six is a very context dependent and sensitive it's like well it depends on what I'm seeing happen in that situation it could be something totally different kind of like they were saying and and Noah saying he depending on this situation I could be over here that person so I do think there's a mental flexibility in it and I do think there's a readiness to try on different ideas as a way of analyzing different situations so especially when I work in businesses I always say these are people who is sometimes success get a bad rap on teams because they're perceived as negative because they poke holes and projects and they ask people a lot of questions so people can feel like they're doubting them but the thing is it's like these are people you want these are people who can think so so flexibly about so many different things that they can think through different scenarios so I think part of it is just trying different things on and being able to kind of put your head into that space and then into that space and sometimes when your heads in this space you might have a certain feeling about that and then if it's over here you might have a different feeling and so I think there is that flexibility do you want to say something to that yeah I was gonna say and I I don't I feel uncomfortable sometimes talking about things that I'm good at because that's that's just really hard but that's good for us to know it it's but one of the things that I'll do if I'm when I'm really comfortable in a situation is all deuce I will be able to do something instinctually that wouldn't necessarily come naturally but is the right thing to do and then in my head I'll go oh my god what did I just do but it'll it'll have been the right thing you know and so doubt it right ass so the more comfortable I am the more I can do that without overthinking it and then later when I think about it to try to decide who I need to apologize to then I'll realize no that was that was the right thing to do in that situation yes I think another growth path is wreck is owning your strengths owning getting having more confidence in yourself and your authority and your ability because I mean all this thinking over here there's a lot of wisdom and so I think it's good to end on that high note and thank you very very much thank you very very much [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: NewSchoolCommonweal

Views: 48,957

Rating: 4.8793101 out of 5

Keywords: TNS, Enneagram, archetype, psychology, archetypal, personality, Beatrice, Chestnut, Palmer, Helen, Gurdjieff, Lerner, Michael, HR, organizations, 5 type, 6 type, 7 type

Id: SQ2c0d5wP30

Length: 90min 25sec (5425 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2019