Enneagram: Which Character Are You?

hey guys thank you for joining me my name is dr tom lehu and welcome to my channel today we're going to be looking at all of the enneagram types as though they are characters in a play and i hope you'll stay with me through the end of this video it'll be a short video and i think there's an important lesson to learn at the end okay so um before we get started just a reminder that in my descript description below is a link to my website tomlahu.com where you can book enneagram coaching appointments also there is a tab at the top of my web page for certificate programs if you're interested in becoming an enneagram coach uh relationship coach and i have a new class coming out in october on the enneagram and the christian life and so if you're interested in any of those i hope that you'll join one of those cohorts one of those classes that's beginning soon and also thank you to my patrons i really appreciate your support for this channel okay so let's get into this idea um imagine that somebody invites you to go to a play okay so you you agree and you go and sit down in the audience with all the other audience members and the lights go down the curtains go up and on the stage that is set like basically let's say um a family living room kitchen you know just a a like a sitcom stage um there are nine different characters and all of these nine characters let's just say they are behaving in their proverbial ways so the one let's just i know this is goofy but let's just say that one is doing all the one things that you might think of like they're cleaning the house they're organizing and straight and everything they're trying to get all the details right and they're getting aggravated that all the other characters in this home are not necessarily realizing uh the importance of all these tasks that need to be done so the one is you know a little bit frustrated and let's just do that with all the characters so imagine they're all kind of operating in their own in their own agendas so the two is who knows maybe trying to interact with all the other types you know trying to connect with them trying to help them in some way but themselves as getting a little aggravated because people are are doing their own things and not really don't really have time to develop that relationship the three maybe they're on a treadmill they're exercising they're working out and they're reaching their goals and crushing their goals and the four is over in a corner by themselves um away from the group maybe reading a book or listening to headphones or let's make it really proverbial they're painting okay we'll make them painting over in the corner uh the five of course is uh thumbing through the family library uh gaining knowledge or on the internet um watching random tick tock videos uh but they're also aloof and away from the rest of the group i know that this is silly but so the six is maybe worried about should i go back to school i don't know if i should do this major or that major i don't know what i should do somebody help me understand okay the seven is thumbing through a catalog of all the things that they need to order that they don't have uh listening to loud music uh interrupting conversations uh fidgeting spinning around in their chair the eight is trying to get everybody to play a board game and getting aggravated that people can't you know have enough sense to come out to the table and they're starting to bark orders and getting aggravated the nine is sitting on the couch watching television talking to the two about their life uh talking with the six about their plans going back to school you get the idea right so every one of the types in this play let's just say that their their characters that are proverbially proverbial um you know to their type so every one of them is just operating in their in their type okay so you've got that picture in your head i'm such a seven look at this tea i'm drinking cup of sunshine yeah it's supposed to i don't know sunshine okay so imagine you're watching this this play and then after an hour and a half of all these interactions these characters interacting aggravating each other getting aggravated with each other the curtain comes down the lights come back on and the play is over you know and so now i just want you to think about that scenario for a minute when you think about that learning about the enneagram when you first started to learn about the enneagram you could very easily see yourself as one of the characters on on that play just think of it like that like you you you opened a few books you started uh gathering information maybe you watched a few videos you took a couple of tests and or talked to somebody that that shared the enneagram with you somebody at church or somebody you know at work you went through it through some training at work when you first read through all those definitions if you if you knew your type obviously sometimes people get stuck and they don't know their type and they need they need a little bit of help maybe they have to like try on a type for a while but if you if you read and figured it out and knew immediately that you're a two you knew immediately that you're a three or a seven or whatever it is it's kind of like you you started to really identify with that character on the stage if i were to ask you at that point which one of these um which one of these individuals at this play is you or is like you your tendency would be to say oh i'm just like that character you know rob on the stage rob the type seven the one that's ordering stuff out of a catalog the one that's interrupting conversations that's fidgeting in his chair oh man that's me i'm just like that and at the beginning of our journey we we do over identify we might say with the personality type on the stage but now here's what i meant when i said wait till the end of this video because it's not going to go where you think it's going to go because remember at the beginning of this conversation i said you're invited to a play and you're sitting in the audience and you're watching the play unfold okay think of that as your true self and think of the character on the stage as your false self okay now this can get a little bit ethereal a little metaphysical i don't think it really needs to i think the idea of the enneagram teachers is that we tend to over identify with that character on the stage like that's me i'm just like that and i think we do that early on when we start learning about the enneagram we say oh i'm a type seven i'm just like this or i'm a type one i'm just like this but the longer we study and think and reflect and discuss the enneagram the more we start to realize i'm not just that character on the stage i'm kind of like somebody in the audience observing at times my behavior observing my impulses observing my compulsions and as i learn and grow and study i want to more identify with an audience member and less with one of the characters on the stage sometimes my personality is not working for me sometimes it's it's limiting my my freedom sometimes it's restricting me and i want to begin to see that that sometimes being stuck in this type is really limiting and uh often i'm kind of an autopilot i don't want to be an autopilot i want to reflect on those impulses and say you know is this really the best is this really the best direction for me is this really the best choice i can make is this really the best option i could take why do i feel so compelled uh to to go in this direction instead of that direction is my personality in charge um because think of it like this if you have a personality then you are not a personality you have it you are a person with a personality so is the person in charge here or is the personality in charge how much of the decisions i'm making are just impulse compulsive responses based on my personality type do i really want to just surrender the keys over to type 7 or type 1 or type 3 no i don't i want to observe this personality at work and recognize that there are times that sometimes it it leads me into wrong into unhealthy choices or unhealthy decisions um let's try to think of this in another way um let me think about it for a second uh your personality is like software on a computer if that's true and i'm running seven software and you're running three software we're gonna see the world very differently because of that personality type that's running the the computer what do we have in common you and i we're both computers we may not have the same software operating system but we are both computers and this is kind of the idea is that in i over identifying with the software when i should maybe identify more with the computer that's what we have in common is we're both persons with personalities but we're more than our personalities sometimes our personalities are telling us this is good and this is bad we should avoid this bad thing and move toward this good thing when oftentimes what our personality is telling us is bad isn't necessarily always true think of adam and eve in the garden right if they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil what was that they wanted to know for themselves and they wanted to be able to say for themselves this is good and this is bad and we kind of keep doing that like as a seven let's see if i can make sense of this from a seven's point of view as a seven moving toward excitement moving toward adventure moving toward more options that feels like the good being stuck in things that are boring being stuck in painful moments being stuck in sadness that feels like things that are bad so from type 7's tree of knowledge of good and evil moving toward adventure moving toward excitement that's always good moving towards sadness moving toward darkness moving toward less options that's always bad so my personality wants to control my life and move me in those directions the problem is is sometimes moving toward excitement and adventure might move me away from things that i love most like i'm sorry family i've got to go follow my passion and i've got to spend the money and i've got to leave you to go do what is exciting and what is more adventurous but at the end of the day you know if you were to ask me tom what do you value most i would say of course i value my family the most all right well then why are you leaving them behind and going toward adventure well my personality is telling me that's the best option and it tells me to move away from evil and sadness but you know that's not always a good option i mean that's not always the right thing that's not always the best or healthiest thing for us to do you know it's important for sevens to be able to slow down and work through the boredom and work through the option and you know be in control of their attention rather than well i can't help it this is boring i've got to escape well why can't i learn to just accept boredom and why can't i accept that sometimes less is actually more for example imagine you had ten different fragrances to choose from on your shelf that's the way a seven would want it ten different fragrances i got lots of options i got one for the daytime one for night one for cold weather one for the one for the summer oh i love all these options but you might never really develop a relationship with any one of these fragrances because you just rotate through them so quickly that none of them are really all that meaningful for you in other words you think as a seven the best experience is more options but what about the person who has one fragrance and loves it and is identified with it and it becomes a part of them it becomes a part of who they are their identity they have a completely different experience with fragrance than a sampler a seven who's a sampler and of course the seven would think that they're having the best experience because they're sampling all of them and they have more options and they have one for this and one for that one for this and their focus is on the next one that they're going to buy but do they really have a better experience at the end of the day than the person who has one that they love so sometimes my personality is getting in the way of my best life now we could do that for every type maybe we should maybe we'll make this a long video well if you've watched this far you'll probably keep watching so we'll just make this a longer video so type one for example you know type one is moving away from anything that they would consider that they would perceive or that others would perceive as bad or wrong or lazy or uncommitted and they're like wow i can't be a part of that their personality is telling them move away from those things the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for you is all things like that must be avoided don't put your name on anything that's not 100 don't associate with those people that don't care that don't want to do their best that won't step up that won't be responsible and it's telling them move toward all things good all things right all things responsible and you know that personality is awesome i have all the respect in the world for type ones they make great leaders managers you can trust them with your you know with making things better here's the keys to my store please go manage it and they're going to make it better their personality is telling them move away from the bad move away from the the slackers move away from the lazy and move toward responsibility right do the right thing be responsible step up to the plate your word is your bond okay and that works for though type one most of the time but what if they've over committed themselves i mean what if they can't be happy when things aren't perfect what if their family's not perfect what if their kids you know don't do well in school are you then embarrassed to be associated with these slackers um sometimes just recognize that our personality is sometimes making our life difficult because now i can't be satisfied with just okay i can't be satisfied with we really tried hard we gave it a best shot but it wasn't perfect it could have been better we should have started earlier we should have woke up sooner you could become a little bit of a tyrant and hard to live with okay type 2 moving away from anything that that might be perceived as unpleasing moving away from anything that might be embarrassing or shameful moving away from anything that might humiliate you and you can become very guarded very you know protective moving toward being pleasing and being helpful and being kind and being care obviously it's much more pleasing to most people if you're kind and caring than if you're aloof and withdrawn but you know sometimes this could become a problem because maybe you offer help to people that aren't safe maybe you offer help to people that don't appreciate your help and then you get aggravated and then you get upset and this person that is ordinarily so loving and so gracious and so kind kind of now settles to being addicted to being needed by others feeling important because they're needed and then being resentful when other people don't appreciate them at the level they feel that they deserve and it can end up sabotaging the very relationships that you hope to to develop so your personality is in charge here telling you people aren't connecting with you like they should people aren't uh valuing you like you should you've given all this energy and all this time and all this effort and they're not responding to you at the level that you deserve you should be upset with them and your personality is saying i know what's good and i know what's evil what if you could take us a step back from the stage you see what if you could take a step back from the stage and sit in the audience for a moment and watch yourself and say why does that aggravate me so much why do i have the tendency to wonder if people are loving me well or as a type one why do i get so frustrated when things don't work out the way or when i don't uh uh accomplish all that i hope to have accomplished why do i get so irritated and so frustrated when other people don't take responsibility it sometimes keeps me from having a good relationship with them the very thing that you want you would say if somebody asked you do you want to have a great marriage do you want to have a great family do you want to relate well to others yes yes yes okay well then why are you so angry so upset so hurt so sullen so withdrawn away from the people that you love because they didn't do good they didn't do right they weren't loving me like like i deserve to be loved your personality is telling you those people need to pay for what they've done look at instead of loving people and instead of being good look how judgmental and critical and harsh your personality has turned against them so what if you could be in the audience observing that and say wow i don't really want that i don't really want to be that critical and harsh i don't really want to be that hurt and upset and frustrated and angry okay type three type three's moving away from anything again that could be embarrassing or anything that looks lazy or weak or anything that looks uh like failure um you know threes want to be lions they don't want to be sheep they want to show up early and do whatever it takes to win to accomplish to achieve to be effective they don't want to be ineffective and so this desire to believe that i am effective and that i am productive and that i am successful and that i am pushing myself and accomplishing so much and living the best life i can and giving the best life to my family i can i could become addicted to that to the point that maybe i shade away the edges of truth and sometimes become deceitful to others and i don't always own the complete truth because that might make me look bad that might make me look like you know less than stellar but if i can't accept failures as part of this life if i have to run away from failures see you see i'm running toward success but what are the threes running away from the feeling that i might be a failure but we're all at times going to fail we're all at times not going to reach the goals that we set that's normal that's a part of life maybe your personality sometimes is overreacting like overly afraid of failure what if you could embrace failure what if you could see failure as a normal natural part of learning of even being successful is that you've got to go through failure at times not everything is going to work not every plan is going to work no matter how disciplined or how you know maybe you're not always going to be the most pleasing or the most charming maybe okay so type four moving away from anything that's normal anything that's common anything that is um passe um or pedestrian that's a good word anything that's pedestrian anything that's normal um afraid that underneath i might just be a little brown mouse oh like everybody else i can't i can't accept that and so the four becomes very unique and very special and very original and working really hard to differentiate themselves away from the group and then after they've differentiated themselves away from the group so much of course what are they going to feel misunderstood because people are looking at them like why are you wow how long did you spend looking in the mirror to get that look i just couldn't care that much how could you care so much to spend so long on getting your hair and your makeup and your clothing to look that unique why would you care that much why what is it you're trying to communicate to the rest of us am i supposed to stop and stare and look at you or am i supposed to ignore it like like like nothing's different i mean i don't know how i'm supposed to respond and of course what's the four going to feel they're going to feel like they're misunderstood or they're being judged by others maybe sometimes your personality the character on the stage if you could sit in the audience you might realize that this character is sometimes getting themselves into jams with people like wanting to be unique and wanting to be special wanting to be creative you really have to compare yourself with everybody all the time and making all those comparisons as to how you look versus how they look or how you're unique versus how everybody else is you might at times start to feel like other people have a better life than you you might at times start to feel envious like i wish i could just be like them and just be okay being one of those people and not you might start to give in to envy a feeling like they have it better than you and you have it more difficult than them and what if you could take a step back into the audience and just see this character and say you know why am i so compelled all the time in other words maybe my problem is i'm just a three feeling three stuff or a four feeling four stuff and maybe this could loosen its grip a little bit maybe i don't have to just be a character in a play you know maybe i could maybe make some other choices here that would be more in line with what i really want in life and maybe sometimes these compulsions that seem so good versus evil to me being normal is evil being unique is good well mexican food is now quite normal and it's really good so sometimes normal is very good levi's jeans are very normal and very good asics shoes are very normal very good black t-shirts very normal and very good so sometimes this this this despising of normal and ordinary isn't always in my best interest i think i hope it's clicking with you i hope that this is clicking with you if you're interested in this type of subject the enneagram and the christian life that course i'm putting together is going to deal with a lot of this kind of thing so if you want to go deeper and i'm not going deeper in you know just a spiritual sense but in a in a profoundly christian so you need to understand that you know that this is from a christian worldview but it's going to deal with a lot more spiritual aspects of the enneagram like this um okay this understanding of self the true self versus the false self or the the who i really am the person versus the personality the character on the stage versus the person in the audience the director we might say in the audience more sunshine tea ah sunshine i want to put like a if i did any editing i would put a sun glow behind me all right um the five moving away from anything that's perceived as ignorant or incompetent or inept or lacking in information moving toward all things intelligent and wise and knowledgeable being knowledgeable and having the information is good being ignorant is bad being intruded on by others and having your space interrupted that's it's bad being isolated and being independent and maybe not isolated that might be too strong a word but independent self-sufficient self-reliant and not having a lot of needs having needs that's bad being capable and independent that's good um but maybe your independence and your self-reliance sometimes puts wedges between you and the people that want to take care of you the people that want to love you the people that want to interact with you um maybe it's good at times to need others and to be in need of others care and support and love and attention and it's good to give that to others um and you know like the bible says with much knowledge comes much pain sometimes the more you know the more information you have the more difficult and scary life can be now i'm not just saying ignorance is bliss i'm just saying from a seven's point of view sometimes you know enough to move on to something else you don't necessarily need to get to the drags of the bottom of the well i'm sure every five is losing their mind right now yes you do yes you do you need to get to the bottom and understand it all okay well why did you pick that topic i mean there's a million other topics why don't you care to know about those i mean why not know a little bit about more things why not be more well-rounded again this is a seven talking to you so just keep that in mind i appreciate people that have a complete understanding of something can you ever have a complete understanding you know in this life we're mortals by the way right um so can you ever have a complete understanding no it's always going to be incomplete we're always continuing to learn more um that's your whole thing right is to always be learning well if you're always learning that means that you are learning stuff today you didn't know yesterday okay type six moving away from insecurity all things unsure all things unstable moving away from things that are untested that's evil that's bad moving toward that which is tested that which is sure that which can be secure um solving the problems and sixes often make great problem solvers um but you know sometimes the type six can uh be very loyal and very faithful and even obedient but they could become addicted to the fear that anything that looks contrary to the rules or to the manual or to the policies that's that's bad that's evil we gotta avoid that um but that's how often innovations are made type seven already talked about type eight moving away from anything that feels vulnerable or weak or indecisive or helpless or childlike or childish moving away from that moving toward power and strength and might and and independence and the ability to make my own choices and to run my own life those things are evil these things are good but maybe the people that love you would like to see the more vulnerable side of you you know you don't always have to show up with boxing gloves we're not always wanting to battle with you maybe we just you know we're wanting to see the little the little child inside that shell you know maybe that's one of the ways to connect with people too not just through um arguing and debating but maybe people want to connect with that softer side of you well no that's evil that's got to be avoided at all costs but maybe that's the very thing that could enhance your relationships okay nines nice moving away from anything that feels awkward in relationships or might induce conflict um or might be a strong opinion that gets you know other people upset and moving toward peace and harmony and comfort that's good disharmony discord conflict that's bad but in real relationships right there's always going to be some level of disagreements and conflict and if i can't handle those then what might i do i might just shut down and just become a shell of myself and internally withdraw while externally in other words geographically i'm there but internally i'm not so much there so conflict isn't always bad conflict can be very good very healthy you know the chicken doesn't magically come out of the shell there has to be a little bit of push and shove and bark and growl to get out of that shell and in relationships there's going to be some level of disagreements and disappointments and frustrations and there's always going to be awkward moments that we got to work through we can't just avoid them because they're evil they're bad i just want you to see that you could become addicted to peace at any cost rather than working through the conflict this is the idea is that when we over identify with the personality and let the personality run things it's not always in our best interest it's good for us to take a step back sit in the audience look at these personality types as characters in a play and say you know now that i see what seven looks like now that i see what three two one all these things look like maybe it's not always the best option for me to just do what comes naturally sometimes i need to really think about what i'm what i'm doing and pause for a second and get away from others and sit in solitude and stillness and silence right solitude stillness and silence and really think that's the sacred enneagram by the way uh solitude stillness and silence and really think about these decisions that i'm making and how they're impacting my life and my future and impacting others and not just be so automatic so autopilot now well i got to avoid this and i've got to go toward that really think about what it is i'm trying to uh to do here in this life and i think something else that's helpful to remember and why ultimately i'm a pastor and not a counselor per se although counselors could do this work but why i'm a pastor is remember that in this story i shared at the beginning about the play eventually the curtain comes down right eventually the curtain comes down and the lights come on and it's over and what did i accomplish in all of this ordering from catalogs what did i accomplish from all of this organizing cleaning and straightening what did i accomplish from all of this worry and anxiety and problem solving from all this peacemaking from all of this strength and power and might and moving people in the direct what did i really accomplish from all this and that's where i think ultimately the enneagram kind of moves us in a spiritual direction like hmm there must be more okay thank you guys blessings have a great uh great day and as always be present to life thank you guys

Channel: Dr. Tom LaHue

Views: 4,413

Rating: 4.948936 out of 5

Keywords: enneagram, relationships, personalities, family, marriage, parenting

Id: 9cUvY5X5IRA

Length: 33min 48sec (2028 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021