Type Three » Enneagram Paths Coaching

Enneagram Object Relations

Posted on January 29, 2025January 29, 2025 by melissakircher

Today we’re diving into a corner of Enneagram theory world via the brilliant Belinda Gore.

“Basic to Enneagram Object Relations theory is the concept that the ego-self, or personality, develops only in relation to something else. This something else is called the Other. We develop the ego structures we come to know as ourselves through early experiences interacting with key people and objects.” – Belinda Gore

As humans, we have three core needs: protection, nurturing, and belonging. For each of the nine Enneagram types, our child psyche perceives one of these core needs as being specifically unmet. This lack leaves behind a deep, often unrecognized wound—a persistent need that compels us to respond unconsciously with either frustration, over-attachment, or rejection. Each of the nine Enneagram type structures represents a unique strategy crafted by the ego to cope with and address this perceived lack. I’ve listed all the types and their object relation structures below. Scroll down to find your type. What do you think? Does this theory resonate for you?

To learn more, visit Gore’s website: https://belindagore.com/enneagram/

Type 1

Lack: Protection

Coping Mechanism: Frustration

Over the span of my life, I have felt a gnawing sense that people who were supposed to protect me have failed. They’ve fallen short, so I’ve had to form rigid rules and boundaries that keep things ideal and in check. I often sense frustration boiling under the surface and deal with it by making sure I engineer specific outcomes.

Type 2

Lack: Protection

Coping Mechanism: Rejection

Over the span of my life, I have felt a gnawing sense that people who were supposed to protect me didn’t care to do so. I deal with this pain by unconsciously rejecting my wound. I turn my attention outward and lose myself in the lives of others, making sure I’m constantly ignoring myself. I don’t want to feel that lack again.

Type 3

Lack: Nurturing

Coping Mechanism: Attachment

Over the span of my life, I have felt a gnawing sense that I was not nurtured enough. I deal with this pain by trying to offer relational resources to others. I’m not too vulnerable or invulnerable so that people keep me around. I’m constantly adapting my external behavior to receive positive responses from others, which feels like nurturing.

Type 4

Lack: Belonging

Coping Mechanism: Frustration

Over the span of my life, I’ve felt a gnawing sense that I never entirely belonged. I deal with this lonely sensation by noticing my dissatisfaction with life and people. I’m idealistic and picky, both longing for others to include me and yet never feeling that reality meets the sense of inclusion I crave. I turn inward to provide for myself.

Type 5

Lack: Belonging

Coping Mechanism: Rejection

Over the span of my life, I’ve felt a gnawing sense that I don’t really belong in the world. I deal with this feeling by removing the possibility of relational disappointment. I’m hermit-like because I tell myself I don’t like people while secretly longing for community and connection. I reject others before they can reject me.

Type 6

Lack: Protection

Coping Mechanism: Attachment

Over the span of my life, I have felt a gnawing sense that people who were supposed to protect me were not trustworthy. I deal with this pain by collecting a community and procuring reassurance from others. I’m very aware of what needs to be attended to to keep us all safe. I continually adjust so that you will stick around if I need you.

Type 7

Lack: Nurturing

Coping Mechanism: Frustration

Over the span of my life, I have felt a gnawing sense that I was not nurtured enough. I soothe this dissatisfaction by replacing nurturing with obtaining whatever my heart desires. I deny my frustration, staving it off with endless doing, fun, and lightheartedness. Yet, I feel hollowness the whole time and long for an ideal kind of love.

Type 8

Lack: Nurturing

Coping Mechanism: Rejection

Over the span of my life, I have felt a gnawing sense that I was not nurtured enough. I reject this wound and delude myself into thinking I’m invulnerable and that emotions don’t matter. I use my body, strength, and power to deny the pain and desire for care I feel in my heart. I reject my heart and keep it locked away, even from myself.

Type 9

Lack: Belonging

Coping Mechanism: Attachment

Over the span of my life, I’ve felt a gnawing sense that my true self didn’t matter much, that I wasn’t important enough to belong. To assuage this ache, I go along with people, adapting to what they want from me so they keep me around. I tell myself it’s good to be easygoing while still longing to be known and accepted.

Type Three Interview: Tim Brooks

Posted on December 10, 2018December 8, 2018 by melissakircher

“He who masters the power formed by a group of people working together has within his grasp one of the greatest powers known to man.”
― idowu koyenikan, All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business

Happy Monday everyone! Today, I’m excited to have someone from my hometown of Ellicott City, MD on the blog. It’s a crazy coincidence because we don’t know each other! Tim Brooks is a pastor, coach, and writer… and an Enneagram Type Three.

You will notice that the questions for each Type in the next month or two of interviews are the same. I’ve done this on purpose. In having different people of the same Type answer the same questions, we get to see and understand more deeply the similar motivations, thought patterns, and behavior. But, it also exposes so many nuanced deviations—because we’re humans and we can’t be put in boxes! The Enneagram is a useful tool, but it’s only a tool. We’re unique people with individualized experiences and to really grasp The Enneagram’s potential for personal growth, it’s so helpful to hear from as many diverse perspectives as possible! This blog is a brave space open to all beliefs or non-beliefs, all genders, and orientations.

Welcome, Tim! I’m so glad to have you here. Thank you for your willingness to share.

Type Three Interview: Tim Brooks

1. Three’s experience the world as a series of tasks or challenges to be overcome. Talk a little about how this shows up in your life.

I struggle to understand how people even view life differently than this! My wife once told me that she didn’t have goals of grandeur, that a simple life would make her happy, and I wasn’t sure even how to be married to that (I have come around, it was a short crisis). I’m hyper-competitive and still unsure if that is a result of being a Type Three, or if it feeds my Three-ness. But I do have an insatiable need to win, making competitions out of the most mundane tasks (how fast I can get in and out of a grocery store, beating the caravan back from a staff lunch, guiding my daughter’s soccer teams to victory, etc.)

If I’m feeling unchallenged, I tend to think I’m wasting time. I then add a new side-project, join a new committee or board, or even change jobs. Mastery equals monotony very quickly for me, whereas many of my friends feel accomplished by mastery, I feel boredom.

2. How do you make decisions? From your gut, from your head, or from your heart? (Or any combination.)

Emotions don’t play a huge role in my life, so I think heart is cut out of the equation. I’m suspicious of emotions as liars because it’s so easy to use them to manipulate and to be manipulated. As such, my authentic feelings are always at war with my rational thoughts. I bounce between the two. There are times that I have a gut sense of what needs to be done that seems overwhelmed by rational thought. But I have a deep confidence that I can beat the odds, and doing what my gut tells me to do is possible. I tend to be willing to bet on myself, and that pays off more often than it doesn’t. But when it doesn’t pay off, there tend to be catastrophic consequences.

3. What happens to your closest relationships when you’re stressed and go to Arrow Type Nine? What happens to your relationships when you’re healthy and go to Arrow Type Six?

When I’m stressed and go Type Nine, people don’t know what to do with me. I am usually a reliable leader (especially in my family), and when I go full “leave me alone, I’m playing video games, and I’m in my own little world,” it creates a void in the systems I usually cultivate, and I think people feel my stress.

My wife is a Six, and she drives me nuts in the normal marriage way. Think 3/6 marriage! I always want to break ceilings and accomplish something new, and man is she afraid of new! If she was writing this, she could tell you all about how I drive her crazy as well. But when I go to a Type Six in health, I suspect I’m more governed by the rational part of me: planning, articulating, weighing risk, being practical. My wife loves it when I live there.

4. How does the need for image and status play out in your daily life? Do you find yourself changing and adjusting to people and circumstances?

Yeah, in some ways it’s exhausting, trying, as the Apostle Paul put it, “to be all things to all people.” As a pastor, I feel this tension most acutely when I move from younger people to older people. Older folks want a formal, less flawed, articulate pastor who spends time with them. Younger folks want a flawed, fun, relatable character who practices being “real.”

When it comes to politics, I often find myself as a centrist because I am able to hear people from left and right of the political center and really understand their arguments, motivations, and dreams. Rather than not having convictions—as the center is often accused of—my problem is more being able to sympathize with those who are articulating their point at the moment. I really can see both sides of an argument very clearly.

5. What do you wish other people understood about being a Type Three?

That we are not “liars” and we are not “fake.” That our ambition is not about thinking we are better than anyone else either. So often, especially when Threes are healthy, our ambition is about elevating all of us: our communities, our churches, our friends, our teams, etc.

6. Tell us about your Wing. Do you know what it is? How does it color your experiences as a Three?

I guess I could be a Two Wing. But really, I think I’m more of a full Three. My job as a pastor seems to cultivate the Two Wing… I have to care about people a lot. But, honestly, it takes a ton of energy for me.

7. What would the phrase, “I am loved as myself, even when I fail,” mean to you if you knew it to be deeply true?

Yeah, I know that is deeply true, but I am not sure how it is true—I just know that it is. I don’t know yet how to tell the story of who I am without listing accomplishments.

8. As a Type Three do you connect to spirituality? Are there any spiritual practices you participate in?

Spirituality must be corporate for it to work for me. Meditation, personal devotions, etc. quickly turn into my mind wandering, processing all I have to do. But joining with others in prayer, study, book club, worship, conversation, etc. always centers me.

9. How do feelings show up in your life? Are you able to recognize and experience your feelings or do you suppress them?

I’m not good with my own feelings, but I think I am good at helping other people with their feelings. I suppress my emotions – not that I wrestle with them often. I mentioned this earlier, but feelings, which I acknowledge are legitimate, are so easily distorted.

10. Talk about what the words Authenticity, Be, and Pain mean to you today?

Authenticity: My wife hates reading about my Enneagram Type because all she sees is “fake.” I think the chameleon piece is our authentic self… because we aren’t simply what we are solely for self-preservation, but also because we need to be what you need us to be… and we can switch that on easily. If we were all accomplishment, all achievement without being able to be the person you need us to be, we would be aloof. Maybe we still are, but I think moments where we can be what you need, allows for all of us to appreciate each other.

Be: Man, this word is difficult. To be feels so stagnant. I am way more interested in what I want to become.

Pain: I know pain. I know it in many degrees from many moments. Pain makes me better. It makes me want to rise above it. It makes me want to create systems to avoid it. It cultivates empathy within me for others that I can draw on.

i-dxttS5N-L

Tim Brooks is the lead pastor at Crossroads Church of the Nazarene in Ellicott City, MD. He is the husband to Charryse, father to Mackenzie (10) and Claire (8). Tim coaches softball, basketball, and soccer. He is an editor for Preacher’s Magazine, a writer for The Community blog, and a contracted author for The Foundry Publishing. He has an earned doctorate from Nazarene Theological Seminary where he studies the overlapping agendas and formational power of pop culture and religious worship.

www.crossroadsnaz.org

http://www.thefoundrycommunity.com/

www.preachersmagazine.org

Twitter: @pastortimbrooks

Type 3: Interview with Drew Moser

Posted on December 7, 2018December 5, 2018 by melissakircher

When I started this blog I figured it’d be a chill, fun way to offload some of my Type Five constant brain activity! I love the Enneagram and am super enthusiastic about the ways in which it leads us down paths of growth and change. I’ll still be doing nerdy, information posts, I promise! But… it’s been an amazing life/blog twist to begin to interview people. I’ve found you all are SO interesting. I’m excited to be able to provide a place for people to share about their Type and lives—a meeting spot where we can learn from each other about the Enneagram. Thank you to the 30+ people who responded to this last open call, and I can’t wait to hear about your unique life experiences. -Melissa

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

Today I’d like to welcome Dr. Drew Moser, an author, dean, professor, and an Enneagram Type Three. So happy to have you! Let’s get into it.

Life as a Type Three:

1. Three’s experience the world as a series of tasks or challenges to be overcome. Talk a little about how this shows up in your life.

I’m always prone to viewing life as one big “to-do” list. At times, it’s been to my advantage. It allows me to live a life motivated and inspired. It fueled my graduate work while having a young, large family (my wife and I have five kids). It’s fueled my writing while also working full time. That said, it’s hard for me as a Three to turn off, slow down, and be present in the moment. Without intentional work, practice, and effort, I easily look to what’s next and miss the beauty of what’s in the here and now.

2. How do you make decisions? From your gut, from your head, or from your heart? (Or any combination.)

I deeply resonate with Hurley and Donson’s work on the intelligence centers of the Enneagram, specifically within stances (Hornevian Groups). Their work has helped me understand an often confusing element of Threes. Firmly planted in the Heart Triad with Twos and Fours, Threes are paradoxically quite detached from their emotional center. We tend to start with the Heart Center, but quickly detach from it—or misuse it—and let the gut and head take over. Here’s how this looks practically: I can enter a room with a group of people and fairly quickly (and accurately) read the room. I can generally tell emotional states, social standing, etc. Instead of letting that knowledge turn to empathy, which would be a proper use of our heart center, I let it turn to strategy (head and gut). Thinking and doing crowd out the heart. I’m working more intentionally to allow my Heart Center to play a more authentic role in my decision making. There’s a wisdom to the emotional space within us, and I have to work very intentionally to cultivate it.

3. What happens to your closest relationships when you’re stressed and go to Arrow Type Nine? What happens to your relationships when you’re healthy and go to Arrow Type Six?

When I’m stressed and not handling it well, I find myself in the space of an unhealthy stereotype of Type Nine. My decisiveness wanes, my normal drive to achieve disappears, and I procrastinate. I struggle to do the very thing that needs to be done, often busying myself with other less important tasks. I then tend to withdraw from my relationships as an escape rather than rest.

When I’m flourishing, I see myself embodying much of what is so great about Type Six. I’m employing my skills and talents for the sake of the people I care about. I’m actively engaged in my relationships, looking to them for support and guidance (not natural for a Three), and my relationships are more authentic and less strategic.

4. How does the need for image and status play out in your daily life? Do you find yourself changing and adjusting to people and circumstances?

When I was younger, my chameleon-like tendencies were more pronounced. My ability and willingness to shapeshift to maintain image and status was very evident. The Enneagram has truly helped me recognize that left unchecked, I’m prone to fake it until I fake myself. As a Three, I’m still good at adapting to a room, but I’m trying to do this mindfully and more appropriately. Having a more authentic and clear sense of who I am has been very helpful.

5. What do you wish other people understood about being a Type Three?

Beneath the striving and the image-consciousness is a deep desire for value and worth. Threes, at the core, want to be loved for who they are, not what they do. But, we too often settle for achieving to impress. The thought of being ourselves without our accomplishments is scary for Threes . . . but also liberating.

6. Tell us about your Wing. Do you know what it is? How does it color your experiences as a Three?

I honestly don’t strongly identify with a Two or Four Wing. If I had to choose, my career has been marked by a strong helping bent (I’m in education, after all), so I think I’ve employed my 2w more. I like the notion that we can reach to our Wings for growth, and the thought of developing a strong 4w is intriguing: creativity, uniqueness, deeper emotional presence, etc.

7. What would the phrase, “I am loved as myself, even when I fail,” mean to you if you knew it to be deeply true?

Gah! This really is everything for a Three. As I seek to live in this truth, I’m more aware of the people in my life who believe this to be true about me. Also, I’m more likely to steward my achieving tendencies toward things that are more authentic, pure, and void of common strategic angles.

8. As a Type Three do you connect to spirituality? Are there any spiritual practices you participate in?

Any spiritual practice that slows me down and the only expectation is to simply “be” is helpful. I’ve found centering prayer and imaginative reading practices such as lectio divinato to be good. I also find writing to be really beneficial. It narrows my focus, paces me down from my frenetic tendencies.

Additionally, I’ve incorporated some “ordinary practices” that become more sacred spaces for me. A year ago I purchased a record player. Listening to vinyl keeps me in the room, and the music becomes more about presence than it is for background noise. Also, I recently acquired a used, but broken hot tub. I fixed it up, and it’s now an important rhythm for me to slow down, quiet my mind and body, and just be. Such slow, reflective spaces are silly but profound.

9. How do feelings show up in your life? Are you able to recognize and experience your feelings or do you suppress them?

They show up most prominently through the relationships I hold most dear: my wife, my five children, and my closest friends. Through some previous trials and tragedies in our family, I’ve been able to be more honest with my feelings. As a Three, I’ll always have a tendency to suppress my emotional center. But life has a way of exposing this. It’s hard, but a good lesson to learn.

10. Talk about what the words Authenticity, Be, and Pain mean to you today?

Authenticity – I think my younger self would’ve looked to others I admired for cues on how to be “authentic”. Now I know it’s within. Tending to my inner world is so important.

Be – The journey of growth for a Three (I can attest to this) is learning that we are human beings, not human doings. Learning to just “be” requires true presence void of the need for others to be impressed by what you do.

Pain – As a Type Three, my tendency is to avoid pain or dismiss it. Pain slows us down. But, I’ve learned that pain is a powerful teacher. It excavates the best and worst of us. Also, the pain-free life is an illusion, so we might as well steward our pain well.

Dr. Drew Moser is a writer, speaker, and consultant on vocation, the Enneagram, Millennials, and GenZ. He is a dean and professor at Taylor University (IN), and is the coauthor of Ready or Not: Leaning into Life in Our Twenties. He lives with his wife and five kids in Upland, Indiana.

Website: www.drewmoser.com

Instagram: @drewmoser

Twitter: @drewmoser

Introducing Your Host: An Interview with Enneagram Paths Writer Melissa Kircher

Posted on April 2, 2018April 2, 2018 by melissakircher

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” ― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

Hello, fellow Enneagram lovers! Today on the blog we have a returning guest, Sam Greenberg, interviewing yours truly—Melissa—Enneagram Paths writer, creator, and a Type Five with Four Wing (5w4).

Sam and I connected on Twitter because we are both women Type Fives—shocking! Neither of us had met another woman Five before, so we e-met. It has been a bit like Christmas getting to email back and forth and ask each other all kinds of questions. She sent me some good, meaty ones that I think are really helpful if you are a Type Five, know a Five, or are in any kind of relationship with a Five. Enjoy all the nerdy mental processing about to come your way!

1. [Melissa] how do you avoid obsessively tinkering something to death before sharing it with the world? How do you know when something is “done”?

Oh, this hits me deep. I’m a visual artist and a writer and I’ve literally had to make it a wellness practice to cut off my projects at a certain point. Nothing ever feels perfect enough. I have loads of ideas—notebooks filled with ideas—and I can execute right up until the end. For some reason, the end of a project or painting feels like death, like someone is peeling off my skin. The energy of it gets all screwed up and where I was breezing through a piece with confidence at the beginning, I’m clawing with fingernails to the end. Understanding that this is a normal Type Five trait has helped me have grace on myself—sometimes. I try to be nice to the inner Melissa who gets caught in mental loops as she strives for perfection OR the fear that whatever it is will fail/not sell/not make a client happy. And in the art world, rejection and failure happen a lot—which is not fun for a Five like me. It reinforces my belief that I’m not competent and should give up. I have both self-published and traditionally published novels and I LOVE traditional publishing. My Five mind can’t handle all the minute details it takes to self-publish, give me editors and cover artists and please take all the executing of many to-do lists out of my poor, tired hands.

I do also have help bringing my work out into the world, I have a Type Three husband who kicks my butt, encourages me, and will take over some of the technical stuff when I feel overwhelmed. I also have a Four wing that creates a strong need for self-expression and visibility. Sometimes, I feel like a Four unicorn and that everyone else must recognize my unique specialness. (Said with heaps of sarcasm.)

2. What is your relationship to things like clothing/shopping, keeping the house clean, or remembering to go to the doctor?

In the clothing area, I am total a mix of Type Five and Type Four. I’m a thrift store junkie because I both abhor paying full-price for anything (cheapskate Five) and don’t want to look like anyone else (special snowflake Four). It’s really hard for me to spend money on anything; I get hives thinking about it and intense guilt after said money is spent—even if it’s on toilet paper! I’m working hard on generosity, on giving more to others and also trying to spend money on myself. For fun. Like normal folks do. My tendency to save and skimp is part of the Five hoarding of resources. It feels dangerous to take anything out of the bank.

Keeping the house clean is an obsession—that I hate. I have two kids now, which compounds this problem. Before kids, I had a very mishmash Five/Four home. It was super clean and minimalist, but also pretty. All our furniture is second-hand or refinished by me. I’m notorious for dumpster-diving and nabbing things off the side of the road. But the Four wing has a definite aesthetic and most people can’t tell how little cash I spend on making my home nice to look at. Now that I have kids, home is one area where the Arrow to Type Seven has kicked in. When I’m stressed, I clean the house. I angry clean. How dare these people live? How dare they drop a crumb? How dare they have specks of earth on their shoes? I’m trying to notice this spiral more—my kids start to feel like an infringement on my safety (I’m a self-preservation Five and home is my Castle of Isolation and Fortitude) and this creates a false need to clean. Instead, what I really need to do is to enter into the moment and enjoy the crazy, and/or sit down and rest.

Also, errands, doctor’s appointments, laundry, parent-teacher conferences, grocery shopping?? OMG, what a waste of my life and precious mental processing time! I try to pawn off as much as I can to the Three hubby who loves Getting. Things. Done. What stinks is that I’m actually super great at grocery shopping because I stick to the budget—life as a Five is so draining!

3. In our email exchange, you said you don’t navigate emotions easily. How has that been for you as an artist?

As an illustrator and painter, it’s easy. Give me good music or a deep podcast and I tap into my emotional self with ease. As a storyteller, one of my greatest weaknesses is presenting the emotions of characters. I can set a damn good scene, but I struggle to invite the reader into a character’s heart with emotion. I think as I do more work to integrate to my healthy Eight Arrow, emotions and a sense of bodily presence might more readily flow into my work.

4. What is your relationship to expressions of emotion such as crying? What about crying in front of other people?

My family does not tolerate crying. When I cried as a child my mother often told me I was, “Out of control.” So I learned to hide. My household was verbally and emotionally abusive and if I wanted to cry about it I had to go into the woods alone (without my Eight brother) or take a long shower where the sound of the water would drown out the sound of my tears. Now, as an adult, they still don’t allow me to cry. If I cry—or show any emotion—I’m told to “calm down” or “stop being ridiculous”. This from my mother, father, and brother.

So, crying about anything going on inside of myself feels shameful even though I will easily tear up when someone else is hurt or in pain—even people I don’t know. I can’t watch the news or see horrific things on the internet, it guts me. Most people find me incredibly empathetic and able to hold space for their emotions, but I’m total crap at feeling my own emotions. It will take a day or two for any emotion to kick in after a conflict or something that upsets me. The Enneagram work I’m doing now with a therapist is to discover my backbone—and to start to feel my emotions as they arise. I want to empathize with myself more. Curiously, bodywork like meditation and yoga have been helping my trapped emotions emerge and I cry more. But not yet very much about myself. And not yet very much in front of others. Work in progress!

5. How has it been for you being a parent?

It is the hardest thing ever. Ever. Ever-ever. As a Type Five and the most introverted introvert I’ve ever met, having a (for now) Type Seven child and Type Eight child with a Type Three husband has burnt the shit out of all my energy reserves. Oh my gosh. It’s so freaking hard. I can’t state enough the difficulty of caring so deeply about two beings (one who is adopted and that’s a whole other thing) and yet I don’t want to be around them 95% of the time.

I’m not nurturing and I’ve had to figure out how to be nurturing. I’m not in my body and yet I’ve had two tiny humans clinging to me all day. I thrive being left alone with my thoughts and these days not thirty seconds goes by without someone hollering, “Mom!”

I’m learning a ton about self-care. I got a therapist for my son who has Reactive Attachment Disorder to help me support him better. I’m learning from my kids: my Seven daughter teaches me to lighten up, laugh, and enjoy things! My Eight son teaches me to have boundaries and feel experiences with my body and that it’s okay to be angry. I have zero support from either side of our families and that is exhausting. I would love help, but I don’t get it, nor am I likely to. So, I’m having to ask for help from friends and also be okay with vetted summer camps and school programs that give me a break. My daughter is going to all day pre-school (she’s four-years-old) five days a week this year. I had to let go of my “mom expectations” and acknowledge that it was best for her and for me.

Seriously, parenting is teaching me all the good-hard things. It’s “brutiful” (brutal and beautiful). And yes, sometimes I do yell, “For the love, would you all just let me think?!”

6. My research is about human sexuality so I am most curious about your dating, romantic and intimate relationship experiences. How have those been for you? Sometimes Fives are so used to being powerless in the world that we like to exercise power in relationships. This would be more of the “shadow” side of 5 relationships.

Well, I’m a weird nut in that I’ve only ever dated my husband. No, it was not some crazy courting thing (not a Duggar), but I was super shy in my teens. I had lots of guy friends in high school because I relate better to males in general, but I definitely sent out an “I’m not available vibe”. Even though inside I was dying for romantic attention.

When I got to college and I finally came into myself, I became much more outgoing and starting dating the guy who would become my husband four years later. I have seen the shadow side of Five in our relationship more than any other. Fives tend to push off emotions and needs, but they build up. And when the dam bursts, it can be explosive! I have lost my freaking mind with my husband and exhibited behaviors like screaming at the top of my lungs or verbal bullying (I “word” him into a corner with insults and sarcasm and “logic”) This shadow side emerges only when every last inch of my boundaries have been crossed and I can’t take any more. The problem is I don’t communicate my feelings or needs or boundaries! So, when a Five finally speaks up, it’s often in a roar. We’ve been pushed past our limits. I’m finding grace for myself when this happens and actively working to make it not part of my life.

The key for me is to learn to start speaking up in small ways about my emotions, needs, and boundaries. I have to let people into my inner world a bit at a time. Then blowups are prevented because I don’t have a giant backlog of grievances and unfelt emotions.

It’s really scary, but I’ve started doing this with my husband and friends and have found so much health and healing in letting out emotions and needs as they arise.

7xDP47t__400x400

Interviewer Sam E. Greenberg is a writer and researcher, currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Integral and Transpersonal Psychology. Her research interests include human sexuality and relationships, personality theory and ego structures (including the Enneagram!), psychospiritual wellness, social power dynamics, and mechanisms for addressing implicit bias. In her “spare” time, Samantha enjoys dancing, traveling, reading fantasy novels, and hanging out with her inscrutable dog, Luna. You can find her on Twitter @IntroverteDiva

headshotwebsite

Melissa Kircher is an artist, writer, and student of the Enneagram. You can find her work on both Enneagram Paths and her website www.melissakircher.com. She’s currently working toward an Enneagram teaching certification and hopes to offer Enneagram mentoring services late 2018. You can connect with her on Twitter @enneagrampaths and Instagram @enneagrampaths.

*Photos by Park Troopers , Kat J, Thought Catalog on Unsplash

I Feel Pain: A Humorous Look at How Each Enneagram Type Might Intuituvely Respond to Pain

Posted on March 29, 2018 by melissakircher

Type One – I feel pain.

Ah, an imperfection in myself detected. Must find the right diet, mindset, routine, system to obliterate this aberration.

tenor (1).gif

Type Two – I feel pain.

That’s someone else’s pain, let me go help them. Helping, helping, helping. Serving, serving, serving. Oh gosh darn, this pain is getting stronger and bigger and… (demon voice) NOW YOU WILL ALL FEEL MY WRATH!

giphy

Type Three – I feel pain.

Nah, that was just a bit of indigestion. What’s next? Grab the dry cleaning, construct a chair from scratch using repurposed wood, go to the bank, kill my presentation at work, pick up the kids, and conquer the world… all while lookin’ fly.

zgtu

Type Four – I feel pain.

I need to stay in bed all day and wallow in the myriad of ways my life might have turned out differently / fantasize about the ideal scenario in which this misery, this gut-wrenching ache of despair would not have descended on such as I.

tenor

Type Five – I feel pain.

What is the origin of this pain? Why is it manifesting at this particular time in my life? What happened today? There’s gotta be a book about this. Let me just pull up Google…

Type Six – I feel pain.

Damn right. Okay, DEFCON ONE! I’ve prepared for this moment every second of every day. I know my leader and I will now adhere to every one of their principles and guidelines until I’m shepherded back to safety.

giphy (1)

Type Seven – I feel pain.

Oh, look a glitter pen! And there’s a new burger joint I’ve been wanting to try and god, this shirt is old, I need a new one like right now.

giphy (2)

Type Eight – I feel pain.

No, I don’t. F*^ck you, feelings!

d5f3c0e0-3529-0134-0cb8-0a0b9a139ea7

Type Nine – I feel pain.

What? Huh? Oh sorry, I’m a little hazy because I’m between naps. Now, what was I feeling? Pizza, yum. I could go for a slice right now. What do you think? Do you feel hungry?

tenor (2)

Enjoy! – Melissa (Enneagram 5 and books are my best friends)